My stuff - Movies

Movies and their legacies

Summer field trips 

        Colossus: The Forbin Project is a movie from 1970. I am sort of astounded that I recall this movie since I saw it when I was 10 years old. It was filmed, or at least one of the primary sets was filmed at the Berkley Lawrence Hall of Sciences. This building is atop the hills over looking Berkley. This another place my mother used to take us kids during the summer school break.

            I believe that this was one of the first serious Progenitors of the Terminator movies. And how AI was coming for us all.

Woke Relastions - Ranting - education - children - trans

    Point The First: Inter-species-self-identification.

    This essay is that I dispute the existence of inter-species-identifying individuals and the cause as I see it. I believe that this new addition to the never ending and fast growing the LGBT... whatever list is the result of the inability of parents to stand up to their children's every whim. Instead, they entertain 'ever-so-precious child's every utterance as if it were a proclamation handed down to Moses on a new third stone tablet and hand delivered to them by the Pope himself, not FedEx. Instead of saying "No Janie you are Not a cat, and no you cannot use the litter box along with 'Kitty'". Further I believe that it is a combined effort between these spineless parents and overprotective, oversensitive, over liberally educated elementary school teachers. It seems that after spending 4 years in the overly liberal higher-education school system that is our college /university system with those teachers / professors filling them with all manner of stuff and nonsense about how important and amazing they are. These freshly minted elementary school teachers somehow have come to believe that they are the right-hand-of-God when it comes to child psychology. And that they now are the end-all-and-be-all anointed by way of a 4-year degree regarding how a [Your] child should be raised. 'Damn the Parents, Full speed ahead' with the most Rainbow festooned, DEI swathed, Drag-Queen story hour, agenda imaginable. So deep is this crazy nonsense that even Timothy Leary would say “Wait a minute, this is way too far out even for me.” This coupled with equally goofed parents who want to cede the totality of raising of their little angels to a morally bankrupt educational machine more concerned with keeping the state’s tax monies rolling in so they can siphon this funding into middle management where it truly belongs. [Where oh Where is the sarcasm font when you really need it] Rather than the actual education, welfare and well-being of those in their charge.

    Point the second: Education.   

I believe that this started when parents handed over of the duty of teaching little Johnny and Janie about sex. Having lived through some of the earlier years of that educational fiasco I can without reservation say that it was an utter and complete waste of time, money, and effort and a level of embarrassment experienced by both teacher and student not easily matched. And with that one decision to add sex education to the school curricula little by little the roll of the school’s in the raising of Johnny and Janie has grown steadily more invasive, pervasive and pernicious year over year. Sex education for middle schoolers has now morphed into ‘DragQueen Story Hour.’ for third graders. And sexually explicit books that you might find on magazine racks at truck stops or gas stations or your local Seven Eleven that could have been printed in one of Bob Guccione's magazines. The problem is that when they squeezed sex education classes into the curricula, they squeezed Civics classes, Vocational shop classes, Home Economics classes out of the curricula. Every one of these classes is vitally important to young people trying to make it on their own in the real world. And we wonder why Johnny is still living at home in the basement. [This happened to me.] Yes, Algebra Trigonometry and Calculus are nice but those are rightfully college level classes. Right after graduation you are not likely to be using Algebra or Trigonometry or Calculus to balance your checkbook unless you are involved with what is known as creative accounting. You are not likely to be discussing with your friends why the Triumph of the Bourgeoisie was important with regard to the French Revolution.. Fuck if what I sometime see on YouTube is for real, most people don't know that France is a Country. You will instead be as quick as possible, forgetting all about that class and everything you wasted time learning in it. The same goes for Algebra and Trigonometry and Calculus, unless you KNOW at a very young age that you ARE going to be a Rocket Surgeon when you grow up. I genuinely believe that dance class should be part of the Physical Education requirement. If there is still a physical education requirement anymore. I doubt that it is. Or at the very least dance should be an elective. I am talking about Actual Organized dance, Ballroom dance. The Cha Cha, The Foxtrot, Waltz or for the more ambitious The Tango. These dances teach cooperation between two people. They teach respect for your partner. They teach respect for the opposite sex.

     [And a respect for members of the opposite sex [not gender] is evermore critical in today's fucked up societal Nuclear waste Level toxicity, Supermassive Black Hole, Suckage of a battle WAR between the sexes that [as I understand it the Fourth Wave] Feminism has delivered upon us. I looked up the WiKi of feminism and was delivered an about 1 hour long read. So I have linked what I believe to be the most salient Wave, The Fourth Wave, the Wave that we are living under now.]  

    What you need is to understand how to make and stick to a budget. What you Need to know is how to balance a checkbook. You should know how to fix things, not throw out a thing and get a new thing. Like every body needs to fill up their garage with $5000.00 worth of no-longer used crap while your $80,000.00 Tesla sits outside subject to the rain of winter and the heat of summer. Hell you should even know how to cook a little bit other than Macaroni and cheese in the microwave or Meth. A McDonald's owner or a department store manager or a restaurant manager isn’t really concerned about how much you know about the Triumph of the Bourgeoisie as it pertains to the French Revolution or that you can solve for X, or solve a high level Trigonometry equation, or that you can solve for the function of the area under a curve. They are generally more interested in that you can be on time and work hard. And that you can make a commitment and stick to it even when the going gets tough.

    [Camela Harris (Yea I spelled it that way.) has never worked that hard, ever in her life. Certainly not as "The Boarder Czar",  unless as some conspiracy theorists believe that this was an inside job of an invasion to the USA to buy votes to keep Mr. Donald J. Trump from becoming President again.]

    Point the Third: The Economics of Life.

    I think that parents began ceding this responsibility to the schools with the popularization of the dishwasher this was 1970. This was when we moved off of the single income household and onto the double income household. This is when Mom and Dad entered into the arms race known as "Keeping up with the Joneses" not to be confused with 'Keeping up with the Kardashians’ and had to spend both of all their time earning a living to support an ever-growing appetite for the good life. The "Good Life" being a Martini after dinner aperitif, two cars in every pot a Jet-ski in every boat, Adderall in every kid, every kid in soccer, piano class, ballet class, every after school activity there is time for and every kid in a "good" college prep-school beginning in Kindergarten and all of the Valium, Xanax, Diazepam, Lorazepam, and diazepine your many doctors will prescribe to you, in every purse, wallet and medicine cabinet being handed out by Johnny at his summer long Pharming party so he feels that he is cool.

    As I understand it, on the whole before this time families had little or no debt outside of a mortgage. This is when Credit Unions were the go-to for financial issues. Not banks that are so corrupt that they fail. The 'Arms race' of keeping up with the Jones's had begun. This, and, when it became legal for women to have charge plates now known as credit cards, this was 1974. [ I look forward to your cards and letters of condemnation. You were warned ] Oh and the advent of the television that brought all of Madison Avenue's and now the Internet's Psychological Warfare to bare on a largely unsuspecting and captive audience. The first TV advertisement.

    The Wrap-up.

     So, this perfect storm of the 'Arms Race' between Your parents and the Jones's, the sudden absence of a stay-at-home mother, [Or at the very least a parent that can be at home when Janie or Johnny arrives home from school. And thus the latch key kid was born] the over liberalization of the college education system, an amoral elementary school system, dishwashers, credit cards and now    'drum-roll-please    Janie thinks she is a cat and makes your life difficult if you don't abide by her delusional assertions and teachers who keep secrets regarding Johnny's new preferred sexual identification pronoun set from his parents.

    Game, Set and Match. Satan, please come and collect your Prize. The Prize? It’s your children in case you missed it.

My stuff - Memories

    Memories, Mechanical

 

    I don't recall what the fines and fees that surround speeding tickets, I should, I managed to wrack up seven speeding tickets my first year driving. I got a letter from the California DMV indicating that if I was caught violating the speed limit one more time I would have my license revoked. I managed to stop getting caught. However, it did stop my Speed Racer driving habits. I even actually remember my CA drivers license number N8307905. I don't know why that is pertinent. In 1987 I graduated to two wheeled speed. I found myself in the saddle of an '86 FJ1200. At that time it about was the fastest [stock] thing with wheels. You can still get caught going 170 mph. I found out. But I was Blessed with a very understanding CHP Officer and as it happened he lived around the corner from me. He wrote me up for 75 so that I could attend 'driving school' to keep it off my ticket accumulation. I imagine that If I had tried to out run him I would have been jailed for some period of time. He did thank me for pulling over with out running. He was happy that he didn't have to the aircraft involved and turn it into a paperwork problem. That was then, I imagine now they would run up to 100 mph and say that the chase speed was too dangerous to pursue. I know that they wont chase past 100 mph [160.93] in Japan. I did hear some time ago that the high speed pursuit's gaining popularity on TV were becoming too dangerous and too popular. So there was some upper end limit that the police would not engage in a chase. But the Motorola is always faster; faster even than any Bugatti or Linguini Fandango what ever HIGH Horsepower thing you can build or buy anywhere in the world. Although while I was living in in Newport Beach I heard tell of a bunch of crazies Banzai Drivers they were called. Start in Valencia and balls to the wall to Mission Vallejo. 200 mph was not unheard of. I worked with a fabricator guy who had built himself a Chevette with a VERY High Horsepower 428. All nice and tidy outside... mostly and it was a very tight for two people because the great fat tires were tubed up inside the actual body. He took me for a shorty speed blast from Warner Boulevard down the 55 Freeway towards MacArthur boulevard. We got stopped by an 'interested' CHP officer. He wanted to see this Nutbag Crazo machine. After an approving look see he said we could go. He did however admonished us to be sure to get up to speed quickly so that we wouldn't get hit when we merged back onto the freeway. Greg obliged the officer. Greg had built a Morris Minor with about the same configuration and was working over a Porsche 911 with a Very Built 350 Cleveland. Keeping all the headers and velocity stacks  all tucked inside the tiny backside of the Porsche was a work of art. He let me watch him work on a '79 Cadillac Seville. He and his buddy had split it down the middle and stretched it by 12 inches or so with an official NASCAR roll cage stuffed inside. the 500 CID engine had four turbo chargers. I never saw it complete or see it run but I did hear about it. I can't find any internet evidence of these last cars mentioned.

My stuff - Collections - Inheritance

    Collections and Inheritance.

    I don't know If I have mentioned this before, but I am cynic and a pessimist.

    I used to have several collections. Collections that sat in boxes and on shelves out of the way. Somehow just knowing that I had them used to bring me Joy. But recently I have downsized that which brings me joy. A major contributing factor to this downsizing was that I needed the money. Then I discovered in myself, what is the point of a collection that remains in a box hidden away simply for the 'joy' of ownership. I imagine that women must experience this sort of thing with shoes and whatever else women are apt to collect. There are eBay adds on TV now "Just in time" for Christmas. There is a young woman fawning over something [Update, Its some red exotic looking purse] that she has acquired by way of an eBay purchase. Looking past her hands and what she has just acquired as the camera pulls out to show a what looks like a small room Lined with shelves and Packed with stuff. I imagine that this little room must bring her much joy. But looking straight down the arrow of time, to a time  when she has to bequeath this room of stuff off to her daughter. I am clearly getting ahead of things. She looks to be a Young woman with a fondness for the color red. I do wonder what psychological, Madison Avenue trick of the eye or mind the use of the color red really plays on us. What will this young woman do if the need arises to move to a new apartment or home. How will she explain to her boyfriend / husband the accumulation of this stuff.

    I faced a similar situation with my fiance. She had an oversized two car car garage Filled to the 6 foot line with Stuff. In this massive collection of things was a large box filled with one of her daughters report cards. A shoe box for third grade report cards alone.

    As a child of a military family we were forced to downsize every year or so. At that of living with my fiance the only thing that I had in abundance were my work tools and a bunch of things that I had acquired in the 30 years working a a prototype development model maker. When the time came to move to Texas from California I implored her to downsize. She did. she rented a 40 foot box dumpster and filled it. That left her with a 60 foot box trailer FULL front to back top to bottom with yet more stuff. When we moved to Oregon from Texas she down sized yet again. a 20 foot u-rent'm dumpster. Filled to overflowing. Then on moving day they brought up a giant Mayflower trailer that she filled that yet again. On arriving in Oregon she disgorged this trailer into a large warehouse bay. Filled most of that warehouse bay and into pallet shelving Twenty feet tall and 80 feet long with four rows. Upon her death her daughters came and picked through most of it. On the third day gave up and summarily ditched the rest.

    There is a LONG Ugly story about her daughters and my house which they plundered as well.

    I wonder about this for my daughter. I had a bunch of pictures of family members that I myself did not know. So holding to these pictures simply to pass them on to her is ridiculous, at least to me. I wont be able to tell her who they are or worse yet how they relate to her. Now If I did know this person by more than just "This is a picture of your Grand Uncle Dean". There is no context, no narrative, no reason to keep this picture. I do agree that 'My' lifestyle helped foster this situation. By being constantly on the move we were never near enough to any of my or my parent's relatives, to have any meaningful visitation. If, however, I was to show her a picture of her Great Grandmother from my mothers side and was able to tell her that Elizabeth Agnes Clark was the first woman to ride a motorcycle, a Harley Davidson, across the continental United States using this map, stopping here and here and here along this route. That 'might' have sufficient interest to her provided she had any interest in the early American highway system or the whatever else might be a 'hook' for her curiosity. But This is not the case. Nor was it the case for me. I inherited several boxes full of pictures from my mother. I image that many of these people were known to her but she never had the time to disseminate that information and I would in all likely hood have had no interest. My mother, however, a realist and had in fact sorted through a staggering number of boxes of pictures and had winnowed that to the boxes that I did inherit. Soooo there is that. [Update. I just accidentally found old pictures on my computer that I though I had lost forever. They do bring me joy and don't clutter up my home anymore that digital any thing can clutter up your home. I do guess that I should now whip them into "The Cloud".]

    The other day I was at CostCo and was tempted to buy some plastic storage bins. I opted to not buy them. If I have things that require me to buy yet more plastic storage bins than I already have then I have too much stuff.

    I now have only those things that bring me joy and Are on display. My mothers art work. [The very little that I have. She was a prodigious artist. There was NO medium of art that she set her hand to that she did not Excel at. My first memories were of her oil painting. there when epoxy came into being the dabbled in that. She always kept her hand in clay work. She always seemed to be right on the forefront of what was artistic. When Alexander Calder was making Mobiles and Staybiles in the early '60's she was making great and glorious creations that could have hung in any art gallery anywhere in the world. One of her biggest and most glorious she gave to her friend because we were moving and this particular piece was not going to survive a move. I imagine that she simply gave away the rest over time. She was an amazing sculptress. She did sculptures of me throughout my life. When a friend of hers took an interest in her sculptures of me she started doing sculptures of  all the neighborhoods kids. She did her friends kids for free the rest she charged the paltry sum of $100.00. I could fill a full page describing her work. She held an estate sale before I could arrive to collect those thing that I might have wanted of hers. I her defense it was my fault. She did inform me well in advance of the sale but I 'chose' to push it out of my thoughts much like you might push back getting a book report done until the last minute.] Unless it is of any use at some future time like tools I have gotten rid of most of it. I do still hold onto some of my Mothers china service ware but those dishes I keep in the nick of case that in the very unlikely event that I entertain a guest I will have some nice service pieces to use.

    As long as we are talking about inheritance what about your bodily remains? I come to believe that embalming and subsequent interment into the ground with a big-deal coffin is a waste on a number of levels. First, the embalming process uses pretty horrible chemicals. Second, setting aside huge tracts of land for cemeteries is ridiculous. Cemeteries by definition need to be close by the family of the deceased, so that they will be likely to visit the deceased. If that is what a burial and head stone are for. The costs associated with the embalming, the casket, the plot of land, the actual service involving a mortuary and the guests and all that is involved with that, the headstone or mausoleum, the care and maintenance of the cemetery grounds, the list goes on and on and on. The point here is that the family of friends of the deceased will in some short time cease to visit the interred individual. leaving the entire situation surrounding the burial completely Mute. A complete and total waste of time money effort and resource.

    The idea of a 'Service is great. Gather the friends and relatives together physically or now on Zoom or other technologically wizy way, to commiserate their collective loss or celibate the deceased's life, or in the event the deceased was a total fuck celebrate the fact that the total fuck is Gone, finally. 

    The notion of  'Leaving your body to science' is an interesting idea. I don't know much about that. I rather doubt that my body would be of any great interest or import to any scientific community or endeavor. Perhaps as a cadaver for med-students to carve up but beyond that nothing but a sad of beat down white guy living out is days, just waiting for the sweet warm breath of death on my neck.

    My father chose to be cremated. This is my current choice of ways to be dealt with after. He said to me "You will know that you have the right cremains if there are three Titanium screws that will be from my knee." Sure enough there were Tremendously large titanium screws given to me after. He was interred at the Rose Cranes National Cemetery in San Diego. As a retired Marine Corps Captain he was afforded a full Military service complete with Bugle Player and 21 Gun Salute. I don't recall much from that day other than these facts. I was accompanied by a close friend Lynn and my daughter. My mother was there as was my cousin Nicolas were also in attendance. I don't recall who read out his eulogy. I do recall that I was mentioned in his eulogy in relation to the idea that now perhaps I would be able to step out from behind his shadow. To be sure he did in fact cast a tremendous shadow, being a True big-deal war hero with Purple Hearts, many Medals and Ribbons and was subsequently successful business man. I dont know much about what was going in  in  his mind PTSD wise. He lived through some of the most harrowing war experiences. Experiences that are largely Unknown to all. As with many fathers like that I was never able to live up to his legacy or his dreams for me. I certainly do wish that I could have. He was, in retrospect a great man and, I, on the other hand,... suck.

    I hope it but I doubt it.

Society - Government - Senate hearings

    I have always, for whatever damn stupid reason, thought that if you are called before a Senate sub-commodity Hearing you were some how under what I assumed was a "Double Super Secret Oath" or something. Meaning that if you purger yourself there, and were found out, your prison term would somehow be double, triple or fourple the usual "So help me God" oath taking in regular court. Like speeding in a road construction zone. I guess I thought that because if you are called in front of a Senate Sub-committee and were lying you were burning a METRIC-SHIT-TON of Tax Payer money moment by moment with every syllable and every consonant and every utterance $10,000.00 every millisecond spent lying. And lest we forget, WE are those Tax Payers. I thought that the stakes were Much higher there. It seems that I was / am so So SO very wrong. This woman tap-dances for such a protracted length of time that I cant even imagine how much money was Burned. She could certainly teach Gegory Hines a lesson. Everybody in that room is being paid with Tax Dollars. All the Senators, their aids, the staffers, the everybody. She and everybody that stonewalls a Senate hearing, a Congressional hearing, any of those hearings should be made to pay for the time wasted. Senator Josh Hawley is famous for discovering this sort of shit. This is truly your Tax Dollars at 'work'. The head of Homeland security a mr. Mayorkas is an amazing example of this extreme time wasting stonewalling strategy. How many HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of our tax dollars has he, him personally, just in the Senate hearings alone BURNED? And that is just him in a singular senate hearing. How much waste is there when he is not evading [not answering] Senator Hawley's questions? How much is he paid to Not secure the boarder or to Not deal with illegal immigrant criminals. I love watching these Senate hearing lead by Senator Cruz and Kennedy and Hawley. Its like watching a plane crash or a train wreck or a plane loaded with yellow cake uranium crashing into a train hauling unprotected plutonium. People are dying, people are burning, its Terrible, its Horrific, its Ghastly, its Horrendous but is business as usual on 'The Hill' I have come to understand. How is it possible that there are abso-fucking-lutley no ramifications for is lying under oath in front of a Senator, several of them. He is proven guilty beyond all reasonable doubt over and over and yet he walks free. If you or I ever even attempted such bullshit in Traffic court for something as pedestrian as J-walking we would absolutely do some jail time and not a simple 30 or 60 or 90 days. Contempt of court I think is what the charge would be. And you can bet your bottom Tax Dollar you would get a SOUND Screaming dressing down by the Judge. mr. mayorkas, Nothing. He shows up Tap Dances for an hour or so then back to work burning Tax Dollars at the Head of the office of Home Land Security. But given his total lack of ability to answer reasonable questions about his work under oath it makes me wonder what his duties truly are, other than his demonstrated lying and tax money burning skills.

    This sort of thing would likely wind up on  your 'Permanent Record'. Like that matters anymore. I don't understand how this mr. mayorkas ever expects to hold any type of government job or public sector job beyond dishwasher and even then...

    Everybody bitches about the cost of the US Military. The Military budget can nothing compared to the Tax Dollar Super-Massive-Black Hole sucking process that is the Senate and Congress and every single meeting and gathering and conclave and confab and convention and conference and and and... Nothing. Every member of the all the Armed Forces could get a Huge salary bump if they just fired this weaselly little dip-shit. We as a nation wouldn't loose anything at all. He does nothing discernible that I can tell, of course other than his demonstrated ability to lie under oath. I imagine that he burns more money than ever branch of every Armed Forces under the Military umbrella, even the Black Ops stuff by himself.

    I hope that Mr. Elon Musk can change this abhorrent behavior. Seeing as he is now heading up some sort of committee regarding Government Efficiency. That is an oxymoron if ever there was one. We shall see if Mr. Musk can 'engineer' his way through the 300 year old swamp that is 'The Hill' I hope it but I doubt it. Maybe he can strap the whole shootin' match to one of his heavy lifting rockets and send that to Mars. As a test flight you see. And maybe this is one rocket launch that I can hope will explode 73 seconds after launch.