wyldreams’ Neighborhood

Again, I find myself stunned, amazed, perplexed and frustrated. This time the subject of my observations is the U.S. Government's bailout funding of financial companies that have been hit hard by the mortgage meltdown.

I mean, I'm hearing stories left and right about what these bailed out companies are doing with the money they're being handed ---- executive junkets, hiring lobbyists to petition the Govt for MORE money, CEOs renovating their offices with $86,000 rugs etc etc. There is no accountability at all for what these buggers are spending our (the US taxpayer's) hard-earned money.

Even for a dumb-arse like me, I can't see how ANY of the House Representatives and Senators can stand to hear about this and not get really riled up and pissed off at the whole situation. It's all very well for Obama to say that we all need to exercise personal responsibility for our own finances but for Gawd's sake, you can't just throw money at these companies and not appoint some kind of watchdog to act on behalf of, and in the best interests of, the citizens of this country who are ultimately funding all this.

There should have been a detailed report supplied by these banks and other institutions stating what funding they need, exactly how it was being spent (with EVERY dollar accounted for), how the Government would be repaid (for example, if the Govt gave a cash injection to these companies in exchange for newly issued shares, were there any clauses or provisions made to divert a set percentage ---eg 25% --- of future profits into buying back those shares from the Govt until the company had purchased back all of the shares?).

Ughhh... gets me riled up ...... I'm going to try and get some sleep and post more tomorrow evening.... nite all.

Mike 

Well, here I am some five months or so into using that new software package that I ranted about in my last blog. It's still VERY mind-boggling how complex some basic transactions can be, but we're all moving forward with accepting that it's here to stay.

...retarded. Oblivious to plain old common sense.

"Why?", you might be asking.

Well, poor old me is currently being trained (this word bandied about somewhat loosely) on how to use my employer's new inventory software. It goes by the merry name of S.A.P. and it was designed by a team of German knuckleheads back in the 70's initially, and now "progress" has made it the beast it is today.

I can see from my employer's point of view that the FIFO concept of stock rotation can easily cost hundreds of thousands or even millions annually as medical components reach their expiration dates and need to be destroyed, so thta of course means that everything that comes into our warehouses needs to be tracked by when they arrived. Once that is made traceable, you could more easily control the sequence of the shipping of the outgoing components.

But this comes at a price ----- which in itself is to be expected. Logic tells you that just tracking inventory levels (1000 ea in, 200 out, 300 out, 500 in) is simply a numbers game. Ins and outs, pluses and minuses. So it was expected naturally that there would be more to tracking inventory by receipt date. Stands to reason. But what these Germans have come up with is ..... is ...... jeez ...... where do you start? I mean, who in their right mind could have come up with a concept of one transaction code screen in which the specifying of one component can take a few minutes of searching for cost centre codes, product group codes, batch number(s), etc etc etc just to adjust out one lonely box? Oh, and after you've found and entered all THAT information, you need to complete the transfer requisition form in order to create the transfer order that needs to be confirmed and posted so that you really do have a headache after moving one empty shipping box. Then we have to try to comprehend all those steps multiplied by ten to twenty of those daily, followed by dozens and dozens and dozens of "regular" transactions which all follow similar paths in order to execute the moves correctly.

I think I am quite justified in requesting that we go back to war with Germany, simply to inflict some kind of similar torture back on them. Bloody wankers ......

This is just one tiny little observation of one tiny little aspect of the human mind, and the mind does intrigue me. This one in particular involves relationships, and how deeply we're each willing to put ourselves INTO a relationship (emotionally, mentally, intellectually to be specific).

How "attached" we're going to let ourselves get to our partner(s). How vulnerable we're going to let ourselves be. How much "in love" are we going to allow ourselves. How much committment are we willing to display and share.

My lovely wife and I were chatting the other day about this because of a situation at my work involving a co-worker. His "mentality" about being in a relationship purely revolves around one good aspect and everything else is just a hassle and a pain in the arse. The only good thing that can come out of being with another person is sex. Everything else, and I mean EVERYTHING else is just crap. The arguing, the expenses, the sharing of possessions (apartments, phones, car keys, toilet, you name it) is just not worth the hassle.

His mentality about women is that you get to treat them like shit, and if they "put out", you'll put up with them in your life. Absolutely no committment required. No long term plans. No promises of loving them, now or forever. And the girls still put up with it. I have three guys, yes THREE guys, that I work with, who all appear to treat the women in their personal lives like crap, and still the women put up with it and accept it. Don't they have any self esteem at all????? I don't get it, at all.

So I start to analyze them .... what is common between them, and what's different about them, and yet what still makes them all the same when it comes to relationships and the opposite sex? What's in common? They're all three heterosexual males, who work in close proximity to me. Outlook on life : "Hey, if they want to hang out with me, more power to them but they better not expect to change me." They are who they are -- don't change them. Oh, and arguing --- they all seem to argue a lot with their current partners. That's about it. What's different about them? Age, first of all (just turned 22, almost 30, soon to be 45). Marital experience (never married, never married, twice married --- six months and 10 yrs). Kids (none, none, two boys). It really seems to me that these three guys could VERY happily never walk down the aisle (again, in the case of the last guy) and extremely happily enjoy the rest of their lives being confirmed bachelors. If they find girls who put up with them, put out, and don't want that "marriage" committment thing, then they are as good as gold. No harm, no foul. The girls know the deal going into it. 

Then I start to analyze me. Why am I so different to them? Why am I so deeply in love? Why do I happily throw myself onto the "committment" bus? (Or under that bus.....LOL). What intellectual hard-wiring do I possess that the others are totally devoid of? What influences have I had that make me commit 110% to a relationship? Why do I crave being "with" someone instead of living a bachelor's life like my co-workers do?

Maybe it was from my stable family upbringing? Mum and Dad were married for about 26 years or so before Mum passed away, so all through my life up until I was 23, I had this wonderful role model of a father who truly deeply loved his wife and gave 110% of himself to care for and provide for all of us, especially Mum. Not having enquired TOO much about the other guys' lives, I do know that one of the three has parents who are still married (happily??) after 35 years. Don't know about the other two. So possibly, the length of your parent's marriage doesn't seem to have any effect on your willingness to marry and "settle down".

I know my wife's late husband had led a bachelor's life up until he finally broke down and proposed to her. He was 52 years old, I think, when he finally said his "I do's" for the first time. Career moves, job opportunities, being a workaholic --- whatever it was, he never found the time or place to actually pause and get married until quite late in his life. Of course, she has her own theory that he might have known the end of his life was coming up soon and that simply for convenience to himself, he married her so he wouldn't die "alone".

So all around me I have examples of guys who have really resisted the urge for marriage /committment that I feel flows so freely through me. Once I latch onto someone, it really is "until death do us part" I guess. Poor Pam. Stuck with me....... I truly hope she wouldn't have it any other way. I am what I am. Don't change me. Hey, there's another similarity between me and the other guys.

Fascinating stuff, I think. To me anyway. The looks I get from them when I try to explain how wonderful it is to be in love, and the looks I give them when they try to tell me how great their bachelor lives are, are probably one and the same ..... confused but PRICELESS.

Cheers for now,

Mike

"A.A.A.D.D." - Age Activated Attention Deficit Disorder

Subject: FW: They have finally arrived at a diagnosis for my condition. Hooray!! I was recently diagnosed with "A.A.A.D.D." - Age Activated Attention Deficit Disorder.

This is how it goes: I decide to wash the car; I start toward the garage and notice the mail on the table. OK, I'm going to wash the car. But first I'm going to go through the mail. I lay the car keys down on the desk, discard the junk mail and I notice the trash can is full. OK, I'll just put the bills on my desk and take the trash can out, but since I'm going to be near the mailbox anyway, I'll pay these few bills first. Now, where is my checkbook? Oops, there's only one check left. My extra checks are in my desk. Oh, there's the coke I was drinking. I'm going to look for those checks. But first I need to put my coke further away from the computer, or maybe I'll pop it into the fridge to keep it cold for a while. I head towards the kitchen and my flowers catch my eye. They need some water. I set the coke on the counter and uh oh! There are my glasses. I was looking for them all morning! I'd better put them away first. I fill a container with water and head for the flowerpots - -

Aaaaaagh! Someone left the TV remote in the kitchen. We will never think to look in the kitchen tonight when we want to watch television, so I'd better put it back in the family room where it belongs. I splash some water into the pots and onto the floor, I throw the remote onto a soft cushion on the sofa and I head back down the hall trying to figure out what it was I was going to do? End of Day: The car isn't washed, the bills are unpaid, the coke is sitting on the kitchen counter, the flowers are half watered, the checkbook still only has one check in it and I can't seem to find my car keys! When I try to figure out how come nothing got done today, I'm baffled because I KNOW I WAS BUSY ALL DAY LONG!!! I realize this is a serious condition and I WILL get help, but FIRST I think I'll check my e-mail...

Please send this to everyone you know because I DON'T REMEMBER WHO I'VE SENT THIS TO!!! But don't send it back to me or I might send it to you again!

*Stolen/borrowed from "www.bouldertherapist.com" -- not too sure if this is a therapist from Boulder, or a rapist known as Boulder ("Boulder The Rapist")??!! LOL

Mike

I got my feet wet on my CB900R ("Big Red" since it was, well, big and red, of course), GSX750ESD (the last before the Katana's came out and blew the competition away in roadracing circles down under), and a nifty little Yammy XJ550R. Lil' bro had an XJ600 and my buddies tore up the town on their pocket rockets (Kwaka ZR-1, Yammy RD400, GSX1100R etc).I also did a little road racing both on the GSX and a homebuilt Formula Two racer powered by a Yammy YZ490 single cylinder two-stroker. Ugghh.

I had to chuckle when I found this little write-up about the YZ490....

(Borrowed from www.motorcycle.com forums -- I promise I'll put it back when I'm done): The Yamaha YZ490

OMG, this brought back some memories for me .....

The first car that I actually got to drive on the streets of Rotorua was our old "Gerty" which was a Hillman Imp. According to Wikipedia.com, this beast was.. "a compact, rear-engined saloon car powered by a throbbing 874cc 4-cylinder all-aluminium powerplant".

Well ...... OK ...... that "throbbing" thing was mine, not Wikipedia's. LOL.

Dad would let me drive the thing home after work when I was 14 years old, under the guise of "practicing for my license". This was when the moment you turned 15, you could get a provisional driver's license and after six months of that, you had your full license. So I'd bat my eyelids at him when it was time to go home and he'd roll his eyes and smile and throw me the bloody keys and my heart would jump 'cause I go to DRIVE home. Wooohooo !!!!! LOL.

Of course, this was our family's #2 car, just for chugging around town, going to work etc. As far as my first car that I owned, my memory bank kind of rolls these together as "my first cars" ..... a 1970 Ford Cortina station wagon, a 1969 Chrysler Charger with retro-fitted LPG power, and MY own "Gerty" which was an EXTREMELY clapped out Thames van that I hauled my Formula II racebike around in.

Be warned : photos follow. Not for the faint of heart ......

Gawd knows that Pam is gonna FLIP OUT and probably pee herself laughing imagining me trundling around town and the North Island in these POS's ..... oh well, she's SOOOOOOOOO gorgeous when she laughs, even if it's at my expense. If truth be told, it's my preference that way. :-)

Cheers, take care, Wallace out.

First off, WTH does "meme" mean? I mean, really.... even start off by helping me figure out how to say it. That might clue me in a bit more. Is it like "meem", or more like one of those "Who's next?" questions and someone sticks their hand up in the air and yells out "Me! Me!"???

Anyway, I guess I'll answer as the latter one .... so here are my answers about me me ....LOL :

1. Name 5 things I was I doing 10 years ago

Let's see ... 1998, a year after Gail and I arrived in the US .... taking a load of bulk mail every day in my beaner Chevy Corsica car to the main Dallas Post Office, waiting for hours to get served so they would review and ultimately accept the mailings; looking forward to and planning the next vacation drive (I've driven to and through I think 38 states of the 48 contiguous, just missing all those ones north-most, especially northeast) dodging Border Patrol checkpoints wherever possible; waiting for Gail's health to improve from her special shots so we could go back home and return to life as normal (whilst still enjoying our little US-based hiatus); definitely no socializing; definitely nothing exciting.

2. Things on today's "to do" list

Stop blogging and get onto Priceline.com and see if we can get a nice-ish hotel in San Diego just for tonight; email the other Townhouse Owners Association board members and BS to them about some funeral that we have to attend tomorrow so we can't make it to the pool party at 2pm (shame on me LOL); judging by the gurgling and bubbling happening in my lower abdomen, I have to ...... well, you can imagine the rest; reminisce about the FANTASTIC full-body massage I gave my BEAUTIFUL and EVER SO SEXY wife last night *winky wink*; cook this incredible woman her favourite weekend breakfast (a couple of over-easy eggs sitting on a bed of shredded hash browns and some crispy bacon)

3. Snacks I enjoy

Salt water taffy (but they do give me "gas", I think); oh jeez, who the hell am I trying to kid here??? Just "food" in general. WTH is a snack anyway? Anyone who has seen me eat knows my "portion control" shortcomings and there is no such thing as a snack around me .... everything is good ole MEAL size servings (if not more!!!)

4. Five places I have lived

Rotorua (New Zealand), Nerang and Ashmore (Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia), Dallas (Texas), and Yuma (Arizona)

5. Things I would do if I were a billionaire

As I mentioned the other night to my spouse DURING "SURVIVOR" (LOL, yeah, hint taken), this was brought up ... mmm.... we'd buy a roadside hotel with a large paddock adjoining so guests could let their pets roam around, sniff, poop, pee, play etc. Ooohhh, take my beloved spouse on an incredible self-guided tour of New Zealand and Australia, and then follow that up with a leisurely tour of the US (I'm still stunned how little of the country many Americans I've met have actually seen).

6. Five bad habits I have

Continually stress about money; even though I am sooooooooooooo much better now than I have ever been in my life, I'll have to include fingernail biting; ummm, errrrr..... "exhausting phlegm from my nasal cavities whilst showering"; allegedly horrendous snoring (What???? I don't hear it. I sleep right through it!!); spending money faster than we can make it (who doesn't suffer from that one???)

Now, aren't you skeered you asked????????? Gotta go take care of one of the things on my "to do" list now. And I'll promise to wipe up real good...... with that pleasant thought, I'll bid you all "adieu". :-)

I woke up yesterday morning at around my usual time (5am to 5:45am) and turned on the telly to channel surf, see what's on. Given that it was a weekend morning and there wasn't the usual countdown until I had to be leaving for work, I indulged myself in surfing the HighDef channels and settled on my pet fave, Discovery TV. The program that caught my eye was called "Future Car" and was highlighting some of the designs and technology that are being developed around the world by individuals who want to push the envelope of how we get around and imagine what the future might hold for us.

One of the featured cars / inventions involved a French guy and his Dad who jointly designed a small combustion engine that runs on air. Air that we breathe. How freakin' AMAZING is that???????

"Now how can plain ol' everyday air power an engine?", you may be asking.

To answer this you have to understand how a petrol-burning engine works ... those four strokes that the whole Western civilization has come to rely upon so heavily for our personal transportation needs. Basically it involves a piston in a cylinder, some intake valves to allow the fresh mixture IN and some exhaust valves to let the burnt gases OUT.

Stroke #1 : Piston travels downwards, intake valves open to fill the expanding chamber with the air/gas mixture. Stroke #2, intake valves have closed and sealed, the piston travels up compressing the atomized mixture into a fraction of the space it just occupied. Stroke #3, the spark plug ignites this highly compressed mixture, forcing the piston down again (aka the "power" stroke), and Stroke #4 is the burnt gases are pushed out of the chamber as the exhaust valves open and the piston travels up again. Then it happens all over again. The moment stroke #4 finishes, it's straight back into stroke #1 again.

These cycles -- these four strokes -- happen in the blink of an eye, hidden out of sight deep inside our engine compartment. All we usually get to see happen is that we need to fill the petrol tank every week or two depending on our consumption, and the smell of exhaust gases coming out of the tailpipe. Multiply these exhaust gases by the hundreds of thousands and you get the lovely smog and filthy air that the folks living in the big cities get to enjoy looking at during their commutes.

So, how can an engine run on air --- plain old air --- without any kind of accelerant like gasoline? Well, instead of BURNING a crude-oil based mixture, this "air car" uses compressed air to push that piston down. Three large compressed air cylinders mounted under the car store the compressed air, and the air is metered out to the engine. How does 200 miles between tank fills sound? How does a top speed of 60mph sound? How does $2 or $3 for refilling sound?

I would LOVE to see these cars here in the US. I'd love to see one (or two) of these in our garage. Sure, you'd have to keep a "regular" car for those longer trips, but for just putting around town running errands, shopping, to and from work, the usual stuff --- why the hell not? Sure, it looks pretty dorky (do a web search for "air car" or "compressed air technology car" and you'll see what I mean) but with a few design changes making it sleeker and more visually appealing.

But I'm not holding my breath on seeing these cars on our shores. Why? If you can say "Big Oil" and "Government pockets" in the same sentence, you know why. How can Big Oil allow our dependancy on crude oil to be reduced? They can't, and they won't. How can the government find a way to tax air. More than likely, they can't. How can you change a "machine" like how Big Oil and the Government operate together into doing something that will not be beneficial for either of them? You can't and you won't. Big Oil needs our money so they can keep rolling in their profits. Government needs our tax money so they can keep funding the War, their special projects etc etc. There is no way that we can get around the problem. The EASIEST of the two would be Government, I think. Under a "going green" banner, any politician could adopt this embracing of alternative fuel technologies, make it easier for manufacturers to produce these low-to-zero emissions cars, make it easier for the people to use these vehicles.

There is soooooooooooooooo much that could be done but everything seems to happen at a snail's pace, if at all. 

I love technology. I love thinking of what the future holds for us all. I want the widespread acceptance and utilization of alternative fuel sources to be a reality in our near future. Snail's pace everywhere is all I see. The odd wind farm here and there. Solar panels popping up here and there. Hybrid cars sporadically peppering the roads. Whether it's compressed air, electric, hydrogen, water, solar or whatever, I love thinking about these technologies being produced and used within my lifetime. The sooner the better, I reckon. It's so maddening to me thinking about how long the politicians can drag out this regulatory stuff to make sure that we're as reliant on crude-oil consumption as we can possibly be, and yet still be appeasing the "greenies" that they DO in fact care about the environment and that they DO want us to become less oil-dependant. Hah. What a crock of shit. It's always about the bucks. That's the bottom line.

OK, enough venting for now. Ciao. 

Sometimes I fell like such a freakin' heel. You know? A loser. A putz.

Last night at our anniversary dinner, we had ordered our wine and our appetizers and then Pammy looked at me with those bloody gorgeous eyes she has, she reached down into her purse and handed me ......... an envelope. With a card inside. A beautiful anniversary card, with bloody beautiful words inside, both preprinted and from Pam.

Now to MOST guys who have a freakin' clue, THIS would have been the perfect time to reach into your jacket pocket or trouser pocket and present your lovely lady with your own card to her, with even more appropriate and loving words from your heart to hers.

But noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. Did I think about getting an anniversary card for Pam? No, not really. I mean, yeah, it did cross my mind earlier in the week, but I figured that Valentines Day is two days before our anniversary so I just kinda "rolled" the two events together .... the not-very-romantic-but-very-useful-and-practical body form (for dressmaking) was something Pam has wanted for a while apparently (unbeknownst to me), and I got a nice card and some goodies for her for Valentines night, and I knew we'd be celebrating our anniversary on the Saturday night by having a nice dinner. Jeez I feel like such a putz. (Yeah, even a Kiwi learns words like "putz" ----- mainly from old reruns of Happy Days etc). A heel. A jackass (or "jackarse" if you want to spell it the way I talk). A loser.

So it really put a damper on dinner for me for a while. Pam tried to make me feel better by telling me that because she hadn't bought ME a present (like I'd bought her the body form), that the least she could do was to get me a card. Well, she'd already bought me a V-Day card, and that was all she needed to do.

I know that in the big picture, it's not a big deal. I'll get it right NEXT time. Learn from your mistakes and all that stuff. But the smarter people in the world learn from OTHER people's mistakes. I simply have to learn that even though they're just two days apart, V-Day and A-Day are two distinctly separate events and that they shouldn't just be "rolled together". Lesson learned. Next year's blog entry for Feb 17th will be sooooooooo much better.

Laterrrrrrrrrr.