Let's talk about the Weather...

I have lived through a number of "end of the world" eras. Since I was a kid, "The Experts" have warned that we were all going to die soon. We would run out of food by 1990 - something because of overpopulation, we were out of oil and damned near everything else in 1976, The Soviets were going to win and it was inevitable. The next ice age was just around the corner, unless we all changed our ways. In fact, it may have been too late no matter what. Now I hear constantly that what I do every day causes the earth to heat up and it is just a matter of 20 years or so before we cannot turn back, we are all doomed!

Global Warming is the latest mantra of the doomsayers. Our activity is heating the planet, and according to Al Gore, we only have ten or twenty years to mend our ways or we are all in deep shit. Sorry, no sale.

It was 17 degrees Fahrenheit when I left the house the other morning. And, I do believe that my external thermometer reads a couple of degrees to the warm side. It was fucking COLD that day. Shit, at ten a.m. there was still frost on the roof I was attempting to walk on. Global warming my ass. You know what the whole global warming craze is? It's a religion, it's a Belief System. Man made global warming is an article of faith, an admission to the club for these people, these doomsayers. If you don't think they have religious fervor about the subject, witness the reactions to any hint of doubt about their beliefs.

I've been on this earth 46 years, living in the same general area the whole time. Hell, I was born about two miles from the houses I now work on. I have some idea about the historical weather patterns in this area. This winter has been the coldest I can remember as far as getting cold and staying cold. We have had worse cold snaps but then it warmed up again. This year, it got cold and then it got colder. And stayed cold for a month or more. I know, I was out working in it. Hell, I have seen snow at least four times! I have never seen it snow on four different occasions around here. The Weather Guessers back me up on my assertion, winter wise. I know that Global Warmers will say "That's right! Greenhouse gases cause extreme weather!" and all that, but if it causes the coldest winter I can remember in my 46 years, exactly how the fuck is that warmer? I realize that summers have been hotter lately (Believe me I do, I work in the heat as well as the cold) but last summer was only marginally hotter than in 1980, when the Next Ice Age was around the corner...

When I was young was when the whole environmental religious movement got started. In The U.S., at least. They called it "ecology" back then. You could get cool little green stickers for your lunch box with the green and yellow ecology symbol in cereal boxes. Everyone was certain - the scientific debate was over - that the earth was cooling and we were about to enter another ice age. It was the scientific consensus. Sound familiar?

We kids really didn't know whether to be more worried about those rapidly approaching glaciers or the nukes that the Soviets were soon to launch our way. And yes, I have crouched under a desk as part of a school drill. At times, we were scared shitless about the future of the world. With Carswell AFB being a SAC base and all, we knew there would be a huge mushroom cloud just north of us when, not if, the attack came. We figured we were soon to be human toast.

All of the "experts" predicted it was just a matter of time and nuclear winter was a given, if the ice age didn't get us first. None of the end of the world predictions, which were touted as settled wisdom or scientific facts at the time, came true. Not a goddamned one. Not the next Ice Age, not a Soviet First Strike, not running out of oil, not world wide famines due to overpopulation. (Oh, and as young 'un I bought into all of them, just as the young 'uns are buying into the current wave of gloom and doom. It's a natural thing when you don't know any better. But I know better now.)

One the funniest and most enlightening bits of wisdom in my life came from the legendary Sam Kinison, first time I ever saw him in the 1980's. He did a bit about world hunger. His take was "You know, we just drove six hundred miles with your food, and it occurred to us that there wouldn't be World Hunger if You People would live where the FOOD IS! YOU LIVE IN A DESERT! DO YOU YOU UNDERSTAND ME, YOU LIVE IN A FUCKING DESERRRT!"

God, but I miss him so... Actually, political conditions have as much to do with hunger as anything. Read P.J. O'Rourke's All the Trouble in the World for a sensible and hilarious take on that and other issues. Like me, he was a young hippie whose exposure to reality turned him around.

But back to the weather. If Global Warming causes harsh winters, would someone please explain that pretzel logic to me? The earth is getting warmer, so now it is going to be cold as fuck every winter? Wouldn't the melting ice caps just re-freeze? And while I am thinking about it, why, exactly, is Greenland called, well Greenland and not, say, Greater Iceland? I know why, I just wanted to illustrate the absurdity.

What pisses me off about what is going on with this whole global warming hysteria is that it is a fake hysteria.

It's conjured. Why?

There is not one honest scientist in the world that can state conclusively that what you and I hear on the news about climate change every day is an absolute fact. If there is one thing I have learned in my life, it is that the definition of wisdom is knowing that you don't know. You just don't. Some things you do, but the big things? You don't know.

The "scientists" and the politicians that are trying to cram man-made global warming up all of our asses are just chasing money and power. It's an abomination to any seeker of truth. Any scientist that has sold out for this scam should be ashamed and publicly discretided, though they never are. They just move on to the next scam.

You kids, listen and learn. This global warming deal will pass just like all of the end of the world scenarios I lived through. Unless you all submit sufficiently and give up enough of your freedoms. If you don't, there will be a new crisis to deal with through big government action in a few years.

Mark my words. Or, when I say a cow will give milk, get the bucket.

Here we go again: We are being Managed...

At the risk of coming across as a whiner about my job, like ten million other bloggers in the world, here I go again.

Actually, I'm chuckling. Really, I think it is some funny shit, and I milked the situation for laughs after the latest bit of Dilbertesque drama at work today.

Mr. Micromanager changed the procedures again today after he had pissed the Three Rednecks off Friday. Three Rednecks being me, my brother, and our nephew. I'm the least redneck of the bunch in a lot of ways, but that doesn't stop me from blurting out things that other people won't say. But he pissed us all off Friday by nit-picking what we were doing, or rather, how we were doing it.

That's fine. I'm all about perfection in my work. But could you do your fucking job as a supervisor, and spell the hell out to us how you want things done before we are half finished, so you don't come across as a dickhead? Oh, wait. That's how you operate, I forgot about the whole "first impression" thing. That is why the actual Lead Redneck of our company refuses to work on your jobs. You undercut your carpenters by changing things after the fact. Look, if you would spell this shit out to us, we would do it the way you say to begin with and there would be no problem. The way you handle it, you come across as wanting to find fault where there is none. And you do. Any wonder you piss people off? For whatever reason, you find it necessary to find fault with the talented people that work for you. Does it make you feel better about yourself or some shit like that? I think so, because you suck as a job supervisor. And you know it. Looky here, homeboy, nobody likes you. Not the laborers, not the skilled carpenters, not the subcontractors. I know, I have talked to our subcontractors. They think you are a joke. Trying to be King Shit doesn't help your cause.

I can kind of relate to his problem. He's in over his head. I have been in over my head recently when I was put in charge of a job. It's nerve-racking, if you care about your job at all. I fail to see how pissing tradespeople off can help... But I don't know nuthin'... I haven't been a carpenter for thirty years like he has... I also am not a Dale Carnegie dropout... and, Thank God, I am not Management.

Which apparently he is. Fine, I'm not a Prima Donna, I'm an employee. I do what I am told, and take personal initiative when I think it is necessary. The way I see it, our job supervisors are very busy people so if I can take some of the day to day details off of their hands everything will run smoother and they can take care of the big issues. All of us rednecks feel that way. We just want the job to run smoothly. But when you undercut us, should you be surprised that we get pissed off?

I guess so. Mr. Micromanager decided to "clear the air" for lack of a better term, with his three rednecks this afternoon. What a joke. He lectured us about "doing things right", about how there is often a "conflict between management and the people that actually do the work" and about how he thought we were "angry" with him Friday afternoon and he didn't want anyone to have a "bad attitude" or be "mad" on his jobs. He reminded us that he had been a carpenter for thirty years and wasn't talking out of his ass. Except he didn't actually say "talking out of my ass" because he is the dickhead that gave everyone Buybulls one year for Christmas.

At this point, I have to back up a bit and say, well, I am on his side because I love my job. I agree with him on his point, but his execution sucks big green donkey dicks. He started out questioning Skeeter, asking if he was "OK" or some shit. Wouldn't drop it. Skeeter finally said "Well, I think I just enjoyed the race too much yesterday".

"Oh. What race?"

"The Daytona 500."

"Oh."

Then he launched into his management bullshit, how we should do this and that, how he didn't want people to have bad attitudes on his jobs, blah blah. I was sitting there grinning like an idiot and keeping my words to myself. What race? Have you noticed our Earnhardt caps? The whole world does revolve around you, doesn't it? You fucking moron. You think we give a shit how long you have been a carpenter? You think we are impressed that you undercut people by changing the methods halfway into the job? You think we like being preached to about five minutes here or there? Who the fuck do you think you are?

Later, I boiled down the whole anger issue to Skeeter. "What people like him don't realize is this: It's not all about him and whether we are mad or not. Hell, we get mad at each other all the time. The fact is, we just don't like him. That's a lot bigger deal than just pissing us off."

We get over being angry. We don't get over a lack of respect.

Micromanagement Sucks!

I don't know why, after all these years, I don't trust my instincts and my first impressions of people more than I do. Every time, every Single Fucking Time I give some person the benefit of the doubt I end up regretting it for some reason or another. I should just listen to my inner Judgemental Asshole because he is never wrong, historically.

But, I try to be a nice guy. To quote my all time favorite movie character, Jules Winnfield, I'm trying. I'm trying real hard to be the Shepherd. People talk to me and don't realize that, just like that scene in the movie, I've got a .45 pointed at their head, my finger on the trigger. I just don't pull that trigger more often than not. I'm trying.

One of my other favorite movie characters is Hannibal Lecter. No, it's not that I eat human flesh. It's that he was able to look into a person's soul and tell things about them that they would rather not face. I have that ability sometimes, though not to that extent. At the time the movie came out, my best friend thought it was so cool that Lecter talked a man into commiting suicide. Said it reminded him of me, with Lecter's piercing insights.

There is a fragment of truth there. I can have the piercing insights. I can also be totally clueless about people. Usually because I don't listen to my inner judgemental asshole. My dichotomy is that I can read people like a first-grade book and still be incredibly naive at times. The whole benefit of the doubt thing. Nice guy and all that.

Now, the older I get, the more I wonder... Why do I bother being nice to people that, deep inside, I know are going to give me grief?

There are a few people on that list, fer sure. One is the guy that is supervising the job I currently work on. I'll never forget, as long as I live, the first impression he made on me. He called the guys together and lectured us about how if we take extra time not working how it was costing our company money. He had it written down (He spent some time on this) and broken down how much money it cost our company for us to take an extra five, ten, or fifteen minutes on break or lunch or whatever over a week's period, a monthly period, and a yearly period. My immediate thought was, "Well, asshole, how much time did you just cost the company doing all that math? And then lecturing us? You, we, could have been doing something constructive. But we had to stand around, on the clock, while you talked to us like children." After that, he spent two fucking hours on a twenty minute trip and came back with the wrong shit anyway. Why didn't I trust my first impression?

This is the same guy that gave us all a Bible for Christmas in 2006. Little does he know that I have forgotten more about that book than he ever knew and could tie his theology in knots. One phrase I do remember, spoken by our Lord and Savior, was "Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You strain at a gnat and swallow a camel!" Fits this dude to a T. He is the man that mastered "milking the clock" when he was just another carpenter and now he is on our ass about time?!? He jumped me today because I rode to the lumber yard with my brother. "Is there any reason it took two of you to go to the lumberyard?" he asked.

My blood began to boil. Slowly. Maybe it just simmered. It reached a full boil as the day went on. I guess he would rather that I stand around with my thumb up my ass, waiting for material like the other five or six guys on the crew? Never mind the fact that I was actually saving the company a trip at a later date for something I needed for a different job. Except, as I later learned, they weren't standing around with their thumbs up their asses after all! They were, in fact, loading windows onto his trailer for him to take home for his personal use!

Now, salvaging materials from a job is no big deal. We either throw them away or take them for our own use. But here is the problem: This same man, the one that got on my ass this morning for riding to the lumber yard with my brother, has told me on more than one occasion to make sure that I gather the salvaged materials on my own time. I have made two trips up there, 45 miles each way on a Saturday, in fact. My time. I have no problem with that. But I ask you, exactly who is fucking the company out of time worked? And why did I give this asshole the benefit of the doubt?

I can make a prediction: This dickhead is going to say the wrong thing to me one day when I am not in a charitable mood. I'm going to pull that trigger.

Look, motherfucker, I'm a carpenter. I'm a man. I'm not a fucking teenaged fry cook at Whataburger. I don't need your hypocritical micro-managing shit and I won't put up with it much. I didn't notice you around this afternoon when we all worked through breaktime...

It's just a matter of time.

Earnhardt Is An Idiot

Ramblings:

Traditionally, the Robin is the first sign of spring. For knuckle-headed sports fans like me, there are other options. For baseball fans, today is "Truck Day" for a lot of teams. Truck day being the day that the organization loads up the gear and heads to Spring Training. However, I'm a NASCAR fan. For me, the surest sign of a fast approaching spring is the Budweiser Shootout at Daytona. Ahhh, tomorrow evening I will be in front of a TV set, with beer in hand and the surround sound cranked, watching 800+ horsepower cars turning laps in anger at around 200 mph. It just doesn't get any better than Daytona in February. Unless, of course, I actually attend a race this year. Considering that I put a copious amount of blood and sweat into remodeling a house for one of the owners of Dickies Manufacturing, which sponsors a race here in Ft. Worth, you might think that attending that race might be a given. You know, comps. Um, no. My brother and I (who were probably both wearing Earnhardt hats at the time, I know he was, I don't recall which cap or shirt I wore that day) got to hear allllll about how wonderful an experience this very nice person had at the race that We Did Not Get To Attend last year. You know, helicopter flight in, luxury suite seating, Victory Lane visit, etc. But I'm not bitter...

Of course, non-racing fans don't understand us, much like I don't understand the attraction to soccer. Seems like all of my adult life Americans have been harangued about not supporting soccer. It brings to mind the attempt to sell us on the Metric System. "The rest of the world likes it" and so forth. As if we should give a flying fuck about the rest of the world. Or, more correctly, as if the greatest, most freedom loving country in world history should emulate its inferiors. All that Metric System bullshit did was waste school time and make a clusterfuck out of auto mechanic's toolboxes. Suddenly every mechanic in the U.S. had to buy a whole 'nother set of tools. I had a Chevy/GMC truck for twenty years and I'll be damned if I ever figured out which bolts were metric and which were SAE. (Mildly kidding, I could tear the whole thing apart and rebuild it today, I went through three truck bodies with one engine and installed at least three transmissions)

Anyway, from a carpentry point of view, the Metric system just doesn't work. Here is why: You often have to divide areas into thirds or some other odd number. With base twelve material, no problem. Try doing that with base ten material sometime. 3.33333333333 and so on centimeters...

Personally, soccer bores the hell out of me, much like racing on TV often does. Stock car racing is something that must be experienced live to be appreciated. The sounds, the people, the realization that "Oh my God! There is a human being inside that goddamned thing that just went by!", the whole racing experience live is just a spectacle, it is sensory overload. It's a rush. On TV, not so much. And Darrell Waltrip annoys the hell out of me anyway. He used to be pretty good and now he is just cartoonish in a bad way. At least, watching on TV, I have that sound memory in my head, that sensory overload feeling. But soccer? What is fun about watching a bunch of people that cannot use their hands in an athletic endeavor? What's up with that? You mean it's a good thing to deny an athlete his most manipulative body parts? What is so great about a sport where (I actually saw this in the paper yesterday) a 2-0 score is called "domination" by one team? Oh. please!

No wonder those people's economies are so fucked up. They worship a sport that denies athletes the use of their most versatile body part, hands (yeah, except for the goalies, and that is an economic analogy in itself) and rejoice at a minor success. Woo Hoo! We scored a goal! One single fucking goal! Boy, we're gettin' it now!

I still go back to the famous Patton speech and remember these words: ""Men, this stuff that some sources sling around about America wanting out of this war, not wanting to fight, is a crock of bullshit. Americans love to fight, traditionally. All real Americans love the sting and clash of battle. You are here today for three reasons. First, because you are here to defend your homes and your loved ones. Second, you are here for your own self respect, because you would not want to be anywhere else. Third, you are here because you are real men and all real men like to fight. When you, here, everyone of you, were kids, you all admired the champion marble player, the fastest runner, the toughest boxer, the big league ball players, and the All-American football players. Americans love a winner. Americans will not tolerate a loser. Americans despise cowards. Americans play to win all of the time. I wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That's why Americans have never lost nor will ever lose a war; for the very idea of losing is hateful to an American." (emphasis mine)

Key word there being real. Lots of fake Americans in our population nowadays. I fear for the future of our country. We are becoming pussified like the Europeans. Oh, but they are so smart! Let's be a bunch of pussies like them! Let's surrender to our enemies, we can't win, we musn't offend, we can't take a strong stand, we have to use diplomacy, we need higher taxes on everything to pay for people that can't compete, we should tax the rich, let's negotiate with evil, blah blah blah.

Know what? Suck my dick. The United States is the best country in the history of the world for a lot of reasons, primarily because it has always valued individual freedom and initiative. Now, we have too many worshippers of consensus living here. People don't want to take a stand. Can't piss someone off, and it seems to me that we need to piss some people off! Look, when you have a conflict of ideas or wills, one side or the other has to win. Negotiating failure for the right side is a non-starter for any real American. We used to be a country that celebrated achievement, now we celebrate shitheads and coddle failures.

Pull your heads out, people. We need ass kickers, not ass kissers. Politically and otherwise.




Oh yeah, the headline. Earnhardt is an idiot. Teresa, that is. Dale Sr's widow decided to pick a fight with her stepson, who just happens to be the most popular driver in NASCAR, saying that Dale Earnhardt Jr. needed to decide whether he wanted to be a "public figure" or a race car driver. Way to go, babe! Dale's contract is up at the end of the year, and this is the way you open negotiations?!? Hmm, let's see... He has won the most popular driver award four years running. He is an absolute rain maker when it comes to sponsorships, in a sport where sponsorships rule all. He wins races and is always a story even when his team struggles. He is sponsorship platinum.

Teresa, you inherited DEI when my hero, your husband was killed in a race accident, and now you are trying to get his son, the very face of your company, the absolute most valuable asset you have, into a pissing contest? Gee. Who do you think will win that one? Girl, you fucked up. He is starting to realize his value. He wants ownership of his Daddy's company now, and frankly, I think he holds all of the trump cards. I mean, good gawd, what is Dale Earnhardt Incorporated without at least Dale Earnhardt Jr? What, you got Martin Truex? Dale Jr. recruited and groomed him. What have you done other than insult and piss off your marquee property? The answer is, you haven't done shit with what Dale started. Hell, you got other big time drivers taking up for Dale Jr. in the media, and I think Kevin Harvick is all but recruiting him to go to Richard Childress Racing next year. And I may not be alone in saying that I am all for it. I'd absolutely love to see a black 3 car next year, driven by Earnhardt Jr. That would be way fun at the restrictor plate races at the very least. The fans would eat it up and the dollars will flow wherever Dale Jr. goes. Give it up, Teresa, or you will end up disgracing your late husband's legacy. DEI will be a shell, Garage Mahal and all.