Category Politics

For the second day in a row I left work early.  This time it was to help Chris with timing a county championship track meet.  I had been to a couple other meets to get some familiarity with the hardware and software used for the meets.  This was the first time I was being counted on to be there for the entire meet.

My primary role was to work the computer used to import times for track events into the scoring software.  I also manually entered all of the field results into the meet software as well.  This can be rather tedious when you have to figure out tie breakers when kids finish with the same height or distance.  Chris was primarily working the system that runs the finish line camera, the job that carries more responsibility.

The flow of stress in timing a track meet is definitively different than what I encountered in roughly 8 years of chip timing road races.  In a chip event there is a lot more pre-race work that needs to be completed ahead of time.  On race day once runners start crossing the finish line and times are posting correctly you are just hitting a couple buttons on a regular basis but for the most part things are on cruise control, unless a problem arises.

With a track meet you constantly have your hands on the sticks, timing is very much a manual process.  When the finish image processes you are manually placing a line on the chest of each finisher and making sure that line is associated with the correct lane.  You also need to be able to quickly determine DNS (did not start) lanes when kids don’t run for whatever reason which happens often.

The distance events get really stressful since they all finish in one lane.  As kids came in I was trying to write down their assigned number in finishing position.  Sometimes they were bunched so tight it was too hard to tell and in some cases the hip bib number the kids were wearing either fell off or was folded over and not clearly visible.  In those cases you need to be able to identify kids by uniform from the image.  Chris has been involved with high school running for years and knows the uniforms like the back of his hand.  If I was doing it solo I would have struggled a lot more.

During the prelims I ran the camera system for a few heats and did ok with it.  I have a decent general understanding of how the stuff works but there is still a ton of stuff I am clueless about like meet logistics, various rules, and just how things are supposed to interact and flow.  Despite my being new to the scene we did well time-wise, finishing the meet sooner than expected.  However finishing “early” meant around 9PM which still meant I put in close to 7 hours.  Although it is interesting learning how camera based timing works, when I factor in what the school pays for track timing I don’t think it is going to be something I will be doing long term.  My free time is more valuable to me at this point in my life.

Yesterday I contacted our local Toyota dealership, hoping they would be helpful in finding a Tacoma with the specs I am looking for. I was hesitant to even involve them since they have a reputation for having poor inventory and big fat addendum stickers. I supplied a sales guy with the VIN number I found on the Toyota web site of a truck very close to my specs that was supposed to be available at the end of April.  When he called me he said could not find that VIN in his inventory system. He said it could just be “something weird”.  Uh ok.

So I again tell the guy what I am looking for.  He said he would talk to his sales manager and call me back.  He does call back as promised but tells me that his manager said he didn’t have anything available with those specs for a couple months and if they get it, it will have “premium pricing”.  I asked what that meant.  He said $5000 mark up.  I laughed out loud and asked him if he was serious? I told him there was no way that was something I would go for.  He said he had no input with pricing and was just letting me know what his manager said.

I told him it sounded like they weren’t very interested in selling me a vehicle.  I told him I guess I would just contact other Toyota dealerships and see if they were more interested in doing some legwork for me.  It was a real turn off.  It was like if I didn’t have an easy sale to throw on their lap on an in stock vehicle they didn’t want to be bothered.  Oh well, fck them.

I saw last night the good news that Bernie won Wisconsin, his 6th consecutive primary win.  Even though his win streak has been putting cracks into the Hilary battleship, the reality is because of the ridiculous super delegate system, Bernie not only has to win states but he has to win them by large margins.  His refusal to participate in the traditional corrupt campaign finance system means he doesn’t have the huge super delegate ace in his pocket, which seems to be owned by the highest bidder.  So despite his win streak, the reality is Bernie still faces a steep uphill battle.   If he manages to win New York, the state Hilary was a senator for for eight years, a lot of people might start taking notice that maybe Hilary is not necessarily the de facto democratic nominee.

I ran into another roadblock in the potential sale of the SSR, albeit a small one.  Titles in Florida are exclusively the electronic variety when they are issued.  They only get converted to paper when necessary.  Well liens banks put on titles are also electronic.  When a loan is paid off the bank is supposed to notify the DMV so the lien check mark is removed.  Until that happens nothing can happen with the title.

Well evidently when I paid off the SSR loan a few months back my credit union neglected to take this step.  I had to call them yesterday to request to have it removed.  The representative said she cleared the flag but it takes 72 hours to take effect, for some dumb reason.  I went through a similar song and dance when I was trying to finalize the transaction Cindy and I had with the Prius.  So there is no point listing the vehicle as being for sale until you actually have everything in place to allow you to actually sell it.

Last night I watched some of the republican town hall on CNN.  We happened to flip the tv on during Trump’s segment.  The format was not favorable for Donald.  When he doesn’t have others on the stage to hurl insults at you quickly realize he has absolutely nothing substantial to say about anything.  He simply has no specifics about issues and is unable to intelligently expand on any question asked of him.  Instead he just relies on his relatively small collection of 4th grade vocabulary to describe things like, great, the biggest, the worst, the best, terrible, awful, great, great, and great.

Anderson Cooper was relentless in actually holding Donald accountable for what was coming out of his mouth.  The highlight was when Trump was asked about the ridiculous wife mud slinging exchange between Ted Cruz and himself.  Donald’s first statement was “He started it!” which Anderson immediately identified as something a 5 year old would say.  It was pretty epic.

Out of the three remaining republican candidates John Kasich is far and away the most experienced, likeable, and reasonable. This is exactly why he is the underdog.  Too many Americans are impressed by one liners that have nothing substantial behind them other than intentions to anger and divide.

If you had any doubt about how the Eagles management outside of Chip Kelly felt about his personnel moves last year, things should be crystal clear now.  The team is dumping most of the players that the Chipster brought in last year including Demarco Murray, Byron Maxwell, and Kiki Alonso.  All three of these players were large disappointments last year and contributed very little to the team.  Actually Maxwell was a big contributor albeit a negative one, helping the team lose with his nasty habit of getting burned for big plays time and time again. It seems to me like Chip is picking up where he left off in San Francisco with Kapernik publicly declaring he wants nothing to do with the 2016 Chip Kelly flavored 49ers.

Of course the Eagles won’t get much value for dumping these players other than some salary cap relief and some insignificant draft picks but I really don’t care.  I fully support removing the Chip Kelly stains on the team wherever possible.  I certainly wasn’t thrilled with the announcement that the team extended Sam Bradford with a contract that guaranteed around 25 million dollars.

There was not one moment last year where I actually felt impressed by anything Sam Bradford did.  His statistics would back me up since he was around the 25th or 26th rated QB in the league.  Rewarding Bradford for that ho-hum year combined with his glorious history of season ending injuries seems like a poor choice.  I would have been much happier with the front office going for a full sweep of Kelly moves and letting Bradford move on as well.  I already assume the team is going to struggle this year, having Bradford on the roster is going to do nothing to mitigate that situation.

Bernie had another huge win yesterday, winning the Michigan primary, a state he was not so long ago predicted to be losing by 20 points or more.  The national media is doing everything it can to make the masses think that Hilary as the nominee is a foregone conclusion, perhaps to try to let some of the air out of the constantly growing Bernie balloon.  If the democrats didn’t still utilize the moronic “super delegate” system where people whom are literally bought and paid for get to have a significant say in the outcome of the primary, this race would be even tighter.

Last night I finished up restoring full surveillance to the chicken coop and run.  The camera we have installed under the raised platform was offline until I got a new cable to replace the one the mouse chewed through.  The under deck camera immediately proved useful last night where it once again caught the big field mouse trying to figure out how to get to the chicken feeders that we now started hanging high in the air each night.  I have not figured out if the mice are still getting in via a tunnel system.  There are no holes directly around the coop structure so it makes me think they have dug a much deeper, longer tunnel somewhere.  My hope is the longer we keep food out of their nocturnal reach the sooner they will decide to relocate somewhere else.

Today another chapter in the most unusual winter weather I have seen in this area will be written.  This morning it is warm and humid but a summer style storm is predicted to roll through mid-day which will bring in more typical cool winter weather for the next several days.  I hope we can get at least a few weeks of more normal winter conditions before Mother Nature once again cranks up the muggy meter for at least 6 months.

I saw that Donald won the Nevada primary easily yesterday, continuing his momentum towards winning the Republican presidential nomination which seems surreal.  Ironically, although Trump and the guy I am pulling for, Bernie Sanders, have vast differences in their political ideas and personalities they do share a common problem if either becomes the President, Congress.  The ideas and promises that both candidates are throwing out there are things that different portions of the population want to hear and presumably want implemented.  However it seems that a lot of people are forgetting that outside of a relative few circumstances, a President needs the cooperation of Congress to get anything substantial changed or done.

Since Congress is filled with a bunch of lifetime politicians that have been bought and paid for several times over by huge corporate special interest dollars, the odds of anything changing is actually quite small.  The only real path to change is an overhaul of thinking not only in the executive but also the legislative portion of the federal government.  With all of the focus on the presidential race in 2016 the public will likely rubber stamp through the majority of the sitting congress which will ultimately lead to a big pile of nothing in the end.

Campaign finance reform and an implementation of term limits for congress is the first step towards lasting, real political change actually occurring.  Big money doesn’t want that of course so it will never happen. That is the sad reality of our political system and something that is pushed into the background behind all the pomp and circumstance, just like the puppet masters want.

When I got home last night I was surprised to see Cindy with a head full of curls.  I know she was talking about getting a perm but she didn’t tell me she was doing it yesterday.  It looked cute on her and matches her bouncy personality.

Every night we “put the chickens to bed”.  What that means is once it is dark one of us walks out and locks the door to the chicken run.  We then go into the coop and make sure all of the hens are up on the perch.  Quite often Cutie Pie, one of the black hens, will still be on the ground, waiting for us.  She seems to prefer when we pick her up and place her on the perch for some reason.  It’s cute.

Last night I also had to place Stephie, the beautiful arucana on the perch.  Stephie seems to be the general outcast of the flock.  A lot of the other birds pick on her and quite often she is off in the yard by herself somewhere.  Of course Cindy and I feel bad for her and we try to give her special dispensation.  Stephie has learned to follow us when we call her.  Quite often if we give the other hens a treat Stephie will hang back.  Often in those situations we were give her her own individual treat out of the view of the other chickens.  It’s funny how she looks for the special attention now.

Last night was the Iowa caucus.  There was big news on both sides of the ticket.  First Ted Cruz beat Donald Trump, most likely on the backs of the evangelical vote.  A few years ago Rick Santorum won Iowa so if I was Ted I wouldn’t get too excited by the win.

On the democratic side Bernie and Hilary basically tied with something like a couple tenths of a point separating them.  Considering that when the race started, Hilary was looked at as being basically unopposed in her quest for the nomination, for Bernie to tie her in Iowa was a huge turn in momentum.  Make no mistake about it, Bernie has an uphill battle in front of him.  Without massive corporate dollars funding his campaign and the ridiculous practice of “super delegates” that are very heavily financially influenced,  he is going to have overwhelming grass roots support to make it happen.

To be honest I am more excited about the prospect of Bernie being elected than I was about Obama in 2008.  In 08 I think the idea that the country had progressed far enough to actually elect a black president was very exciting.  Although I think Obama has done a decent job in office, I still saw too much of old guard politics in play with the most benefit to those that need it the least.  Obamacare is a perfect example.  By the time lobbyists got done with it, the bill that started out as something aimed at helping the uninsured get coverage became more of a way for insurance companies to get even richer through rewrites of the plan that benefited them much more than the everyday Joe.

Bernie is a no nonsense guy and is really the only candidate that acknowledges and is willing to fight over what is depicted in the graphic to the left.  Feel the Bern.

Last night I did not watch one second of the State of the Union address.  I instead passed the time doing data work for the half marathon and then fell asleep watching a home improvement show on HGTV.   I just had no interest in Obama’s final SOTU speech which is always filled with skewed numbers, partisan clapping, and fluff.  Unless Bernie Sanders somehow manages to beat the odds and take down the Hilary juggernaut for the democratic presidential nomination I really am sort of burned out on divisive, toxic, corrupt American politics that excel at little else than manipulating the majority of the general population while quietly stuffing the pockets of those that own the politicians.

Cindy and I still watch some reality tv shows, one of which is The Biggest Loser.  For some reason some genius decided the show needed to be completely rebranded this season.  They redid the house, the gym and the logo for the show which I guess is fine, although I think the new logo is really unimaginative and dumb.  What wasn’t fine was the loss of Alison Sweeney as the host of the show.  It all seems foreign without her there.  She was such a good source of positive energy, it is really disappointing to see that removed. I have to admit I also found it intriguing seeing how they changed Ali’s outfit, hairstyle and make up for each segment of the show.  I enjoyed discussing what I liked and disliked about her look in each scene with Cindy.

The show has undergone many changes throughout the seasons that mostly involved different trainers and changes to some of the rules.  Some of them were good some were not.  This latest change feels like the biggest yet and my initial feedback is I don’t like it.  Watching obese people both succeed and fail towards their goal of weight loss is interesting tv for sure but certain cast members help define the show.  Ali was one of them.

Last night I somehow managed to land on TLC while I was in bed, they had a compelling yet very disturbing show on, my 600 pound life.  The one and a half episodes I saw each had a 24 year old woman as the feature subject, each well over 600 pounds.  I found each situation a combination of frustrating, disgusting, and tragic.  I simply can not understand why anyone would even want to exist in this condition.

There did seem to be a common thread between these two cases, a HORRIBLE supporting cast around them.  The first woman’s husband who looked like he was right off the set of Deliverance admitted on camera several times that he really doesn’t want her to lose weight as he feared it would mean she wouldn’t need him anymore.  He happily would scoop nothing but horrible food into the cart at the grocery store to feed to his wife.  To me it is just another form of domestic abuse.  It was so pathetic.

The second girl lived at home with her family.  The stories of her mother, who was easily pushing 300 pounds herself, criticizing her daughter for being even heavier were amazingly hypocritical. Mom admitted she exerted no effort in trying to feed her daughter anything resembling a healthy diet growing up.  Even after getting the surgery there were scenes of the daughter around a family dinner table that was loaded down with fried chicken, mac n cheese, cookies, cake and other terrible choices.  Again to me, this family may as well be loading the gun and handing it to the daughter to pull the trigger.  They should be ashamed of themselves, truly.  Pass the mashed potatoes!

Yesterday marked yet another mass shooting in California where so far it seems like a worker went postal on a group of his former fellow employees.  Much like soldiers dying overseas for causes created by the defense industry juggernaut, shootings have been happening regularly enough that each subsequent incident numbs the public just a little further.  Yep for a few days there will be the normal, pointless, social media insults exchanged between the people that think that more guns are the solution to most problems in the world and those that don’t.  I used to mildly participate in these exchanges but realized it was pointless and accomplished nothing.

Do I have any answers to the gun controversy?  Nope, I am realistic enough to realize that any sort of gun control, no matter how logical will go nowhere in the end.  NRA lobbyists are very, very good at what they do and have plenty of money to keep doing it.  Lock your doors, the forecast is for fear.

Yesterday was an abnormally dreary day in SW Florida with gray skies and rain that persisted pretty much all day long.  Sure rain in Florida is very common but it normally comes in brief, intense bursts with plenty of sunshine sandwiching it.

Last night I caught a decent portion of the third republican presidential debate.  What I saw was not all that exciting.  There was less interaction between the candidates, it seemed like more of a Q&A session although some of the Q’s were kind of funny.

I found it entertaining watching Marco Rubio dance around two issues, his worst in the Senate attendance record and his personal financial problems that evidently were bad enough that he liquidated a retirement account, taking a huge penalty for doing so.   He obviously had well rehearsed non-answers for these questions where he skipped the question and redirected into circulatory bullshit that went nowhere.

Carly Fiorina continues to annoy the shit out of me.  I suppose since she is a woman somebody has coached her that butting in and forcing yourself into mic time is a good way to show she is assertive and a leader.  I literally cringe as she speaks.  The woman blinks non-stop.  I dare you to try to count how many times she blinks a minute. I think she comes off as terribly unlikable, something some media outlets would dispute.

Trump, who is all about appearance, needs to work on his.  He looked bad with his hair in a condition worse than normal combined with his very pig-like skin color.  I don’t expect him to be hanging around much longer as his vague, sweeping solutions to issues are starting to look more and more like vaporware. If somebody presses him for detail on an opinion Donald has a hard time answering back with much before he falls back on insults and bragging.  I did like that he called out super PACS for the evil that they are. I also think that despite my disagreement with a lot of his tactics/proposals, Trump actually is coming from a good place and wants to make the country better.  I appreciate a non-politician trying to drive a wedge into the stale and mostly impenetrable practices of American politics.

Mike Huckabee doubled down on his hypocritical war against “diabetes and heart disease”, stating that medicine needs to find a way to “cure” these diseases and in turn it would make health care infinitely more affordable.   The ignorance in this statement is atrocious.  Mike, who is easily 250lbs plus with a waist size surely in the mid 40’s, doesn’t realize the problem is people not being responsible for their health, not the lack of some magic vaccine to prevent obesity.  Get a clue, idiot.

Most of the other candidates had positive and negative moments but I would be hard pressed to identify who “won and lost”.  I drifted off during the closing statements, wishing we didn’t have 12 months of partisan hatred ahead of us.

The other day I was listening to one of the podcasts I listen to and heard one of the hosts describe how a good show host adds “texture” to what they are speaking about.  That adjective stuck with me.  Of course verbally, my texture is normally pretty flat. However I think my ability to apply “texture” while describing everyday thoughts and experiences via the written word is what I bring to the table.

So yesterday I burned up a vacation day in order to help time a local cross country meet.  The guy that helps me at GCR races was renting my Ipico timing equipment to do several county meets, this was the first one so I wanted to be on site to make sure everything went ok.  The meet started at 10AM, rather late considering it is still quite warm this time of year.  I was quite glad I brought my custom GMT shelter to keep the bright sun from beating on me the entire time.

The meet was held in a large, mostly unmowed field in the back of the high school that was next door to the track Cindy and I run at.  It was a small county meet with only 7 teams so I didn’t expect many problems.  Things were going great until the tail end of the girls varsity race where we started hearing THE beep.

The beep was coming from the timing box.  It was the low battery warning, shit.  This made no sense to me since I brought my DC power supply to power the timing box which should give virtually unlimited run time.  I had hooked up the power supply earlier and turned on the timing box.  The box had been up and running probably at least an hour before the race started. I instantly looked at my connections from the power supply and the timing box, they looked fine.  I then look at the on/off switch for the power supply and see it is dark, meaning it is turned off….. son of a bitch.

This meant the box has been draining the battery all this time.  Simply switching on the power supply was not a solution as the supply will hold a battery at it’s current voltage when the box is running, but since the battery was already on life support it would not help. I had no idea just how much time we had until the battery totally conked out.  Luckily it stayed up long enough for the last girl finisher to cross.

Now we had an even larger problem facing us, we still had the boys varsity race to run.  As soon as the last girl crossed the line we turned off the timing box and turned on the power supply, hoping to pump as much juice into the battery as possible.  We left the box off and charging until we were a few minutes away from the first boy crossing.  At first we tried to bring the box up with the power supply connected and it would not initialize correctly because the battery level was still low.  Our only option was to remove the power supply and cross our fingers the Ipico box made it through the race.

A few minutes after restarting the box the low battery beep returned.  Chris and I felt like we were listening to the beep of a bomb detonator counting down. We knew we had 47 boys on the course so each one that crossed was one step closer to success.  Finally the 47th and last finisher came into view as the beeping continued.  He crossed the mats and almost as if it was preordained, the timing box stopped beeping and instead went to the solid “I am now dead” tone.

We had pulled files prior to the death of the box so we only needed to get the last few finishers.  I just needed to get the box alive for a few more seconds to pull the final file. I managed to do so with some technical CPR.  I disconnected both timing mats to make power draw as minimal as possible.  I then turned the box on.  It reinitialized and stayed up long enough for us to pull the final times. Wow, that was exciting.

Now the bottom line was even if the timing box did die I had my security DVR up and running so we could have pieced together the results if we had to via video which would have been painful but possible.  However it was a wake up call as I originally assumed that I could have simply powered the box with the DC power supply, even if the battery was depleted.  That was not the case.

I felt bad for the kids running in the heat.  I saw a ton of them finish and collapse, it was pretty severe.  I didn’t get off site until shortly after noon because of the late start.  In the end everything turned out fine but it sure had a lot more drama than I expected.

Tuesday afternoon I gave the Tacoma a much needed bath.  When I was at the CC meet I realized I was actually embarrassed with how dirty it was. I also washed the SSR a little later after I finished my LED projector install project.

Finishing the LED project was not tough since I already did most of the mounting work over the weekend.  The only thing I needed to do was use better electrical tap connectors so I could utilize the wires for the rear back up lights.  Once I made the electrical connections I put the truck in reverse and saw the LED illuminate.  In the bright sunshine it was tough to see much but if I held my hand up closer to the projector I saw the SSR logo.  Once it got dark outside I went back out to get a real look at the end result which I was very happy with.  I think it looks very sweet having a 2-3 foot SSR logo displayed underneath.  I posted the work to the SSRFanatics forum and got similar approvals with relocating the projector from the normal door location to the rear of the truck.

Last night Cindy and I watched almost all of the democratic debate.  I literally never heard of three of the five candidates on the stage. The guy on the right, who impressed me so little I can’t even recall his name was the weakest of the five by a large margin.  O’Malley, the former Baltimore mayor and Maryland governor seemed to have a decent resume but his mannerisms struck me as odd.  I suspect he may botox his face.

Jim Webb has an impressive military record and positions on some issues that were contrary to most of the other candidates. He seemed clearly to be the least progressive of the five. The two things I took away from his performance was he hates China and he was very pissed off that Anderson Cooper gave much more time and attention to Bernie and Hilary.  I can understand his grumpiness but come on, let’s be realistic, none of those three candidates have a chance in hell of making a dent in the presidential campaign.

So the debate was mostly the Bernie Sanders and Hilary Clinton show.  I honestly do not know how somebody could dislike Bernie Sanders, even if you do not agree with some of his self admittedly socialist positions.  You can tell that Bernie is not like most politicians that are simply regurgitating well rehearsed positions that are based on whatever consultants tell them to say.  Bernie is passionate about his beliefs and is beholden to nobody looking to influence them.  To me he is like a breath of fresh air, especially when compared to Hilary who is a classic politician that just happens to have female genitalia.

I think it would be a truly incredible thing to have somebody like Bernie running things but the reality is his continued ranting against the massive money that rules politics today will likely be his ultimate demise.  Even if somehow he could wake enough people up to get to the voting booth to be elected president, how he would be able to implement significant change in the White House when he would still be tasked with dealing with a congress that is filled with bought and paid for politicians whom ultimately do whatever they are paid (under the table) to do by corporate interests.

I can only hope Bernie continues to fight the good fight, refusing to dip into all too typical political mudslinging where the choice is who is the less dirty of the two candidates.  His steadfast, laser focus on issues, and specifically the four decade long descent into corporate control of the federal government that has resulted in the largest income inequality in nearly 100 years is admirable.  2016 is looking to be the most interesting presidential campaigns of my lifetime.

Our drive into Dallas was long but mostly uneventful.  We got to our hotel about 7PM, now on central time.  While I was in the passenger seat I was trying to remotely restart our chicken coop dvr which became unreachable remotely.  I was in the middle of trying to find a way to do it when we got a call from our chicken sitter who was at the house.  I just had him unplug the dvr for a few seconds and plug it back in which got us back online.

After a day of nothing but driving neither Cindy or I felt like going out to dinner, we had food delivered to the room.  Speaking of the room, it was actually a suite with a full second room and pretty nice accommodations.  It was sort of a bummer when Cindy saw what she said were baby roaches around one of the sinks this morning.  Once she saw that she couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

Last night while we ate dinner we caught a good portion of the republican primary debate which was a big tv event.  Mostly thanks to Donald Trump, there is more interest in the 2016 republican primaries than any other time in my life.  People just love seeing Trump throw his weight around, plain and simple.

I found the debate both entertaining and aggravating.  Let me go candidate by candidate and give you my feedback (if I can remember them all)

I felt bad for Rand Paul as Trump repeatedly mocked his current 1% polling rate as not being worthy of being on the stage.  I do agree with a lot of Rand’s ideas and he probably has a better command of the US Constitution than anyone else on the stage.  I also liked that he is not afraid to still characterize the US decision to throw military contractors a bone with the Iraq war as a major mistake and poor judgement.  Rand’s hair is very odd, it almost looks like a hair piece.

Mike Huckabee is a dipshit with his bullshit religious right agenda.  I thought it was laughable when he made a comment about how we should focus on finding the cures for ailments instead of treating the symptoms.  In the list of ailments he wanted “cures” for was diabetes and heart disease.  I laughed out loud that this man who looked to be very obese wanted a cure for these two diseases that are mostly lifestyle related.  Eat a salad you idiot.

Ah Ted Cruz, I can’t stand that guy even a little bit.  He is as smarmy as it gets even with his neck spilling out over his collar.  Every single word he says annoys me as he is the epitome of a tea party zealot.  He seems like he needed to be spanked more as a child.  He has zero shot of winning.

Marco Rubio, who is famous for dry mouth, came off as a mega-hardliner who wants to nuke the world and do nothing about climate change because China won’t.  His thoughts on immigration were interesting because of his background obviously.

Ben Carson who before the debate was polling at number two behind Trump has no shot either.  He seems like a calm, intelligent, logical man, which is why he has no shot.  He doesn’t have the presence or persona most people are going to want in a political candidate.  The fact that he is black dooms him in the republican party no matter what anyone says in public.

Trump was next and he seemed to be quite hot and bothered, literally.  His face looked flush for most of the debate.  I wasn’t sure if it was from the heat of the lights or if he was embarrassed a few times when other candidates called him to the carpet for a few things that he didn’t have real solid answers for.  I am sure he felt he won the debate.  I think it sort of exposed some of the holes in his plan.

Jeb Bush was next to Trump.  I heard the general consensus was he did better because he fought with Trump more, including asking Trump to apologize to Jeb’s wife for making a remark that Jeb was more sympathetic to illegal immigrants because his wife is Mexican.  Personally Jeb didn’t impress me at all and in fact said one of the dumbest things of the night when the moderator asked all of the candidates which woman they would want to see on the new 10 dollar bill.  His answer was Margaret Thatcher.  What the fck Jeb? It was a true George W moment where you could tell for sure they were related.

Jeb also defended W’s time as president, summing up his countless missteps with “at least he kept us safe”.  Huh? What does that mean exactly?  If the definition of keeping us safe is no more buildings falling down I guess that means Obama has kept safe as well? Who knows, to me it was like when you give somebody a very involved and thought out criticism and their response would be “I know you are but what am I”.  Adios Jeb.

I had never seen Carly Forina speak before and after last night I hope I never do again.  I found it amazing that the press was characterizing her performance as great.  I thought she came off terribly.  I don’t know if it is the gallons of botox she has injected into her face but everything she said came out as robotic and sterile.  You have to be somewhat likable to be the president.  She came off as an ice witch to me who repeatedly tried to log jam in her well rehearsed statements when it wasn’t her turn to talk.  She has as much shot as Michelle Bachman.

Ah I forgot about Scott Walker who was in the middle somewhere.  He is another guy with an image problem.  He has a permanent expression on his face like he is wasted.  As another tea party champion I of course spend most of the time he is talking being annoyed.  He of course has no shot either but maybe him and Ted Cruz can hang out and compare checks the Koch brothers wrote them.

The Ohio governor (Kasik?) seemed like a solid guy with a good track record.  He had some weird appearance issues as well.  He talks with constant duck lips, something I found myself concentrating on.  He is in a similar boat with Rand Paul, on the stage but far in the rear of the pack.

Finally there was big Chris Christie that was trying to throw his weight around, coming off as the big burly guy that doesn’t take any shit.  Despite his record of being more of a moderate republican candidate he seemed to be making a clear effort to come off as much more conservative than his past actions would indicate.  His crowing about enforcing the federal marijuana laws if he takes office is an instant turn off and a very stupid thing to hang your hat on.

I thought a lot of things about the debate were dumb as the moderator threw out many questions designed to solely incite conflict and nothing else.  The question about what woman each candidate would want on the 10 dollar bill was pointless and the following question about what secret service call sign they would want for themselves if they become president was even dumber.

Like I said earlier, I couldn’t believe the debate was 3 hours.  I also was surprised there were commercials.  I never recalled a debate having commercial breaks.  Thanks to Trump these debates have become HUGE money making opportunities for the networks, of course they are cashing in.

I was surprised you heard multiple candidates talking about changing the tax code to either the flat or fair tax model. One model imposes a simple flat income tax that is the same for everyone, no infinitely complex tax code and loop hole system.  The other model replaces the current income tax system with a nationwide tax on consumption.  I think either system is better than what is currently in place.  Every election cycle candidates say they like this plan and it never, ever gains any traction once they enter office.  It is one of those things that will simply never change because big business doesn’t want it to.

So this morning after breakfast we were walking up to the room.  Out of my peripheral vision I saw a person walk in the front doors and the clerk  say something like “hi, how can I help you”.  Then within 10 seconds we heard what was an obvious altercation.  Cindy got a better look than I did, she said the clerk was pushing and kicking the guy out the door.  I heard the clerk say “get the FUCK out of my hotel and don’t come back!”  I didn’t get a good look at the other guy but Cindy said he looked like he may have been a vagrant/hitchhiker type as he had a large backpack strapped on.  I wondered what happened in those couple seconds that made the clerk go from 0-60.  How exciting.

I was first to drive today, getting us into Louisiana.  As I mentioned yesterday, on this trip I have been approached by a number of people looking for help and I have repeatedly done so.  Well to my amazement, it happened AGAIN today.

Cindy was inside using the restroom and grabbing water while I was pumping gas.  An average looking guy in a baseball hat and sunglasses came walking over my way.  He asks me if there was anyway I could give him a gallon of gas.  I was caught a little off guard.  I asked him if he had a container or something to put the gas in.  He said his car was parked over there and it was running on fumes but he had enough to drive it over to the pump.  After seeing Cindy was still inside I told him to bring it over.

After I finished dumping 5 gallons into the Prius I dumped another 5 or 6 gallons into his non-descript brown Chevy Malibu.  As I pumped I talked to the guy a bit, asking him if he was trying to get home or to work.  He said “no man, I don’t know where I am going next”  He said he can’t believe he is an position where he has to ask someone for gas.  He said I looked familiar, I told him I am sure he never met me before as I am from Florida. I told the guy I was on a roadtrip and I have seen a lot of people in need during my travels.    I finished up pumping the gas and wished the guy good luck with whatever came next for him.  He thanked me, shook my hand and then asked me if I happened to have any cigarettes.  I told him I didn’t smoke.

He drove away before Cindy was done inside.  When Cindy came out I told her I had another charity situation pop up.  She at first assumed I gave someone else money.  When I told her I instead pumped 5 or 6 gallons of gas into his car she thought that was a better use of compassion.  It is an odd thing how I must throw off an invisible nice guy aura.

We are going to try extending our drive today as far as possible so we have a relatively short shot into Naples tomorrow.  Both Cindy and I are going a little car crazy at this point, after spending 100+ hours in the car, getting on each others nerves from time to time.  Yesterday I found myself randomly poking Cindy for no good reason, just to be irritating.  We both are just looking forward to getting our asses home and back to normalcy.