Every time I hear Obama speak he burns me up. The hypocrisy that spews from his mouth is record-setting. He will someday own the Guinness Book of Records as the most hypocritical President ever to lead a country. When I heard his speech to the people of Ferguson, Missouri about remaining peaceful, and his reiteration of “we are a nation of laws” I wanted to puke. How much longer must we endure this man in office? Yeah, yeah I know he has seven hundred and eighty-six days remaining in his legal term, but who is counting. I see that as seven hundred and eighty-six days of opportunity to further transform the greatest country on earth into a banana republic. If you voted for him twice, shame on you. I hope you are totally satisfied with the result. Are his failed policies really what you dreamed this country would be transformed into? If so, I feel sorry for you, and I will pray for you even if you are atheist or muslim you need prayerful help.
The picture below spells a disaster in the making for sure. Vision this train of oil cars running through your backyard when one of them jumps the track and crashes into your swimming pool and explodes. One explosion begins another and thus the chain reaction begins a mile long disaster of flaming hot crude spewing thick black smoke for miles. I had the Canadian National run through my backyard within one hundred feet of the house. The scenario I described is easier to make happen than a potassium nitrate explosion in a deserted truck. All it would take is to loosen the bolts between sections of track to cause a derailment. Another problem I had with the CN is the noise they generated. Think about a mind numbing clickety-clack that goes on for ten minutes each time one of these mile long rains runs through. I hear the argument that I should have moved if I didn’t like the noise. Try selling a house with a railroad in the backyard. Eventually, I did sell and now I live one mile away from the same train. I still hear it, but not to the extent as when is ran through the backyard and all the dishes rattled on the table and the pictures danced on the wall.
Because of the ease with which a terrorist, or a prankster can cause a derailment, I agree one hundred percent with building the Keystone pipeline. Oh, I also had a pipeline buried in an easement between my house and the RR tracks. It was there for many decades and no one knew. There was no evidence of the pipeline except for the orange markers required by law.
When I bought the house a jungle of wild trees and shrubs covered the pipeline easement, and blocked the view of the trains. Then one summer a crew came through with a brush hog and chopped the living hell out of this mini forest. The reason? Federal Law required the pipeline company to have full view of the line from the air. They flew over in a helicopter looking for breaks in the line on a regular schedule. I lived there for twenty years and we never experienced a break.
Pipelines can become one with the environment if we choose. Yes I have heard about some that are so one-with-the-environment that they break and leak bad stuff into rivers. When a leak happens and the break is found the problem is quickly mitigated, usually without harm to anyone. That is, except for the time one spilled into a Oregon stream. A fly fisherman flicked his cigarette into the water and caused a an explosion that blew his ass to kingdom come giving us another reason smoking is bad for your health.
See the clear groove cut through the forest in the photo above? Where were all the tree huggers when the railroad built this line? I could hear all the trees crying in Illinois when this happened, yet it got built anyway.
If Warren Buffet is smart as people say he is he will make a deal with the pipeline company to use his RR right of way for the pipeline. Think of all the work it would save and how many trees would be saved too.
Wow! I struck gold today. Two gift videos from friends who thought enough to share some great feelings. This one is from Mike, a Lion friend. Sainsbury, an English company produced this video. The sentiment in the story is one which we should all feel and share. Wouldn’t the world be a better place if the two sides of any issue would deal with a solution like the fellows in this movie. Enjoy.
I often wondered how long it would be before hot rodders ran out of the old classic cars to soup up, and the cars of the sixties would become new fodder for them. It has happened. Muscle cars are the new rage and some of them are pretty nice. My cousin sent me a video of one which I totally fell in love with. First, because I love the car design and always did, but also because this car truly befits the muscle car category. When a hot rodder packs six hundred horsepower into a car, it should not be a teensy little Ford Falcon. That vision is not befitting the term muscle care. When he puts the same engine into a big ass Cadillac the motor befits the ride.
Kee-rraap it is cold outside. My walk today was longer than usual, but also faster than normal. Longer because the biting cold wind against my rosy cheeks stung to high heaven, and fast because my motor wanted to get me the hell into the warmth. It has been almost three years since I have enjoyed such extreme temperature. The past two years in Arizona conditioned me for a low of fifty-five. A minus two degree windchill is fifty-seven degrees lower than I can withstand. Nevertheless, I am staying in Frankfort this winter so I need to get out for some conditioning, and I got it.
Yesterday was worse because the high temperature peaked at eighteen degrees. At least today, it is a balmy twenty-eight. The wind chill has been the killer on both days. What saved yesterday was seeing a delightful movie. Peggy and I watched “Saint Vincent.” It is what I call a sleeper. I haven’t heard people talking about it, yet it spoke to me when I reviewed the films playing this week. I totally enjoyed the story and the characters. The actors were cast perfectly for their roles.
This film is a comedy, which is what I wanted to see, and I did laugh at some of the stuff going on, but I cried too. Somehow, when I cry, it cannot be funny. The theme of the story dealt with broken homes, bullying, family bankruptcy, aging, grief, desperation, and survival.
Bill Murray plays the part of Vin (Vincent Mac Kenna) a Viet Nam era vet who lives alone, and dislikes people. He smokes too much, drinks too much, and gambles too much, but he is the hero of the story. He becomes a caretaker for the smart kid Oliver who just moved in next door, and whose mother Maggie(Melissa Mc Carthy) works too much to get by. Needless to say, Vin’s tutoring of Oliver (the smart kid Jaden Lieberher) cannot be classified as politically correct. The education Vin gave Oliver falls into the subject of “street smarts.” Oliver handles it well, but his errant father doesn’t want Oliver to be near Vin, even though the father hasn’t donated a penny to his well-being. All the father did was to complicate the story, which I loved, but Oliver and his mother did not.
There are some lessor characters in the story like Father Geraty (Chris O’Dowd) who teaches Oliver at Saint Patrick’s Catholic school. There is also Daka, (Naomi Watts) Vin’s hired and pregnant girl friend who is his occasional underpaid companion, and Vin’s bookie Zucko (Terrence Howard) who only wants Vin to pay him back. Put these people into the mix along with a good storyline and one has a very entertaining story.
To me the star of this movie is Oliver. The kid is perfect for the part, and he is an excellent actor too. I nominate him for Best Supporting Actor for the 2015 Oscars.
See the movie on Tuesday at Marcus for five bucks. I saw it on Wednesday for seven, but it was worth it. Six-fifty for a small pop-corn is worse than three sixty-nine for a gallon of gas where is the Occupy Wall Street crowd on that one?
