Grading the Prez

This week many are giving grades to President Obama's (or O'Bama-that good Irishman) first 100 days in office.
I give him a solid B at this point.
1. I think a weakness has been doing comprehensive background checks on some of his cabinet and other nominees. I have always believed that an effective President or any leader surrounds himself/herself with good people or he/she is doomed to mediocrity as exemplified by administrations of Presidents Nixon, Carter, and lastly by G.W. Bush; the worst President, I believe, of my lifetime. I feel Veep Biden is a loaded cannon as shown this morning by his remarks about domestic travel. I also feel, although there is nothing Obama can do about this, that he severely handicapped by the weak Democratic leadership-read Polosi and Reed.
2. I applaud him for trying to undo the negative global feelings toward the USA that were created by the Bush administration. I like his reaching out to Latin America and Canada. The Western Hemisphere, as well as the Middle East, needs the US's attention and friendship. They are in our backyard. Europe-excluding the French-appear willing to work with us.
3. I would give him an "incomplete" on his economic recovery plans. I think there is a severe lack of monitoring of moneys being handed out.
4. I do feel more comfortable knowing he is in the White House. It will take time and hopefully we don't suffer much more as a nation.

Best political cartoon of the week

Casper's own Dick Cheney is the subject of the "best cartoon of the week (year?) by someone Peters of the Dayton Daily News. I don't scan so you will have to visualize:

1st panel shows Cheney's granddaughter carrying a small dog, approaching her grandfather and saying
"Grandpa, could you teach my puppy a trick?" The former veep relies "Sure"
2nd panel shows Cheney waterboarding the puppy yelling "SPEAK, SPEAK."

This was a brave gesture by the Casper Star-Trib to run this cartoon. Dick Cheney is still a favorite public figure in conservative Wyoming where Reagan was considered a dangerous liberal.

Bringing Shame to the Offspring

We usually get along pretty well with our kids. One thing we did which caused shame and a loss of favor and/or respect with our children was when we (Kathy & I) went to Arby's for our anniversary. David and Keri associate anniverseries with wine, fancy menus, and flowers. "Arby's, you're kidding?" they cried. "No, we went to Arby's for our anniversary."
As a pair of teachers, Friday nights were our night to take the kids and go out for dinner-meaning fast food. They didn't appear to mind then-but an anniversary. Having sent both children to out-of-state colleges, having them come out debt-free, and each with a car, we dined in a lot of fast food resturants. Therefore, here is the neverbeforerevealed list of my favorite fast food restaurants:
1. Taco Bell in a runaway-crunch wrap with a senior citizen drink (read free). I order 5 double cheesy bean burritos ($0.89 per) to take home, freeze, and nuke whenever I need a Taco Bell fix. When Keri came back from New Zealand, the first thing she wanted was to stop at a Taco Bell. It's in the genes I tell you.
2. Quiznos subs-No onions, please-they don't make a bad sub.
Subway is a distant second
3. McDonalds-especially when they have McRibs; if not, a double cheese burger, hold the onions and a senior citizen drink (reduced price)
4. Pizza Hut-I go for the noon buffet with the senior discount and a glass of water to save on calories. Domino's again is a distant second.
5. Arby's-I like about half the items on the menu and I get a senior discount
6. Burger King-Whopper, hold the onions and light on the mayo and a senior drink.
Honorable mention
Frostys at Wendy's (with a senior discount)
Chipoltle's (Sp.)-the chicken burrito-no senior discount
Try asking for a senior discount at a fancy restaurant.
Question-why doesn't this site have a spellchecker?

Life Among the Penguins

This has nothing to with Earth Day or the MARCH OF THE PENGUINS (2004).
First of all it's tied to two of my favorite movies (both top ten). The first is NATIONAL LAMPOON'S ANIMAL HOUSE (1978). The story line was about fraterity life in the early 60's. This was my time; these were my peeps (peops?). It was the first major role for John Belushi, who later ODed on drugs.
The second movie, THE BLUES BROTHERS (1980) also starred John Belushi, along with Dan Aykroyd, as Jake and Elwood Blues. They are on a "mission from God" to save their old orphanage by putting on a benefit concert. The orders have come from the head penguin, the Mother Superior of the orphanage, who still frightens the Blues brothers.
Secondly: it reminded me of my seven years at St. Judes. It was like boot camp for little kids. We never referred to the nuns, who still hadn't kicked the habit, as "penguins" on the school grounds. It was never invoked anywhere that the possibility could possibly exist of being overheard by a "penguin." A student had to be in at least fourth grade before he/she was deemed trustworthy to use that reference when referring to nuns. If word got back that a student had used the tabooed metaphor when referring to his/her teacher, that student would be condemned to a life of infinite number of laps around the beads or recitation of Hail Marys until death or Social Security, whichever came first.
When I left St. Judes and stood up to answer a question for the first time in public school, the teacher and students almost went into shock. Where had this weirdo come from? Old habits (pun intended) are hard to break.

What retirees do who don't fish or play golf

Today, April 22, 2009, I received my 647th disc from NetFlix. Number one, GOODFELLAS, a spoof about the mafia, came April 20, 2005. A few of them were Kathy's, a few were bad discs and had to be reordered, and a few I watched for 20 minutes, put back in the mailer, and rated them one star (hated). The vast majority I watched. Here are first 25. #2,3,7,9,10 were SIX FEET UNDER, about a family of undertakers (I wouldn't lie about this). #5,11,15,19,25 were SEX & THE CITY (my tastes are looking up). #13,18,25 were the SOPRANOS (I rooted for Tony and wanted to visit the Badda Bling [sp.]). #20,23 were the show 24 (Jack Bauer is still beating on people). #6 was SOUTH PARK (I enjoyed the satire but couldn't stand to watch poor Kenny die again). #17,21,24 were the GILMORE GIRLS (I watched this series faithfully until it went off the air). I missed part of the first season and had to catch up).
#12 was THE LAST PICTURE SHOW. I saw it in the theatre when it came out in 1971. It was done in black and white which just added to the quality. It's the story of a dying town in west Texas. It was Cybil Sheperd's first movie; some of the others were Timothy Bottom and Jeff Bridges before they became bigger names. The sequel, TEXASVILLE [#16] (done in color) didn't match the original. TLPS is one of my all-timers.

Another Ole

We, along with several other relatives, received a nice email from our niece Julie, who has decided (after long consideration and agonizing [?]) to attend St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. This means I have a wife, a son, a daugher-in-law and soon a niece who are all Oles. My only personal connection with St. Olaf was writing checks for tuition, etc., when son David attended St. O. Whenever I wore my St. O t-shirt (known as the $25,000 t-shirt; tuition was less back then) people would ask me 1. Is there really a place called St. Olaf? They thought it only a place on TV (remember "The Golden Girls")? Answer-yes and 2. Where is it? My stock answer (for those who have heard this, go to the next paragraph) was it is 30 miles south of the Mall of America and I knew it every time I received my son's credit card statement. Most knew the MOA so that pacified them. Congratulations, Julie! You have made a good choice.
I am still wondering where my cousin Mary's daughter Pyper is going to school next year. Hope to hear from that side of the family.
I'm just happy to be finished with college applications, FAFSA forms, and financial aid.

Happy Birthday

Today is my brother's birthday. Happy Birthday, Bill. We have a lot of good memories including the New Year's Eve before the '68 Sugar Bowl when we fought the Battle of New Orleans on Bourbon St. New Orleans won.

ShowTime

I went to see "17 Again" this afternoon. I wasn't expecting much but I enjoyed it so I will give it a 4 out of 5 stars.
My favorite movie of all time is GIANT, which came out in 1956. It starred Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor, James Dean and so many other famous movie stars I won't try to list them all. GIANT was so long it had an intermission. Years ago movies of any length had an intermission. GIANT begins with cattle ranching in Texas in the 30', goes through WWII, and the early oil boom. It deals with a Texas ranch family who deals with Hispanic/Anglo race relations, the effects of WWII and finally with the transition from traditional ranching to mineral exploration and wealth. It also has one of my favorite musical scores. GIANT was filmed on a set built near Marfa, Texas, and you can imagine the uproar that created in a small west Texas town with so many famous Hollywood types among them.
I bought the VHS version which is two VHS discs long. I rewatch it every couple of years.

TORO! TORO! TORO!

Any man who has lived in Wyoming for over 50 years and has benefited from past poor decisions knows that this 20th century invention, which ranks in utility with air conditioning and TV remotes, does not go in the storage shed behind the lawn mower before June 1st. When moisture from heaven falls upon the ajacent concrete of the home, this replacer of the that barbaric tool, the snow shovel, spews the snow or semi-frozen slush from sidewalk and driveway to lawn and street saving the operator the ordeal of the heating pad to heal backaches.
Hail the mighty snowblower!

Always check your work

This is one of the reasons to get married-someone to proof one's work.
Since my retirement I have maintained a spreadsheet of physical addresses, phone #'s, email addresses, etc., for both my wife's side of the family and my clan. Occasionally I send a copy to each of them. Earlier this week I sent out the attachment in an email to my relatives. I hadn't really seriously CHECKED the info in a couple of years. My wife pointed out that I still had my son and his wife living at their previous address although they had been in their new house over a year. I cleaned that up and inserted David's new address in his listing. I forgot to do the same for his wife Kelsey, who is also individually listed. As a result I had them residing at two different addresses.
I am happy to report, despite differently listed addresses, they are not separated, divorced or living apart under any circumstances. I hope this clears up any confusion my spreadsheet may have caused.

Things looking up

I got my glassses fixed yesterday. The lady managed to save the frames I tromped on. They are pretty close to the original shape.
The cable man came today. He had to switch out a couple of boxes and program the remote through a method that wasn't included in the instruction manual for remotes. I think this is money well-spent. I am also glad to know that it wasn't just me who couldn't get the darn thing to work. I still have to figure out how to get the DVD player to work but that's another day and another techie adventure
I almost put the snowblower in the shed when the temps hit the 60's. Fortunately I watched the weather channel this afternoon and the forecast is for snow and rain through Friday. I never will make it to a soccer game. In Wyoming a person almost has to dress warmer for a spring soccer match than to go skiing in January.
My wife Kathy commented that by lifting the travel restrictions in Cuba we can now go visit our relatives there. But wait-we don't have any relatives in Cuba.

First Blog

My daughter Keri talked me into trying this. I don't know how to post pictures to this site so all you will get is words-lots of them giving opinions, lists and favorites.
Last week I purchased a High Def TV. Rather than pay $19 for a service call to set it up I picked up a box and and several wires with color coded endings from my cable company along with assurances that it would be a snap.
The first thing I did while connecting cables to the back of the TV was to set my glasses down so I could read the writing as to where input and output cables go. The second thing I did when I stood up was to step on my glasses and put them out of commission. Luckily I have a second pair. In the end I wasn't getting channels which I previously received and couldn't make the remote work. I figured $19 of my Social Security would be well spent on a service call. The guy/gal will be here tomorrow.