Category Archives: social

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Unbelievable that the drum beats for Syria now that Iraq has been checked. I suppose that there was a fixed cost in bringing men and might halfway around the globe. Economics 101: Such cost could be halved if some other mission presented itself. Bad timing to piss off the US government at this particular moment. The military machine is in high gear, on a roll and being that ‘well since we’re here…’ expect that there will be some mop up ops.

Our forces made a big show for media benefit — of a bank heist thwarted. The insides of this building had already been cherry picked, but money remained. Late coming unfortunates, on the floor assuming the position, were caught with the loot. Stacks of Iraqi 3 dollar bills contrasted colorfully against the drab dirty dusty destruction. At first glance you’d think: nice bust! But as pretty as the money was, it would take a wheel barrow full of it to buy even a loaf. The latest black market exchange is 1 USD to .01 and I would assume likely to be discarded in favor of an all new denomination anyway (less the face of S.H.) Nice show though.

Quarterbacking Americans have been complaining that the military was not doing enough in the way of policing. Example: The Baghdad Museum of Culture and Art was a shambles. By contrast, and for some reason (?), the Ministry of Oil was intact AND well guarded! Actually, if you look closely at the pictures of the wasted museum, note that all of the glass table cases were not broken. Covered with thick dust and empty — but plundered? Hardly. The artifacts were removed early on ( for safe keeping ), by the curators. Not all Iraqis are savage desperados… Some of the heavy, awkward items might have slipped away but it’s not like they have vaporized into the ether either. They will reappear on the art market (ebay:-) to be ransomed and restored to their rightful place. Culture is saved / spared for a happier day.

Help Mr. Wizard!

Our teenage advance party leaves their protected suburban enclave for the dark world of DOWNTOWN and promptly becomes lost. Armed with youthful spirit and vague verbal directions they learn that self-reliance means carry a street map. Lucky for them, Momma is not directionally challenged and has mapblast access back at home base. Drizzle, Drazzle, Druzzle, Drome, time for this one to come home! She saves them from uncertain fate (or a wrong turn into the ghetto) and gently brings them out. Thank god I wasn’t paying for the gasoline!

que?

I’m on the phone with my ISP accounts dept. (Pablo’s girlfriend somewhere in the non-english speaking world of south Florida) I’m having to repeat the spelling of my domain name so many times it’s comical. The first iteration was
F C R U N V O D M E which we patiently corrected each letter by letter. S sounded like F, T’s like C’s… She got R, O and E right. All of this served up with a Reeky ReecardO dialect. The easy shot would be to label her as stupid or hard of hearing but it was just a language barrier. I am sure that she is fluent in her first language. I wish I had a second language. She’s smarter than me.

anniversary

This month marks a one year culmination of personal blogs on strombotne.com. I’ve tried to put into words interesting happenings (or tried to make them seem interesting anyway :)) daily highlights inspired by current events or local drama. These blogs offer a perspective of my life flavored by family and others who are near-and-dear to me. I would like to thank my wonderful loved ones, my ISP, my Hosting Service, Allaire CF, Microsoft spell check, members of the academy… Hi Mom!

busted

So I’ve selected the Group 65 DieHard and the clerk has asked me for credit card, which I furnish, and phone number. The phone number is the first field on his check-out screen and I see no valid reason to add mine to his list which gets sold to telemarketers. Most folks give it up and so do I except mine is bogus. (kind of like lying about ones age, eh?) What happened next I didn’t expect because his computer system actually ran a check on the number and reported back in the space of a few seconds that it belongs to a local motel!? It does indeed — the perfect pay-back, because it’s one digit off from mine and sometimes we get their calls. So, I use it without bad feeling on occasion to remain incognito. But now I’m discovered. In my best agent Maxwell Smart voice: “Would you believe it if I told you that I live at the Days Inn? Awww shucks! Just leave that part blank – would ya?

VIVA

Favorite daughter child is enjoying her spring break in one of the seven cities of gold ( Las Vegas ). She and her traveling compadres were undeterred by the threat to homeland and on the eve of conflict braved the airlines and ventured forth. The reward is that they seemingly have the hotel to themselves. It is unknown that this is because:

  1. it’s a weekday
  2. it’s cloudy rainy
  3. there’s a war on soon
  4. their accommodations have a distinct Parisian theme

Anyhow, I’m proud of them for not fearing fear.

faire l’amour

Caution: subtitles. A distraction at first but later you didn’t notice. We watched the foreign language (FRENCH) film (on DVD): AMELIE from Montmartre. (shortened for the USA release otherwise the stupide amercaine would not go to a movie that they could not pronounce 😉 Creative artful cinematography with a romantic storyline. A refreshing change from the vapid gratuitous violence and hatred from Hollywood. Despite their contrary adversarial anti-war stratagem, it gave us the warm and fuzzies for French peoples. You see there is a higher calling then money or politics and that would be art and culture. Oui even learned some French words.

junket

The conference organizer promised that during the noon break a “luncheon would be served”…

The ‘luncheon’ turned out to be a conciliatory box with shrink wrapped sandwich and a piece of fruit inside. Bait and Switch. I ducked out for a proper meal at the Tortilla Factory uptown. What the hey! I’m on an expense account! A true road warrior would be proud. However — when it came to my car rental I blinked. Smertz asked if I wanted to accept/decline the insurance (a 49 percent daily price enhancement). The ultimate test of your expense account vitality is to let THEM refill the tank at $4.99 per gallon.

Now if we can just get them to offer a lunch-box upgrade…

end of year

Whereas yesterday was fraught with minor setbacks, failures and fires to put out, today just “clicked”. The missing suitcase was presumed lost for good but Hooray! American just advised it found ( JFK ). Even the baulky Christmas software, which was ‘this close’ to being reboxed for return, finally loaded on the old windows 95 machine ( would not co-exist with the 3D card on the newer ). The new CD player went into the Bug turn-key and played beautifully. The family summer holiday plan is coming together. We’re on a roll. Let’s keep it goin’.