Just like the old days

I grew up groaning about my mom monopolizing an hour of television with this show. Sorry mom, but this one made me laugh pretty hard. But I do owe it to you for at least making me aware of the show because I certainly wouldn't have gotten the joke without you watching it.

"Was her forehead really big or was I looking through a coupla bubbles?" Just great.

The stupid, it burns

I just got back from a break with coworkers where I managed to find myself at a table with three woman who are avid, or probably more aptly rabid, Palin supporters. One of them, in fact, lived in Wasilla for 14 years and went to the same church as Palin. Good for her!

All they kept saying was how Palin kicked ass last night because she's so approachable and human and "she's just who she is." One of them was talking about how nice Palin is because she had some mutual friends over the other night and made them burritos. Yup, those things are all criteria I use when selecting candidates for political office. But whether or not they serve up burritos is the key. You tie that in with McCain's predilection for BBQing and we have an unstoppable duo headed for the highest office in the land.

Certainly because Obama and Biden don't eat or have dinner guests or get along amiably with others.

Gah.

On abortion

Twice now, while driving to work I've seen a group of people with signs that say "Pray for an end to abortion" and "Abortion hurts women" and it's making me upset.

Doesn't it seem petty to pray for something so specific?

But, it's the second sign that really pisses me off. They don't even see the inherrant contradiction in their argument. Methinks the signholder ought to reread Genesis 3:16 regarding the casting out of Eden of Adam and Eve:

16 To the woman He said,
"I will greatly multiply
Your pain in childbirth,
In pain you will bring forth children

Regardless of whether or not the Christian God decided to make childbirth painful, it is. For some women is outrageously painful and for some it's even fatal. Make no bones about it, pregnancy hurts women. But I certainly don't see any signs on the side of the road that say, "Pray for an end to pregnancy".

You know what else hurts women? Chemotherapy.

Thank you

Thanks to those of you who were able to make it out to the show last night. It was a fun show and there was a ton of people there. I'll be carving that third notch into my belt later today. Now, to think about show number four.


Here's a couple of pics:

Listen to us chat up the potential mayor

Our newest episode of The view looks good from here, Fresno with special guest Henry T. Perea is available for your listening pleasure. We had a good time and I hope you do to while you listen.

Vote for the survivor?

Back to the letters:

I am a Democrat voting for John McCain for president because he has fought for America longer than the other contender. His experience from the military makes him the best choice for commander in chief at this time.

He can buck his party and survive. He can join the other party to pass laws that make sense. The Republican nominee can and will work with the Democrats to get the job done. I believe Barack Obama has the ability to be president one day, but I am convinced this cycle America will benefit greater with Sen. McCain as our next president.

This election will be very close, with the Democrats controlling both the Senate and the House. This balance of power will keep both parties in check and they will need to negotiate and compromise.

Sen. McCain made a good move by picking a woman for vice president; she may indeed be the first woman to be president. The next president needs to be a survivor and Sen. McCain has a track record to prove he will help America survive all the problems facing us. I urge other Democrats to vote for John McCain.

John Estrada
Fresno

I'm not sure if John thinks that McCain is going to term out at 80 and Palin will run a successful bid after that or if Mr. Estrada thinks McCain might die in office, thereby leaving an opening for Palin to fill. If it's the latter, isn't that contradictory to the idea of McCain being a survivor?

If we're going to vote for survivors, I vote for Yul.

It's still Wednesday

I nearly forgot about the smile.

It's me not you, but it really is you too

Yeah, I'm done being a supervisor. I hate it. It's not what I'm good at. I know I lack the ability to verbally communicate the leaps in my logic to people who don't know me very well. Shit, people who do know me well sometimes have a hard time seeing where I'm coming from.

But this kid is just...he's a drone. An absolute drone. He has no ability whatsoever to think logically and cogently about how a woodshop might run. This coming from a guy who claims he took four years of woodshop in high school. I need to find out which one and call up the teacher to tell him/her what a terrible job they're doing.

If I give him a task, he's fine. He's like a robot on an assembly line and he does decent work. If I give him a vague task and leave him to self-direction, he totally messes up. For instance, today I told him to spend his last hour cleaning up the shop. He swept for a bit and then found some scraps on the floor which I told him he could chop up on the miter saw and throw into the waste bin out back. No problem.

I turned back to my work in the spray booth and come to find out he went hog wild just cutting up whatever was laying about. Gah. He found six strips of mahogany inlay that I had taped together because they were book-matched (left over from the table I'm showing tomorrow in fact) and chopped them into 6" pieces to be tossed. He has no idea about any of the species. None. He picked up a chunk of oak and asked me if it was maple. What the fuck kind of high school shop teacher can't impart, say... six basic domestic species? Cherry, Alder, Maple, Walnut, Oak, Poplar. He had four years! Four fucking years.

He also managed to turn our long lumber racks into a mish-mash of hardwoods, softwoods, and sheet goods.

I gave him a tour of the shop when he started and said, this is the long lumber rack, this is the scrap rack, this is the scrap ply rack, this is the ply rack, it's all pretty obvious. But now I've got this Tetris'd out shit where 10' foot planks are supposed to go. Intermixed medias, intermixed species. WTF? He cut big pieces down to little pieces to make them fit!

And the topper? He wore fucking flip-flops today. FLIP. FLOPS.

So now, I have to come down on him tomorrow for all this shit he managed to fuck up in a little less than an hour while I was spraying lacquer. And I am soooo not a disciplinarian.

I can't have someone that needs constant attention in my shop. I have stuff to do too.

Do not miss this show!

Do not miss the Arc Hop show tomorrow night if you can at all help it. Among the 9 artists and 7 architects showing, you're in for some good stuff.

Stuff like landscapes by Adam Longatti (who, incidentally, I've shown with before at Tower Mosaic), photographer Steve Dzerigian, possible gunpower drawings by Robert Weibel, and abstract paintings by Joan Sharma, or Frank Jackson's metal sculpture. And so much more.

Here's the full listing of those involved if you want to do your own internet research. This is gonna be awesome.

Nine artists: Adam Longatti, Adam Wall, Dean Dallin, Joan Sharma, Linda Koch, Frank Jackson, Ramiro Martinez, Robert Weibel, and Steve Dzerigian

Seven architects: John Wiens, Marvin Armstrong AIA, Riitta Vepsalainen, Robin Gay McCline AIAE, Xinyi Pan AIA, Gene Zelmer AIA, Michael Fennacy AIA, and Imelda Golik

Three architecture associates: Brianna Smeds, Haley Gipe, and Kiel Famellos-Schmidt

Start the morning off right

Seen at 6:55 AM in the Chevron located on Chestnut and Butler:

A man purchasing a pack of Trojan condoms and a lottery ticket.

There's really only one response. Someone's trying to get lucky.