And You Thought...

... the cartoon in The New York Post was bad.

Check this out....



This is old news. I know. But when is crap like this ever going to end? Was the owner of the bakery trying to be funny? Some people need to get over the fact that Barack Obama is the duly elected President of The United States.

Here's the thing. This is not a racial issue, but a free speech issue. The bakery owner has a Constitutional right to express whatever views he has, no matter how vile or repulsive those views may be. So long as they do not incite a crowd to violence, panic, or other forms of mass hysteria, he can say what he wants; after all, you can't yell "fire" in a crowded theater and expect to be protected by the 1st Amendment. However, we must vigorously defend his right to expressing his views because I enjoy the same right to call him out on his bullshit on this blog. .

You can protest his establishment by walking a picket line in front his store. Again, it is your free speech right to do so, as long as you do so on public property and do not disrupt the peace. But this tactic accomplishes nothing but provide his business with free publicity by inviting curiosity.

No. Here's what you can do. Shame him by not buying anything from his shop. Moreover, use your free speech rights to tell others in Greenwich Village, in the New York City area, or anyone you know visiting our great city to not patronize this man's establishment. Do your part to run this idiot out of business and out of town on a rail. Money (or the lack thereof) talks. There are dozens of bakeries in Manhattan, the surrounding boroughs, and even the suburbs who will gladly serve your needs without offending you.

Okay. I'm stepping down from my soapbox. Thanks for listening.

Damn Yankees!

Did I mention I'm on a 12-day business trip to Tampa, Florida?

I am.

Please don't be envious. These subsidiary systems audits in warm, sunny climes have a way of wearing down a fella.

So what's an overworked business traveler to do?

How about have his photo taken with two of the greatest ballplayers to don Yankee pinstripes.

What? No way Spartacus!

Yes. Way! Randal and Jimmy.

Now, I know this is not the type of photo a self-respecting Mets fan would sit for, let alone consider taking. But I became slacked jawed at the sight of Ron Guidry and Yogi Berra walking into the same restaurant where I was having dinner with my colleagues.



I mean seriously... passing on the chance to take that picture is like turning down an opportunity to have your picture with this guy...


Or giving up a point-blank chance to chuck your shoes as this guy...


I'll come clean here. I have been and always will be a die-hard Mets fan.


But in the truly lean Mets seasons of 1976-83:

When the Mets' All-Stars could be counted on the fingers of a man with severed hands;

When fans wished Willie Montañez would someday play firstbase with half the skill and heart of John Milner or Ed Kranepool;

When fans marveled at the majestic heights and distances of Dave Kingman's home runs while the team was being blown out by teams like the San Diego Padres;

When diehard fans held onto the delusional notion that the Tom Seaver trade to the Cincinnati Reds on June 15, 1977 for Pat Zachry, Steve Henderson, Doug Flynn, and Dan Norman would be good for the team...

Phew!


I did what any impressionable and vulnerable 14-year old New York City boy would do... root for the New York team that was winning.

Yes, god damn it. I rooted for the fucking Yankees.

My favorite Yankee then was Ron "Louisana Lightning" Guidry. How could you not root for this lanky lefty with the impossible-to-hit slider? This Cy Young Award winner was a master at painting the black of home plate with his fastballs.

He went 25-3 in 1978, winning #25 over the hated Red Sox in the one-game AL East playoff. Who else would you have sent to the mound?

And let's not forget that the great Lawrence Peter "Yogi" Berra. Not only is he arguably the greatest catcher to play the game; not only did appear in 15 All-Star Games, win the MVP 3 times, and win 10 World Series rings as a player, but was also a coach on the 1969 World Series Champion New York Mets, and took them within a game of winning the 1973 crown over the Oakland A's.

No siree.. It was an honor to have my photo taken with these fine gentlemen. They accepted my request with the courtesy and graciousness seldom seen in the sportsworld today. These guys are all class in my book, even if they are damn Yankees.

Hugh Hefner Needs Cash

Could it be that Hugh Hefner's harem is finally crumbling around him? I think so. Not only are his girls leaving him, but it seems that he's losing cash, too. He'll do anything to rebuild his empire, even solicit hormone-enraged, 14-year old boys to buy a subscription.



I told Zeb to save his money when he saw this.

"Nobody buys Playboy anymore," I told him. "The articles are just not as good as they used to be."

My Man Ricky D

Tonight I had one of those Ricky D moments....

I worked a little late tonight to prepare for my two-week audit trip to Tampa.

Yeah, yeah, Spartacus... Like I'm going to believe that one...

I'll just have to bring my camera and post photographic evidence, won't I?

I digress...

When I walked through the door tonight, this little man was just emerging from his shower in his tighty-whiteys, proud as a fucking peacock to show me the huge raspberry on his shoulder.

Ricky D: Check this out Dad (pointing to his shoulder)! I got it playing football at the youth center.

Me: Really. That looks like it hurts. What happened?

Ricky: I made this amazing catch as I was falling to the ground!

Me: Really? That's awesome.

Ricky: Thanks Dad! You know what the best part is though?

Me: No. What?

Ricky: I didn't cry about it at all. I got up and kept playing.

(Please avert your eyes if you're disinclined to reading mushy parent talk.)

After we talked about his battle scars (he had two more on his knees), he put up his boney arms to show me his muscles. Then he pointed to his abdomen and asked me if I could see the six-pack.

C'mon. Admit it. You took a look at his picture and got a chuckle. It's okay. I did, too. But he was being serious. He was really trying hard to prove to me he's a man, and not a little kid.

I know he's my son and I am biased by my unconditional love for him, but I can't help but root for him. If you met him in person, you would know why. He's always been one of the smallest kids in his class and he is very self-conscious about his small stature. He's easily intimidated and gets bullied sometimes. He has ADHD, so thoughts race in his mind alot faster than his ability to communicate them coherently.

But he has heart. He has that hunger; that indefatigable drive to be good at something.

He's still making movies.



And he plays piano.




And now I know that he's willing to run through his walls and endure the sting of nasty welts to be true to himself and be the man he wants to be.

Comet

If it means you
Having a life
Of smiles and dreams fulfilled

If it means you
Regaining the glow
Of a youth unexplored

If it means you
Walking your world
Of wondrous possibilities

I’ll fly away

I am no star

I am but a comet

Brilliant and momentary
A rare occurrence
In a cosmos infinite

Go on and countenance
The warming rays
Of your nearby suns

I’ll travel on shamed
By my appearance
In your evening sky.

How Shit Works - A Wing and a Principle

I still can't write about politics.

At least not now.

The Republicans are still bitching and moaning about pork even after the Democrats mollified them with a tax cut pacifier. I think I'll wait until the Obama Administration gets around to dealing with the rule of law. According to this post that Blue Gal put up a few days ago, I could be waiting a long time.

While I wait, I thought I'd introduce a new and irregular blog feature that helps me evacuate some of the useless information that clogs my brain.

I call it How Shit Works.

Click off now if you're not into techie stuff. While I consider this post very safe for work, I don't want to kill you with boredom.

Today's topic of conversation is flight. Specifically, what makes fixed-wing* aircraft fly.

* - Wings that are not supposed to move.

First, to answer the smart-asses reading this post, the not-so-subtle secret of flight is in the wings.

Well, duh.

While the first powered-flight did not take place until the Wright brothers did it in 1903 at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, the principle upon which came fixed-wing flight is based goes back to the year 1725. That's when Daniel Bernoulli, a young-stud, Dutch mathematician, with way too much time on his hands found that as the speed of a fluid increases, the pressure within the fluid decreases.



Break out your calculators and do the math yourself. Here's the equation:


Where is total pressure, is dynamic pressure, and is static pressure. Makes sense, right?

Okay, it will. Follow me on this. Will ya?



There are several ways in which to demonstrate this effect. One way is to move the fluid through an object with a constriction as illustrated on the left. It does not matter if the fluid is in a liquid state or a gaseous one. The effect is still the same.





What's more is that the same principle applies if an object is moved through the fluid, as in a wing through air. The curve on the upper half of a wing forces the air mass passing over it to move faster than the air beneath it, creating a pressure differential that literally sucks up the wing and all objects attached to it.

It should be noted that Bernoulli showed no interest in building a flying machine. The first practical application of his idea was used in measuring blood pressure in humans.

In the intervening years between the time Bernoulli published his principle and the Wright Brothers famous flight, countless people attempted to build flying machines, most of which were based on the way birds fly.

That's not to say that there were no important advances in flight in those prevailing years. Beginning in 1809, Sir George Cayley of Brompton, England, a wealthy landowner and inventor published three detailed papers explaining how it was folly for humans to try and fly like birds. He opined that in order for a heavier-than-air craft to achieve flight, the thrust and lift mechanisms need to be separate, and that the wings on the aircraft need to be in a fixed position.

This was a huge leap forward, but the idea never really took off until a German engineer named Otto Lilienthal developed a table of lift by curved wings in 1891. He borrowed heavily from Sir Cayley's ideas while experimenting with hand gliders. Sadly, Otto died in a hand-glider accident in 1896.

It was Lilienthal's work that influenced George and Orville Wright's success. What made their flight so special was they were the first to incorporate control surfaces that stabilized their airplane along three axis of movement, known as pitch, roll and yaw. As the illustration below demonstrates, the control surfaces on the horizontal stabilizer (elevators/pitch), the wings (ailerons/roll), and vertical stabilizer (rudder/yaw) help an airplane maintain level flight and allow it to directionally maneuver in flight.

It is the Wrights' discovery that spawned modern aviation.

Captain Chesley Sullenberger knows all about this principle. When his airplane lost thrust shortly after taking off from LaGuardia Airport in New York City, and realized it would not make it to another nearby airport, he turned Flight 1549 South with its ailerons and rudder to align it with the Hudson River. Then, using his elevators, he tilted the nose of the plane downward to increase speed, allowing the wings to do their work. At the last moment, he pitched the nose of the airplane up -- again, with the elevators -- so he can safely splash down onto the river and hydroplane to a stop.



Okay class. That's all for this installment of How Shit Works. Until next time, this is Professor Useless Information signing off.

We're not cool

What makes a cool parent?

I've been pondering this question the last few days because whenever I talk to my friends about our kids -- especially the young, single ones -- I end up talking about all the fun stuff.

"Hey, how are the kids?" begins a typical "cool parent" conversation. "They're great" I say as if I'm auditioning to be the new voice of Tony the Tiger. I chat them up about the concerts our kids go to, the activities they engage in, and how well they're doing in school. All this is true.

"You're such a cool dad, Spartacus!" They say. "I wish my dad had done that for me when I was that age."

Heh. The compliment is accepted, of course, because it's genuine and heartfelt. But would a compliment be paid for saying that sometimes my kids suck, and that they're lazy, self-centered little brats? That would be so inappropriate to the moment, yet sometimes, that's exactly how we feel.

Holy shit. Did Spartacus just say that about his kids? Yeah I did. I don't always mean it, but there are times, when Skippy and I have to come down hard with the hammer; shorten the leash, if you will, and be the autocratic, dictatorial parents we are expected to be. Clearly, Ward and June Cleaver we are not.

From one day to the next, we really don't know how we'll resolve a family problem or dispute. We have our own lives and personal issues to deal with that don't always allow us to successfully referee disputes over who gets to use the family computer first. Sometimes, we let the kids kick the crap out of one another. Sometimes we find them annoying and swear at them when we're really pissed. Sometimes we even slap them on the head. Think of the eyebrows that would get raised if we mention all that in casual conversation. Would someone call Child Protective Services on us? Possibly.

I guess my point in all this is that we're typical parents, raising a very typical family. In this slice of Americana that we occupy, we don't see ourselves as being cool parents, and I don't know anyone who does. We try our best, but don't always get it right. Our kids opinions of us change depending one how nice or mean are to them that day. This is how it really is.

So, no. We're not cool. We're normal. And we wouldn't have it any other way.

Phanysthat... She Thinks This Blog is Fabulous...

Thanks Susan.

I humbly accept.

But getting a a blog award is not like getting TARP money and squandering the cash on things like Christmas bonuses, Super Bowl parties and naming rights to baseball stadiums. No siree Bob. Uh uh.




This award comes with strings attached.

No, not these kind of strings.

But the five you see below. You see, in order to complete this transaction, I have to dish about five addictions:

1. My journals. I write something everyday... and I mean everyday. If it's not here on my blog, then it's in my red, hard-cover journals. This is 25 year I've been keeping a journal. I rarely ever go back and read them. The time that I have made me cringe at either the thought I expressed, the way I expressed it or both.

2. Dunkin Donuts Coffee. Okay. I know caffeine is a drug and, therefore, addictive. I get that. But it tastes so much better than a cup of that over-hyped crap from Starbucks. And not only that, when you ask for a regular coffee (with milk and two sugars), you get a regular cup of fucking coffee and not some queer look from a barrista who keeps asking you if you want a latte. Full disclosure. I became hooked on Cafe Bustello con leche as a kid; essentially a latte.

3. Text messaging. I love it. I know that it's no substitute for human contact, but sometimes phone conversations can be quite annoying, especially when you have to endure a full hour of someone yakking about their bunyon surgery. However, I'm well aware that's not a smart thing to do while driving...

4. Walking. Give me a choice between riding in a cab or walking to a destination a mile away and I'll walk. Give me a warm Spring evening shrouded in fog and I am out there. My fondess for walking was born out of necessity. As a teenager, in order to save money, I'd pass on taking the bus and walk where I needed to go. Over time, walking became a way to release my tensions and attain a quiet respite from a cacaphonous world where I could hear myself think.

5. Books. I'll read just about anything that's bound if it catches my fancy, including the works of the matriarch of all things right-wing, Ayn Rand. There are many writers I admire, not the least of which is Pete Hammil. But over the years, my tastes were forged by such greats as John Milton, William Butler Yeats, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Irving and Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Okay... here are my five recipients

Randal Graves
Okjimm
Pissed in NYC
Mauigirl
Tengrain

Today is B.A.D. ...So Pimp some Blogs

If sense were common, we would not need a Blogroll Amnesty Day now would we?

So which five blogs will I link to this year? I have six actually. Mind you, some are not smaller than mine, but I sure do love reading them.

Well, there my wife Skippy who finally got around to telling her unbelievably true stories from her life as a school secretary. Please take a peek at Skippyland Elementary if you're in need a good laugh now and then.

Next on the list is my pal Alecto. Mother, database guru, gardner, dog owner, Bikram yoga student, and train rider, this denizen of an unnamed Northeastern state writes about it all on her site Alecto's Ophelia. Truly a must read.

Speaking of trains, allow me to introduce my train buddy the Italian Bird Blog. Whether she posts in her native Italian or in English, her plain-spoken style shines through. She doesn't post very often, which is a shame. I wish she would write more. I'll do my part by prodding her on the train ride into town every morning. You guys need to read her stuff and leave comments... deal?

Next on my list is Blondesense Liz. She and I are bandmates in the group currently known as Los Pablos. She is also the matron of the Blondesense blog where she and several other male and female blondes opine sex to politics and everything in between. But the blog of hers I'm pimping is her crafts site, Hearts Delight. I've seen her work in person and it's every bit as good as it looks in the photos. Please take a gander.

Susan of Phantsythat? Please step up to that podium and receive the recognition you're due. Whenever I'm in need of a good story or simply want to marvel at some incredible paintings, I go to her site. I also go there to see what her pal Crow is squawking about. You should, too.

Last, but not least, and the only male blogger in this group is okjimm who writes Okjimm's Eggroll Emporium. Here's a guy who has turned the pleasurable task of beer drinking and doughnut eating into an artform. Mind you, he writes some seriousy stuff, too, and is as well-read as any beer drinker in blogdom. But when it gets right down to it this cat is funny... and get this ladies... he's single.

Update: Holy fucking forgotten blogs. How could I have ever missed my pal Randal Graves's fascinatingly funny and complex L'ennui Mélodieux. I'll give anyone but Randal $5 if they can properly pronounce and translate that blog name. Please link over to his site if you're looking to get the shit kicked out of you in a good way. This man has chops. Trust me.

Finally, because this is all about the linky love, please, please, please check out my blogroll on the right. You'll notice that I now incorporate that Blogger feature that shows the RSS Updates. Believe me, they'll all appreciate the traffic and your comments.


Okay... I've done my pimping. Time to jump into my Caddy and play some pool down on 42nd Street.

Giving The Finger

Okay, Randal... since you asked....

Or is it "since you tagged?"

And since I'm too weak a blogger to not comply with a meme request...

I come forth with the fourth pic in the fourth folder in the following file path on my laptop:

C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\My Documents\My Pictures

The Rules:

1. Go to the 4th folder in your computer where you store your pictures. (I did that)
2. Pick the 4th picture in that folder. (See photo below)
3. Explain the picture. (Can you hold your fucking horses?)
4. Tag 4 people to do the same. (They're all going to hate me, but okay..)


It is my distinct pleasure, dear readers of this most humble of blogs, to give you:

The Finger

No, not this finger....

But this one....


Here's the explanation. I broke it playing touch football about 15 months ago. I was on offense running a 15-yard out pattern. The guy playing defense didn't bite on my move and jumped in front of me to intercept it. So I stuck out my left hand to knock it down. The outcome? Blind searing pain!

But what I learned from this event was not that fingers can't stop footballs. No, the lesson from breaking my finger is that I need to develop a thicker skin for hospital emergency room snark. I posted it about it once. But you can forgo clicking through to that link because after it was all said and done; after the insurance cards were handed over; after sharing the same space with people who were legitimately in need of emergency care; after the x-rays were taken and the treatment dispensed... phew! I walked away with a new sense for the phrase "I hope you feel better."

That's my story and I'm sticking to it. I tag the following folks. And if you don't comply, may the dogs of Hades hunt you down and maul your left pinky!

Distributorcap - because he hates memes
Alecto - because I always tag her
Tengrain - because he's the king of photographic snark
Dianne - because she's got a blog devoted to photography

My Sweet F***ing Noodle

It was a most unexpected sound.

I was driving down the Merritt Parkway in Connecticut with Noodle and one of her "inner-sanctum BFFs, Carr. (Bear in mind that the young lass has many BFFs. At last count, she has 325 BFFs in Facebook, so consider yourself pretty special if she thinks you're i-s worthy.) We were on our way back to Long Island after paying visits to the University of New Haven, Quinnepiac University, and Sacred Heart University, when a typical teenage girl conversation broke out on the subject of boys. Nothing new there. The topic of the conversation was a particular boy at her school who gave the business the other day to Raych, another one of Noodle's i-s BFFs.



Then it happened. From the mouth of my sweet, darling, lovable, can-do-no-wrong, Catholic-schoolgirl daughter came these words:



"He's such a fucking asshole."





Now I don't really mind the cursing, especially while defending the honor of an i-s BFF. I also have a rather well-developed vocabulary when speaking in Foul, so this development is no surprise. Still, the words seemed to shred the last vestiges of the irrational childhood fear I've built up in her for my wrath. Clearly, my little girl is growing up.

Me: C'mon Noodle. Do you have to drop the f-bomb in front of me? Really. Can I have just a smidgen of respect that way?

Noodle: I'm sorry Daddy. It's just sometimes I can't help myself. That boy really was an....

Me: Stop! Don't say it. I've already heard it once.

Noodle: Well, me and Raych are over it.

Me: Really? How did you resolve it.

Noodle: We told him that we hope one day he has two penises shoved up his ass at the same time.

Ewww! Even I was hurting from that one. It serves me right for raising her to be bi-lingual.

It was then that I cranked up the XM to listen to this cool cat to lose the visual of... of... of....

Nevermind! Take it away Jason Mraz.

Make It Mine