Out With The Old

A friend invited me to a party at her condo this evening. Good food, drinks, and company. But round about 11:15 I looked at her and said, "I think it's time for me to go".

As I stepped into the elevator I let out a huge sigh of relief. I started up the car and couldn't wait for it to feel warm, and to soon be home. What was wrong? Why wasn't I feeling like staying out? And then it hit me: I'm simply in a different place now, and there's not a thing wrong with the place I'm in.

So it's 11:45 and I've just walked in the door of my casa. Safe. Warm. Happy. I've just come off of a week of fasting, meditation, and prayer. Wednesday (and partly tomorrow) I will have to start working very very hard for many days in a row. At this point I'm not sure which I want more.

But as the new year dawns, I am sure of one thing: what I need to know next, will be made known to me.

That's the magic of this life. Happy new beginnings, unlimited possibilities, new challenges to learn from that are tailor made for all of us. If we rise to meet life, it will keep us ticking along on the third hand of time.

Make A Wish for 2008

From Foxnews.com:

For the first time, anyone can get a message printed on a piece of the multicolored confetti by visiting the Times Square Information Center or by using the Internet to type a message on a "Wishing Wall Online" — http://tinyurl.com/2c5efd.

The message-carrying pieces will be mixed among the more than one ton of confetti, organizers said.

Make your wish, float a prayer over Times Square, one place that I think of as the heart of our nation.

Sounds Like A Scam To Me

From The Js Online

Hauling it in

Milwaukee's crackdown on towing unregistered vehicles has caught some motorists by surprise, leaving them grumbling about the hassle and expense of retrieving their rides. In addition to clearing the streets, the towing has been a financial boon to the city's contractor and coffers.

Many Milwaukeeans cheered when tow trucks hauled away abandoned cars clogging city streets during December's first major snowstorm.

Those same towing crews, of course, aren't always greeted as heroes - especially amid a record-shattering year for confiscating cars.

Towing of illegally parked cars has nearly tripled since 2000 - to more than 32,000 - fueled in part by a new effort to round up vehicles that are unregistered or not displaying an up-to-date sticker, according to city records and Department of Public Works officials.

...

The rising tide of towing means big business for the city's towing contractor, big money for the city's parking fund and big penalties for errant drivers.

...

Still, nearly 100 cars a day were towed by the city this year.

The story goes on to talk about how the city makes money by towing cars, and how much easier it is to do so because of technology. What I read out of the story is that the City can tow you for just about any reason they deem, and you have to pay to get your car back.

If you for whatever reason get towed, how do you know what happened? They don't leave a note. Tell you what. If my car got towed, I'd call it in stolen, and then I'd press charges against the city for stealing my car. You laugh, but this is theft.

Read the whole story, it's full of little gems like this one here:

The base fee is $95 a tow, plus $20 a day for storage. CHI Towing gets $60.50 a vehicle for towing illegally parked vehicles from the south side and $81.60 on the north side. The company operates round the clock from headquarters across the street from the city's south side lot. It gets less for abandoned cars.

It sounds pretty racist to me. And like most government programs, it targets the poor.

As my Pa tends to say about the gubmint: you have to pay the mob, but at least you get protection.

Be Reasonable

I think Peggy Noonan did a good job today on her column in the opinion journal. And she points out an attribute that is pretty important for a president to have; reasonability.

It's not a word, I know. But you'll get the gist:

Hillary Clinton? No, not reasonable. I concede her sturdy mind, deep sophistication, and seriousness of intent. I see her as a triangulator like her husband, not a radical but a maneuverer in the direction of a vague, half-forgotten but always remembered, leftism. It is also true that she has a command-and-control mentality, an urgent, insistent and grating sense of destiny, and she appears to believe that any act that benefits Clintons is a virtuous act, because Clintons are good and deserve to be benefited.

....

Duncan Hunter, Fred Thompson, and Bill Richardson are all reasonable--mature, accomplished, nonradical. Mike Huckabee gets enough demerits to fall into my not-reasonable column. John Edwards is not reasonable. All the Democrats would raise taxes as president, but Mr. Edwards's populism is the worst of both worlds, both intemperate and insincere. Also we can't have a president who spent two minutes on YouTube staring in a mirror and poofing his hair. Really, we just can't.

If you have five or ten minutes (depending on how fast one reads) check out the entire column.
There are more goodies where that came from

Farting Around

How bad is this. I woke up at my normal time which is very early, and got to Metropolitan Cadillac Saab so that they could swap out my car battery, which is hardly three years old. Well they wanted to charge me $130 for the test and prorated replacement. What? After pressing this "estimate" for about ten minutes, I told them what they could do with it. And the battery if they were really so inclined.

So that freed up my morning considerably. I was planning to work today, so I did go in for a meeting that I scheduled. Picking today seemed to make sense at a time when I was enormously stressed out. But it didn't make much sense once I got there.

Well, I came home. And you know what, I don't feel like doing squat. Nothing. If I trawl around on the internet all day that could probably be considered productive. Later I have to shovel, so I'll get some exercise. But I am on the third day of a fast (don't ask, I do this twice yearly) and therefore my mind is pretty calm. I feel no real sense of urgency. None. After January 2nd I will be in urgency central and on three hours of sleep night after night. But as of today, as of right now, I couldn't give much of a rat's behind.

The only thing I could reaaalllly go for right now, is some cable TV.

Tom Brady: Flake Extraordinaire

You're about to read this and say "Phel, where you been, under a rock or something?" and the answer is no, I've just been working and trying to be a productive member of society. Few of which we have in this here town.

So with the little rest I was granted last evening, I watched a TV segment on Tom Brady. They showed his rise to his current status as QB extraordinaire, shuffled in with pictures, highlights, and their interview with him.

It all seemed like a good story, all American boy makes good. Real good. He talked about always knowing there was more to life out there, isn't there more? I'm going to go get it. Sounds heroic, I mean drive and motivation are extremely important and few people have either.
Then the hero story turns to most eligible bachelor. This is where things got interesting. He's dating one model, they break up, she's pregnant. It could have been the way the MSM phrased it, but they showed a picture of her with the baby and say "Brady is now supporting the child". Then, they turn immediately to his relationship with hottie Gisele Bundchen. And they spend some time on that one.

Sex symbol? All American Hero? A 'Man'?

At best, Brady is a 'babbydaddy' and we have far too many of those in our society. It's the cause of most of our societal problems.

Slanting the story as "knowing there is more out there" and taking this into consideration only tells me one thing, Brady might be pretty successful right now with his career, but he is far from being an adult, and should not be compared to any "heroes".

Ten snowplows. Forty-eight police cruisers. And a partridge in a pear tree.

From the Js....

City's worst debtors owe nearly $2 million

Most of the unpaid court fines are related to building, zoning

Ten snowplows. Forty-eight police cruisers. And a partridge in a pear tree. That's what the city of Milwaukee could buy if only the top 100 people with unpaid judgments in municipal court would pay up.

April fools!! We really would have spent it on block grants, calls to Senegal, studies on light rail, and job training for thugs.

Infrastructure. Who needs it!

.

A Scrooge of A Picture....

Nice....

c/o the Jsonline

UnAmerican, Right in Your Hometown

Here's a headline that'll make you take a second look:

"BVK isn't hyping new Citgo account
Agency subdued about big petroleum client"

Glendale advertising agency BVK has landed what appears to be a fat account for a well-known, national company, but isn't touting it.

Since earlier this year, BVK has been agency of record - coveted status in the ad world - for petroleum giant Citgo.

In this case, that means BVK is Citgo's exclusive advertising and public relations agency in the United States, and by Milwaukee ad-shop standards, that's a very big account.

I'm not sure where to start with what I think about this story. First of all, I think that if you have to "land" an account of this size with this type of baggage, you're clearly compromising something, to save something. They quote the agency president as saying "we just don't do stories about ourselves". Oh really? Because as many people who have been around this town or the ad agency business for any amount of time knows, BVK is no stranger to foot-in-mouth disease. The JS wasn't online back in the day, but their ace creative director was well known for his comment about people in Northern Wisconsin being "cavemen" in defense of crass advertising about a divorce attorney. When they got Tenet Healthcare, that was a big story too. Heck nobody forgot it for a while.

What I'm writing here isn't anything that wasn't already in the news, but come on. The quote should really read "we don't do stories about ourselves when we're compromising something".

So we'll get some cutesy humorous ads about how Citgo is our friend, it's really a local business depending upon where you are locally. Help your fellow man, for goodness sake.

No thanks. I'll continue to be a patron of the Brits. Even if Citgo has more than one finger in the local pie.

The Reunion

Triticale you will be greatly missed. Your wit, your poignant commentary, your unique perspective are small examples of what made you so special to us.

Thank you for the joy and thoughtfulness that you brought to the lives of those around you.

It's time for...

Chanukah!

Sorry everyone, I know I'm reduced to posting for the purposes of wishing you a happy holiday when it occurs. Well, on the bright side, we have lots of them this time of year...