Work = Force x Distance

Today I explored several blogs from recently signed up followers. What amazes me is that most of them are selling something. Grumpajoesplace does not sell anything. My blog is a place where I can vent about almost anything or everything. For me writing is a cathartic drug. In times of grief writing allows me to express feelings I cannot express audibly. Writing relieves my stress when that is my issue. Writing allows me to communicate with bloggers who have become my friends over the internet, and whom I miss when they don’t comment or go missing.

I often thought about selling, but selling has never been my thing. In order to sell, I’d have to go back to work subscribing to blog sites for the simple reason of getting attention to my product. If I wanted a job, I would apply for one. Of course I am a hypocrite in this regard because I offer my books for sale on my site. In the twelve years I have done so I have sold two copies of my life story as told in games I played as a child. Today, if you actually click on the button that says “buy my book” it will lead you to Amazon Kindle books and the price is $0.00. So you will see that I can’t even give my book away, so why would I make a concerted effort (work) to subscribe to followers for the purpose of selling my free book?

On my to do list of big projects I have listed finishing a book I began writing when my wife Peggy was still alive and lucid about ten years ago. The working title is Space Rod. It is a story of a man who loses his wife and in his grief he buys an antique pick up truck which he intends to restore. Of course restoration is work, which he likes to avoid. He meets a man named Mort whose interest is also in street rods. They become friends, and before long Mort introduces the widower to Trey a man whose business it is to restore old cars. That is when the story finally gets interesting, and that is where I stopped writing to care for my wife full time. Peggy has been gone since 2019, and I am first now getting a tickle of an urge to finish this story. I picked up the manuscript a few months ago and read it to refresh my memory about the characters and the direction it was taking me. Throughout I kept mentally editing passages to clean up the grammar and to make it more readable. It occurred to me that this project is huge and will be considerable work. Do I really want to spend all that effort on something that no one will read?

A Time To Remember; My Time

A Special Group – Born Between 1930 to 1945

   Interesting Facts: If you were born in the 1930s to 1945, you exist as a very special age group.

You are the smallest group of children born since the early 1900s.

You are the last generation, climbing out of the depression, who can remember the winds of war and the impact of a world at war which rattled the structure of our daily lives for years.

You are the last to remember ration books for everything from gas to sugar to shoes to stoves.

You saved tin foil and poured fat into tin cans.

You saw cars up on blocks because tires weren’t available.

You can remember milk being delivered to your house early in the morning and placed in the “milk box” on the porch.

You are the last to see the gold stars in the front windows of grieving neighbors whose sons died in the War.

You saw the ‘boys’ home from the war, build their little houses.

4.2.7

You are the last generation who spent childhood without television; instead, you imagined what you heard on the radio.

With no TV, you spent your childhood “playing outside”

There was no little league.

There was no city playground for kids.

The lack of television in your early years meant, that you had

little real understanding of what the world was like.

On Saturday afternoons, the movies gave you newsreels sandwiched in between westerns and cartoons.

Telephones were one to a house, often shared (party lines) and hung on the wall in the kitchen (no cares about privacy).

Computers were called calculators; they were hand cranked; typewriters were driven by pounding fingers, throwing the carriage, and changing the ribbon.

The ‘INTERNET’ and ‘GOOGLE’ were words that did not exist.

Newspapers and magazines were written for adults and the news was broadcast on your radio in the evening by Gabriel Heatter and later Paul Harvey.

As you grew up, the country was exploding with growth.

The G.I. Bill gave returning Veterans the means to get an education and spurred colleges to grow.

VA loans fanned a housing boom.

Pent up demand coupled with new installment payment plans opened many factories for work.

New highways would bring jobs and mobility.

The Veterans joined civic clubs and became active in politics.

The radio network expanded from 3 stations to thousands.

Your parents were suddenly free from the confines of the depression and the war, and they threw themselves into exploring opportunities they had never imagined.

You weren’t neglected, but you weren’t today’s all-consuming family focus.

They were glad you played by yourselves until the street lights came on.

They were busy discovering the post war world.

You entered a world of overflowing plenty and opportunity; a world where you were welcomed, enjoyed yourselves and felt secure in your future though depression poverty was deeply remembered.

Polio was still a crippler.

You came of age in the 50s and 60s.

The Korean War was a dark passage in the early 50s and by mid-decade school children were ducking under desks for Air-Raid training.

Castro in Cuba and Khrushchev came to power.

You are the last generation to experience an interlude when there were no threats to our homeland. The war was over and the cold war, terrorism, “global warming,” and perpetual economic insecurity had yet to haunt life with unease.

Only your generation can remember both a time of great war, and a time when our world was secure and full of bright promise and plenty.

You grew up at the best possible time, a time when the world was getting better…

     You are “The Last Ones.” More than 99 % of you are either retired or deceased, and you feel privileged to have “lived in the best of times!!!”

Tired Arguments and Worn Ideas…(edited)

My Flag Flies Everyday

My Flag Flies Everyday

“Don’t come to table with the same tired arguments and worn ideas that helped create this crisis.”…Barack Obama

 Here are some tired old ideas that seem to be bothering, and creating  POTUS’ crises:

 1. United States Constitution

It’s only served us well for two hundred and twenty two years (1787). Why should we believe that these rules should be  followed any longer?  POTUS believes it should be a “living document,” i.e. change the rules we live by as society changes. Since amending the Constitution is a long expensive process it needs to have a fast track system. POTUS proposes that the Supreme Court  interpret the rules by today’s morals, and the laws of other insignificant countries. This way, we get new laws that are being written, not by the Legislative Branch (because they are not capable nor trustworthy to do so) but by the Judicial Branch because the Supreme Court  justices have bigger brains,  more ethics, and are less influenced by lobbiests.

2. Preamble to the Constitution

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence,[1] promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Who needs Justice,  Liberty, or Domestic Tranquility? The government will take care of us from cradel to grave. God forbid our Posterity be allowed to enjoy the same freedoms we have enjoyed.

3. Right to bear arms, Second Amendment

Guns taken out of our hands will keep us from killing each other. As a society we will be safer if we give up our guns. It also makes it much easier for a new dictator to take over the country.

4.  Marriage; between a man and a woman

This one has worked since Adam and Eve, it is so old it must be a lousy concept. Besides, the gays are left out. Marriage was invented to make parents responsible for the children they bring into the world. In the new world definition, sex is for recreation. Children are something the government will dictate when and how many we have.

5.  Right to life

The act of procreation is a natural function of our species to bring life into the world, and to ensure the propagation of man. In the new order, new life is something we allow women, and only women to decide to keep. If they chose not to, the population declines. End of life will be determined by the expense of keeping you alive. If it is cost prohibitive, kiss your ass goodbye. If you are a murderer it’s a different story. The death penalty is abolished across all the states. The worst punishment you can receive  is to serve your days in happy contentment living off the system.

6.  Ten Commandments

In service since Moses accepted them from God. Since God does not exist, the commandments are a hoax. Anyway, they are too old and tired to be of value anymore.

7. GOD

The concept of an eternal being is too radical to believe by some educated minds, therefore all references to God must be eliminated from government and places of education.

8.  Capitalism

The system is the root of all evil, and a deterrent to making all men equal.

9.  Personal Responsibility

The idea that we should depend on our own ability, and energy to survive is a notion that is incomprehensible. Our personal responsibility is delegated to  the government.

10.  Work

Why?

11.  Profit

A dirty word used by capitalists. Profit must be redistributed to the worker. 

12.  Wealth

A radical right wing concept which must be stamped out. All personal wealth must be redistributed.

13. Democracy

How can a dictator survive in a two party system?

14.  Freedom of speech, First Amendment Right

Criticism of the government is totally out of place. Why should we have the freedom to express facts, ideas, beliefs, or opinions that may expose corruption, and oppose the government?

15.  Taxation with Representation

How can the government survive if they have to legislate laws to tax us? Senators and Congressmen do not represent us anymore, they are in government to make a living for themselves, and to re-distribute the profits and wealth of others as they see fit.

16. Strong Defense;

What are we afraid of? The world is made up of peace loving people and governments

 17.  Three Branches of Government

Just listen to the Dictator.

18. Private Sector Jobs

Who needs them? Everybody is taken care of by the government.