Wednesday, January 31, 2018

Yes, I watched some of the State of the Union

Not all of it, just some of it,

No, I didn't watch that Kennedy kid give the democrats rebuttal. I haven't heard a Kennedy say anything I've wanted to listen to since Bobby said, "Now it's on to Chicago, and let's win there!" I liked Bobby Kennedy. He was shot and killed right after he said that. After that, no Kennedy ever said anything worth sh!t.

I've about had it with politics in this country.

Here's a guy I would vote for:

If you don't know who that is, you've never seen one of the greatest movies of our time. Do yourself a favor and find a copy of Hollywood Knights.

Trust me, you'll laugh.


You should think about these links.

While you are thinking about them, you could think about clicking on them:

Tuesday, January 30, 2018

Well, that was an expensive day.

The stock market took a big hit today and that translates to a big hit to my retirement accounts. Fortunately, the hit I took doesn't even equal half of what my account has made since January 1st.

Unfortunately, I think this may be a signal that the market is probably going to go through a "correction".

"Correction" is a word used by financial guys to hide the fact they lost all of your money.


Speaking of finances, I still don't have all my tax forms yet. This is because the IRS gives brokerages until February 15th to issue 1099 reports. Last year, my 1099s arrived around February 8th.

It would be nice if they show up by February 8th because then I can do my taxes over the weekend and know if we will be getting a refund or if I have to kill myself for the insurance money.


While I go check my investment account balances and cringe, you can click on these:

Monday, January 29, 2018

The SuperB owl is in 6 days....

...and the drama has begun.

WEEI is a Boston "sports" radio station that carries the Red Sox games.

You may notice that I put the word "sports" in quotes because a year or so ago, the station changed it's format from sports talk to political discourse / shock radio. They basically became a bunch of bitter, arrogant people who think everyone but them is a moron.

I stopped listening to their morning show when they made the format change but I still listen to the afternoon show. Those guys seem to be a lot less arrogant and bitter than the morning guys.

So anyways, every Monday, Tom Brady calls the morning idiots and talks with them for a half hour. It's usually not an overly interesting interview because the Patriots, as a rule, don't say anything controversial or negative.

Last Thursday, one of the shock jocks decided to make a comment about a documentary about Brady. I guess the documentary starts out with a scene that shows Brady talking to his kids or something and this particular shock jock decided he was going to be funny.

And by funny, I mean stupid.

This guy called Brady's 5 year old daughter a "pissant".

Well, as you can imagine, this apparently pissed Tom Brady off. When he called into the station this morning, he said something to the effect of, "I have nothing to say to you guys because no one should say anything like that about my daughter. Goodbye".

The station suspended the big mouth but I doubt they'll fire him because he is their token gay guy.

In other words, he is a protected species.

SuperB owl drama - it's everywhere.


While I sit around and watch bad television, you can look at these links:

Sunday, January 28, 2018

And the data copying is done

John now has all of his files back. All that's left for him to do is install all of his programs.

Once again, I have managed to save someones data.


I watched a few minutes of the Pro Bowl and decided that they need to make that a flag football game instead of tackle. Those guys don't actually tackle each other as much as they kind of hug it out and dance a bit.

In other words, it isn't really football and it's absolutely not worth watching.


Here are few links you should click on if you need something to do:

Saturday, January 27, 2018

And the data copying has begun

I gave John the thumb drive with half of his data on it today and started loading his data back on to his laptop. At some point I'll retrieve the thumb drive and put the second half on it.

Once has has all his data back, he can reload his copy of MS Office and get back to using his laptop for what he want's to use it for.


Attention: Here is a Very Important Announcement!
    Curling begins on February 8th!
This has been a Very Important Announcement.


While I sit around and watch bad television, you can click on these links:

Friday, January 26, 2018

Time to finish up Johns computer

I need to get John his data. I was able to get half of it onto a thumb drive that he can use to copy it on to his computer. Once he's done, we can repeat the process with the second half of his data.

Hopefully this is the last time we need to do this because he sure has a lot of data....


Time to find out how the DJIA is doing.

While I do that, you can click on these:

Thursday, January 25, 2018

I need to fly

I need it...

I'm hoping the weekend weather improves soon because this not flying is for the birds.

Wait....

That actually made no sense at. If not flying was for the birds, then the birds would be wandering around on the ground like miniature dinosaurs.

No matter, I want to fly. Soon.


I posted this on facebook this afternoon so it may be a repeat for some of you. That doesn't matter because this is worth repeating.

Time for an Important Dates update:

  • The SuperB owl is in 10 days.
  • Pitchers & Catchers report in 19 days.
  • First Spring Training game is in 28 days.
  • Opening Day is in 63 days.

This has been your Important Dates update.


Here are a couple of links:

Wednesday, January 24, 2018

Are teenagers insane?

Someone told me that teenagers have started munching on Tide Pods. They claim it makes them high.

There is a saying for this type of behavior.  It's called "Thinning of the Herd".


You can click on these if you want:

Tuesday, January 23, 2018

I gotta be honest with you.

I didn't notice any difference in my life during the time the government was shutdown and when it was functioning.


You can click on these links if you want:

Monday, January 22, 2018

Everyone in Jacksonville says the NFL is rigged.

Here is a list of all the penalties from yesterdays game:
  1. PENALTY on JAX-74-C.Robinson, False Start, 5 yards, enforced at JAX 23 - No Play.
  2. PENALTY on NE-59-M.Flowers, Offensive Holding, 10 yards, enforced at NE 21.
  3. PENALTY on JAX, Illegal Shift, 5 yards, enforced at NE 47 - No Play.
  4. PENALTY on JAX-5-B.Bortles, Delay of Game, 5 yards, enforced at NE 44 - No Play.
  5. PENALTY on JAX-74-C.Robinson, Offensive Holding, declined.
  6. PENALTY on JAX-42-B.Church, Unnecessary Roughness, 15 yards, enforced at NE 40 - No Play. (Helmet to helmet)
  7. PENALTY on JAX-21-A.Bouye, Defensive Pass Interference, 32 yards, enforced at JAX 45 - No Play.
  8. PENALTY on JAX-20-J.Ramsey, Defensive Pass Interference, 36 yards, enforced at NE 19 - No Play.
So seven of the eight penalties were against the Jaguars.

Of those seven, three of them were procedural penalties that are not debatable.

That leaves four penalties that occurred during a play. One of them was an obvious helmet-helmet hit that took Gronkowski out of the game.

Of the three penalties remaining, only one of them was debatable.

I'm not sure one questionable penalty qualifies as a "rigged" game....


Enjoy these links:

Sunday, January 21, 2018

It was a football kind of day.

The Patriots showed the Jaguars how to play championship football today by beating them 24-20. Those of us that follow the Patriots knew this was going to happen because, hey, it's the Patriots and it's what they do.

So now it's on to the SuperB owl in two weeks and you can assume I'll be watching.


Someone on my Facebook feed posted one of those smarmy "7 rules to live by" or something like that. Every time I see one of those things I laugh at it because it's either a list of complete bullshit or a list of highly obvious crap.

You've seen these lists so know what I mean.

Things like "Make peace with your past" or "Love the one you're with" or my favorite, "Time heals all wounds". Tell that to the war vet with no legs. No matter how much time passes, he does not grow new legs.

They make no sense at all.

With that in mind, I decided to once again create my own "7 rules to live by" things:
  1. Sore feet suck. Buy good shoes or go barefoot. But not on a plane. Noe one wants to be trapped in a sealed tube with you and your stinky feet. And yes, your feet stink. Everyones feet stink. It's what they do.

  2. Rich people say money can’t buy happiness. Rich people are full of shit. There has never been a sad lottery winner.

  3. Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Give a man a poisoned fish and you feed him for his lifetime. See what I did there? I changed a religious thing into a funny thing. That’s called humor. People that don’t have a sense of humor are boring. Stay away from them.

  4. Yes, there is enough time to do everything you want to do. If you stop worrying about how clean your house is or if your yard is landscaped, you will have plenty of time to do what you want. Screw that clean house thing. Just make sure you don't have rotting garbage on your kitchen floor and you'll be all set. And yes, those dishes will do themselves - see rule 5.

  5. Get a dog. They love you, they protect you and they don’t care if you fart. Hell, they fart all the time so they better not care. Also, they’ll clean your dishes for you after you eat.

  6. Yes, it would be nice if we had a source of cheap renewable electricity but until they find one, shut up about the gas pipeline. Either that or come on over to my house. I’ll be happy to hook a bike up to my generator and you can pedal it all evening long while I watch my television.

  7. No, you shouldn’t just dance or sing in public. You probably have a crappy voice and no rhythm. If you had a good voice or decent rhythm, you would be famous. So for everybody's sake, just stop it.

While I spend my evening thinking about what I want to take for lunch tomorrow, you can enjoy these links:

Saturday, January 20, 2018

Dear Amazon

Thank you for all the emails you send me inviting me to look at products you think I might be interested in. For the most part, you are 100% correct - I am interested in them. You know how you know that I am interested in them? It's because I ALREADY BOUGHT THEM!

Exactly how many copies of TurboTax do you think I need? I bought a copy from you a few weeks ago yet you continue sending me emails telling me I should check it out. Trust me, one copy of TurboTax is all I need to do my taxes. Unless of course you know of some super-secret Internal Revenue cheat code that is activated by using two copies of TurboTax at the same time. In that case, I'm all in.

Also, how many pairs of shoes do you think I want?

I bought one pair of shoes from you last year and ever since them you treat me like I'm Imelda Marcos.

Trust me, I don't have a giant closet devoted to my shoe collection. As a matter of fact, my shoe collection consists of a pair of loafers I wear to work, a pair of dress shoes I wear to funerals, a pair of boots I wear when it's snowing and a pair of sneakers I wear when I'm not at work, no one is dead or it's not snowing.

Please, stop with the emails asking me to buy things I've already bought. Try asking me to buy things I never even knew about. I'm betting you would get a lot more purchases if your email algorithm showed people things they never knew they needed.

Then again, I'm no marketing genius so what the hell do I know.


Try these links out if you want:

Friday, January 19, 2018

Did Tom Brady hurt himself?

The Patriots are in full bullshit mode, trying to confuse the Jaguars with claims that Tom Brady has injured his hand and is not practicing. This will cause the Jaguars to plan for the possibility that Hoyer may be the quarterback for this Sunday's game.

In my opinion, Brady has a sore thumb and instead of working out and irritating it, he's letting it work itself out and he'll be playing on Sunday.

If however, Brady really is injured and he is not in the game on Sunday and the Patriots lose, you can bet that someone is going to put a contract out on whomever it is that traded away Jimmy Garoppolo.


I haven't been flying since I went up with my instructor in December because the weekend weather hasn't been all that great for flying.

I'm really hoping that changes soon.

Also, I like to schedule some night flying with my instructor. That is something I want to do before the clocks because flying at 6:00 at night is better for us old guys than flying at 8:00 at night.


You might find something interesting here:

Thursday, January 18, 2018

I'm tired, again.

I ended up watching the movie The Martian last night and I was awake way past my bedtime.

I've got to stop staying up past my bedtime.


Not sure what I'll be watching this evening but you can bet it won't be something that keeps me up late. I'm going to bed at a normal time tonight.

While I do that, you can do these:

Wednesday, January 17, 2018

Thank goodness I have The Beast!

I might not have been able to remove that 2 inches of snow without it!

Man, the weather dweebs weren't even close to being right about this storm. They predicted 4-8 inches and I'm not sure we even got 2 inches.

I did, however, have the whole day off because of the snow. I spent it being lazy and maybe working on John's computer.

Have I mentioned I really like working at the college.


Those of you that don't pay attention to the financial markets, move along.

Those of you that do pay attention to the financial markets, holy crap!

I don't know if it's because of the changes to the tax code or if it's because investors or crazy but the DJIA closed at 26,115 today. One year ago it closed at 19,804. That means the DJIA has grown 6,300 points this year.

How does that equate to you and me? Well it means the market has grown by about 30%.

Who the hell ever expected a 30% growth in our investments? Not me, that's who.


Here are some links you can click on:

Tuesday, January 16, 2018

The Beast is ready

The Beast is fully fueled and moved to it's ready position behind my car. When I wake tomorrow morning and find 8 inches of snow in my driveway, I'll be good to go.

According to all of the people I work with, I can expect tomorrow to either be a full day or a half day off because of the snow.

I'm hoping for the full day off but I expect no day off because if you think about it, 4-8 inches of snow is nothing.


You can click on these links if you want:

Monday, January 15, 2018

It's cold again

It's only January and I've about had it with winter. I think it might have something to do with the sub-zero temperatures we enjoyed last week.

I'd like it to be 65 or 70 again.


Today was a holiday but the place I work treats it as an optional holiday. Basically they let you take the holiday anyway you want.

So I worked this morning and I'll take Friday afternoon off.

Have I mentioned that I like this place.


Here are a few links for you to enjoy:

Sunday, January 14, 2018

More football.

This morning was errands and then grocery shopping. After that it was over to my mother-in-laws house to spend a few hours cleaning out the attic. That's a huge job done.

After that, we delivered a piece of furniture to her apartment and then it was home to watch some football.

While I was watching football, I managed to copy all of the data off of Johns hard drive onto a spare drive. This is a big deal because John had all of his photos, his videos and and his documents on that hard drive.


As far as football goes, the Patriots won last nights game and I like to think it's because I managed to stay awake long enough to watch the entire thing. This means I am tired.

As for today, the Steelers failed to overcome a highly-motivated Jaguars. The Jaguars managed to take an early lead and then maintain that lead throughout the entire game.

So next Sunday, the Patriots will host the Jaguars for the AFC conference championship.

You can bet I will be watching that.


While I am not staying up to watch any football, you can click on these links:

Saturday, January 13, 2018

It's a football kind of day.

The Eagles hosted the Falcons this afternoon and the Eagles managed to win. That means the Eagles will play in the NFC conference playoff next Saturday against either the Vikings or the Saints, depending on who wins tomorrows NFC game.

It was nice to see LeGarrette Blount carry that ball against anyone but the Patriots.

Speaking of the the Patriots, they are playing the Titans this evening.

I'm hoping the Patriots win because if they don't, their season is over with. Since the game starts at 8:30, I'm pretty sure I won't be staying awake to watch the entire thing but I'll give it my best shot.

If the Patriots win tonight, they'll play either the Jaguars or the Steelers in next Saturdays AFC conference championship. If it's the Steelers, you can bet there will be some texting going on between me and my cousins out in Pittsburgh.

A week after that is SuperB owl Sunday and I'm hoping the Patriots are in it.


I spent several hours trying to fix John's computer this afternoon and it's looking like maybe it doesn't want to be fixed. I have no idea what he did to it but my guess is a corrupt MBR or some corruption in Windows system files.

My goal, if I can't restore Windows, is to at least recover his personal files and then rebuild it from scratch.

Hopefully the restore thing works because I'm not looking forward to finding and copying all of his files.

No matter what happens, my wife says I should tell him to buy a Macbook with as many years of Apple Care as he can possibly get.


Here are last weeks statistics for this site.


What I wanted to point out is that Firefox seems to have overtaken Chrome in the browser wars.


I saw this the other day and thought it was pretty funny:

Sounds like something I would do...


Here are a few links:

Friday, January 12, 2018

Wow, there are lot of people looking for jobs.

My current employer has an opening for a tech and I sent an email out to some folks about it. Suddenly I have 20 mails from people that I may, or may not, know asking me about the job.

I'm gonna have to be a little particular about who I respond to.


Here are a few links that you might enjoy:

Thursday, January 11, 2018

Time to start cleaning.

My wife has begun the process of cleaning her moms house. I'm trying to provide as much help as I can but it's not my house to deal with. To be honest with you, I don't know how much of my mother-in-law's "stuff" I want to go through.

Last thing I need to do is poke around in old lady drawers...


You should probably think about clicking on these:

Wednesday, January 10, 2018

Struggling to put together a presentation

I've been working on a a Board of Trustees presentation and here's something you may not know about me - I suck at Power Point. I am not a designer or artist of any caliber and I find it hard to come up with something that is even remotely appealing.

So I told my boss, "Here are the words. Can you make the nice colors and pictures?"

Hopefully he can put something together that at least looks like it might be even remotely professional.



You can click on these if you want:

Tuesday, January 9, 2018

I'm getting fed up with the news

The talking heads on the nightly news have decided that using words like, "dramatic" or "breaking" or "devastating" make us more interested in watching them. I have reached the point where I think those words make me want to watch them less.


I never understood what people saw in Steve Bannon. Every time he opens his mouth, all I hear is whining and complaining. He never really portrayed any level of intelligence.

And for the record, arrogance does not equal intelligence.


Here are todays clickables:

Monday, January 8, 2018

Not much to prattle on about

Every news outlet is quick to blast President Trump when he tweets derogatory or stupid things about Krazy Kim or North Korea but when it looks like his approach might just be successful, they all shut up.

Why is that?


Here are todays links:

Sunday, January 7, 2018

She's home

My wife was supposed to return home from Iowa yesterday but the storm we had the other day made a mess of the air traffic system.

They delayed her flight from Des Moines to Chicago but the flight from Chicago to Bradley was on time. That meant that if she got on the plane in Des Moines, she was going to miss her Chicago connection and end up spending the night in O'Hare.

Last place anyone wants to spend a night is in an airport waiting area with thousands of other stranded travelers.

She was able to reschedule her flights to today and thanks to American Airlines efficiency, she arrived at Bradley airport at 6:15 this evening and we were back in our house by 7:30.

The Dog is beyond happy to have her home.


Looks like the Patriots will be playing the Titans and the Steelers will be playing the Jaguars next weekend. The winners of those two games will face off in the AFC Championship game the following weekend.

Based on past performance, I suspect the patriots will be hosting the Steelers in that championship game.


Here are a few links you can visit:

Saturday, January 6, 2018

Naps are good.

I managed to sneak in a nap this afternoon and while that's always a good thing, it might screw up my sleep schedule.

I can live with that.


Here are the page views of this blog for the last week:

I'm glad to see that hardly anyone is using Internet Explorer. Chrome is obviously the most popular but Firefox is fast on it's heels. I believe that Safari, the Apple browser, falls under the category of Opera.

Microsoft is still the big dog with more than 75% of all visitors running a windows device.

What amazes me more than anything is that there are almost 500 visits to this piece of crap every week.

You people must be bored or something....


I've got some things to do this evening, so here are a few links for you to enjoy:

Friday, January 5, 2018

Oops

I forgot to click the "Publish" button.

Here are todays links:

Thursday, January 4, 2018

They predicted 4-6 inches.

They were wrong....


I took that picture at 4:00 and it was still snowing quite heavily. I'd say we ended up with 12+ inches.

Fortunately, I have The Beast.


It was nice having a surprise day off from work today. I even managed to get in a quick nap while it was snowing.

I like naps.


Now that my driveway is clear, I'm going to find something to watch on TV.

While I do that, you can visit these links:

Wednesday, January 3, 2018

Day off tomorrow

One of the things that is great about working for a college, they close down whenever it snows. That means I'm not working tomorrow.

I like working but I like not working even more.


For the record, I did get my Time Machine working on my computer and it is backing itself up to my hard drive as needed. When my wife is available, I'll configure her hard drive to do the same thing and that is when life as we know it will be excellent.


Enjoy a couple of links:

Tuesday, January 2, 2018

Still cold

I made the mistake of walking across campus wearing loafers. Never again. I might as well have been in my socks. Next time I'll remember to change into my nice warm boots before I go trudging across the frozen tundra.


Looks like the Red Sox are making a push for J. D. Martinez. This is a good thing if they also make a push to trade Bradley.

Martinez is an outfielder and they already have three outfielders. In order to make room for him, they need to lose one. Bradley would be the one I'd lose because when it comes to hitting, he's streaky at best. He also has value since he's four full years from free agency which means he's an inexpensive player to have on a team roster.

Well have to wait and see what happens.


Here are some links you can click on:

Monday, January 1, 2018

Damn, it's cold

Happy New Year everyone!

I hope your 2018 is better than your 2017 and you have a successful year.


I don't know about you but I spent my New Year Day trying to stay warm.


Here are a few links you can visit while I consider the fact my vacation has come to an end: