Random Thoughts

Some random thoughts on the first day of school....

1) What is that smell in Piscataway?? Oh, the Rutgers football team and the stinker of a game they put forward yesterday afternoon. It's not RU but P-U!

2) When did we get so polarized in this country? I mean, the President wants to speak to school kids to encourage them to do well in school, and the wack jobs on the right have people convinced that he is going to give them some pro-abortion, socialistic, Obama cult message! I mean this morning, I saw a woman on TV actually say that she's concerned that he will push his political agenda on her elementary school-aged children! She must be concerned that they will try to redistribute the lunch money and snacks from the rich to the poor kids. Ridiculous.

3) An adjunct thought to the above - it's not just whack-jobs on the right but whack-jobs on the left as well, crowing about how they were going to get so much done with a Democratic Congress and Democratic President. So far, what has gotten done? Bupkis, basically. The Democrats can't even keep their own members together, so forget about getting bipartisan support on anything. And with the Republicans not offering anything but 'No', it's not surprising, I guess, that we have become so polarized.

4) The latest controversy at South Brunswick High School is about the wearing of student id's on a lanyard. Al students will be required to wear their id on a school-provided lanyard. So far, with the couple of HSers I've talked to, it's going over like a lead balloon on a lanyard. The rationale is security, 'because people in real jobs have to wear their id's' and so that students get to know each other.... Should be interesting.

Dan

Contact Lenses

I was thinking about contact lenses today, since tomorrow I change this pair out for a new pair. I recently became able to wear 30-day disposable lenses, after years of having to special order lenses and wear them for a year, with monthly soaking in a special solution to ward off bacteria build-up...... These new lenses are pretty cool, although it does necessitate the wearing of inexpensive magnifying glasses when I read or do computer work. No biggie, however. It seems that my prescription has actually decreased a bit as I have gotten older.

It's been exactly 33 years since I started wearing lenses, getting my first pair in the summer of 1976, right after I graduated high school. I never wore the hard lenses, unlike my sister. Soft lenses were just out, and much easier to wear than hard lenses. I remember the first day I had the lenses, I went out and bought a pair of cool aviator style, reflective sunglasses! Those are still much the favorite pair I ever had, although they are long gone.

The lenses back in those days had to be 'boiled' every night. I received a round heater that had a lid with a basket on the top. I had to fill the heater with a certain amount of distilled water, then plug it in. It would boil the water, and the steam would cleanse the lenses (even though they were inside a case - I guess it really just heated up the saline solution inside the lens case to the point where it almost boiled. The downside was that this really had to be done overnight! I can recall forgetting to do it overnight, boiling them in the morning then trying to cool the lenses off by running the case under cold water! Nothing like buring your eyeballs..... I went through a couple of different sorts of heaters, before the early '80's when they came out with the various types of disinfecting solutions that required no heating. Pretty amazing now to look back on those days, when we thought the process was so high-tech!

I also became a sunglasses maven. I've always had several pairs of sunglasses since then, including some very nice - and expensive - Ray-Bans. I still have aviators and Wayfarers that I bought for quite a bit of money in the '80's. Classic styles. Nowadays I tend towards cheapo sunglasses, although I don't really misplace or break them. I currently have 4 pair, including a pair that I liberated from AJ.

Some Random Thoughts

I haven't posted in a while - been doing a lot of 'other' writing - my journal, facebook, Twitter, etc..... But a few things have been floating around in my brain....

If you love historical novels and mysteries, why not combine them? I have been reading several series that are really good - Steven Saylor's 'Roma Sub Rosa' series takes place in ancient Rome, at the end of the Republican era (70 - 30 BC) and feature a character named Gordianus the Finder, who resolves various mysteries involving historical characters such as Pompey, Cicero, Julius Caesar, etc. PC (Paul) Doherty has several series; two which I have anjoyed so far are his ancient Egypt mysteries (they take place in the 1350 BC era) featuring Amerotke the judge, and his medieval series with Hugh Corbett that takes place around 1300 AD. They are all valid mystery stories, with historical characters tightly woven in, and are based on real events that have been fleshed out by the authors. Excellent reading.

I thought this was a great quote by Philip Cioffari - "All writing is a combination of personal details, and things you hear from other people and things you make up." Even though grammatically-challenged, I feel like it sums up fiction writing very well.
Even some news reporting.

I don't know how the Obama Administration expects the carmakers to meet the 35.5 fleet mpg goal by 2016, given their precarious situation, the fact that gas prices have moved off their peak highs from last year and the market-driven products. So in a sense, what this legislatin will do is force the automakers to eliminate vehicles that consumers want to buy, because they will not be able to afford to have them pulling down their mileage averages. Good-bye large SUV's, crossovers, minivans, etc. Another example of the creeping-socialism era that we have entered. And strangely enough, the automakers seem to be okay with this idea. maybe it's because they feel that they have no choice, given how some of them (GM, Chrysler) are being kept afloat by the government.

Why does my dog insist on going through the wastebaskets and eating the snotty toilet paper and tissues? It is getting to the point where I need to either empty the wastebaskets daily or make sure that all of the bathroom doors are closed all the time! I even tried the old 'put the empty wastebasket over her head and bang on it' routine, now she just runs away whenever she sees me coming with one..... Grrrr.

AIG Bonus Tax

There has been such an emotional uproar over the AIG bonuses that many have overlooked some common sense with regards to how to handle these sorts of things - or even if they SHOULD be 'handled'.....

I feel as much outrage over how this whole thing happened, as do many. The fact that I paid those bonuses, through my taxpayer-funded AIG bail-out, really pisses me off. It's not right. And the insistence by the AIG CEO that due to 'contractual obligations', they had to pay the bonuses. Of course, the UAW had a contract but re-opened it to renegoitiation. But Congress caused the issue by not putting any - or very many - strings on the money they gave AIG, at Bush's insistence. So now they are outraged at the bonuses being paid, although the writing was on the wall for months, and many people knew about them.

But the position they are taking - with a 90% tax on these bonuses - seems to me a large overreaction, which is what we should expect from Congress. It's a very slippery slope they are stepping on to, and it makes me very nervous. If they can retroactively tax these bonuses, what's to stop them from enacting any sort of retroactive tax? Or a tax targeted at a very narrow group of citizens? Should they really be allowed to dictate the compensation policies of companies? Granted, in this instance, they (we) own 80% of AIG - but shouldn't they have to work through the same stockholder procedures that any stockholder would have to?

This is one instance where I agree with President Obama (who has indicated that he is against the bonus tax). I hope he has the guts to stick with his position this time.

I LIKE the World Baseball Classic!

There has been a lot of discussion regarding the WBC. Most pundits - and managers and GM's - don't like it. Too much risk of injury, time away from the team during spring training, too intense too early in the year.... These are all reasons why the teams don't like it.

But I've watched a lot of the games this spring, and I have to say that I really like it! Compared to watching spring training games, watching guys with numbers like 83, 97 and 134 filling out most team's line-ups, especially after the 5th inning, is incredibly boring and a waste of time, even for a baseball nut like me.... The intensity level of the WBC is certainly much higher than spring training, and even feels like a play-off environment in some of the games, especially the elimination games - like last night's US - Puerto Rico game, which both teams had to win to stay alive. I mean, David Wright came through in the clutch - how big is that?? And how unusual is that!

I have to admit to some concern when I learned that Dustin Pedroia got hurt, although it sounds like it's relatively minor. And when I was watching the Japan team play - Dice-K was pitching - I was also concerned that he got through the game ok. He and Pedroia are 2 major pieces for the Sox this year.

But overall I'd have to say that I'm pro-WBC. The games are great - I mean, Netherlands knocking off the Dominican Republic twice? Are you kidding me? That's great stuff! A bunch of guys with glasses and with names like Vanden Hurk, Schoop, Duursma (and Curt Smith (huh?)) knock off Big Papi and his boys - cool stuff for sure.

Looking forward to 2012 already.....

Losing Weight, Feeling Good!

I've been really trying to lose weight, for the first time in a coupe of years. I'm happy to say, it's been very successful so far! Starting on February 27th, I have been writing down everything I eat during the day, along with the calories (WebMD has a pretty good calorie guide). In addition, I've ramped up my exercising. I was already walking about 30 minutes 5 to 6 days a week. I've now added a short walk after lunch and dinner, ab exercises every morning and night (bicycle crunches) and 20 minutes of free weights every other day. The sum total so far is about 7 pounds, and I've lost it without really killing myself. In other words, I think I am making a lifestyle change here. I hope I am.

I can see it in my face - less puffy - and I have several pairs of pants that were tight and are not much better fitting in the waist! I also seem to have more energy. I was 202 at the beginning of the year and weight 192 right now (although I was about 199 when I started on february 23).

The funny part is watching the calories. It really forces you to look for items that you can fill up on without running up the calorie total, versus having a small portion of something that has a lot of calories. And it forces you to plan ahead a bit too. For example, I knew I was going out to lunch today, so I really had to watch what I ate yesterday so I didn't go way over. I am trying to stay in a range of 900 - 1200 calories per day.

The increased exercise has been good, too. I love to walk, and with the improving weather, I tend to walk more anyways. The weights have been a struggle. I am mainly working on upper-body stuff, to try and build the muscles a bit. But I can feel that working too.

Replacing Gas Tax with Mileage Tax

The discussion of replacing a gasoline tax with a tax on miles driven (mileage tax) is becoming more heated (even though President Obama says the Federal government isn't interested in doing it). Attached is the text of an e-mail I have sent to all of my state and federal elected representatives.

I've been reading more and more discussion about this topic - a replacement of the gasoline tax with a tax based on the number of miles driven. I am against this idea for several reasons -

1) Privacy - yet again, Big Brother will be tracking my every move. The fact of the matter is, that once the government can start to monitor how many miles I am driving, it's a small step to now gauge my speed, where I am driving to and from and transmitting this information to a central database that already contains too much information about me. I don't care to be monitored in this way. It's a slippery slope, and we are already on it with EZPass. This would push us further down that slope.

2) Cost of equipment - if all new cars will be required to have a GPS device, a counting mechanism and some sort of transmitter, who will bear the cost of the added technology? The consumer, of course. I could see this adding several hundred dollars to the price of a new car.

3) Retrofitting older vehicles - again, who pays for the cost, if this were to be required? Also, older vehicles don't necessarily have the means to handle additional devices requiring electrical power - so that could lead to additional upgrades of the vehicles systems. Meaning additional cost. And any sort of government subsidy of these items would end up costing me in the end.

I also own 2 classic cars, from the '60's and '70's. They have relatively rudimentary electrical systems, so retrofitting any sort of GPS device would be almost impossible at any sort of reasonable cost. I also value the authenticity of these cars, so any sort of modern tracking system would destroy that authenticity and impact the value of the car.

4) Infrastructure to run this thing - more government bureaucrats? And I keep thinking about the initial application of EZPass here in the Northeast - there were many many problems when this system was implemented, and even today, there are problems with phantom tickets and bad transponders.

5) This is completely counter to the move to get people to drive more fuel-efficient vehicles! An increased gas tax would certainly incent people to continue to look at vehicles that get better economy; this sort of tax doesn't drive that behavior at all. We already have too many large SUV's with only a driver on our NJ roads, although the recent spike in gas prices has certainly started a trend the other way. Eliminating the gas tax could reverse that trend.

6) This sort of tax really penalizes those who MUST drive for a living. My wife is a home health-casr nurse. As such, she drives 200+ miles each week, caring for patients that cannot leave their homes to visit a doctor or healthcare facility. This Miles-Driven Tax would impact our income and further inhibit our ability to pay for college and save for retirement, to say nothing of our day-to-day needs.

This issue is one that rates very highly with me, and I would definitely look at your stand on this issue as an indicator of whether I will vote for you come re-election time.