Little of crashing interest these last few days as I have been working evenings. We are still struggling with the budget defecit for the Arts Council and that still has me worried. I still cannot comprehend why membership has dropped substantially. Obviously, the Arts Council is going to have to do something that will attract a more active member involvement. Since both federal and state funding for the arts has fallen drastically in the past several years money will have to be found elsewhere in order to continue maintaining the old Carnegie Library building and I'm not too sure exactly where that "elsewhere" is at the moment. I simply don't have the time to serve another year as president but I will continue to volunteer my time as I find it in support of the arts council.

Ol' Buddy Setheckel has a nice blog up on greed pointing out both the NHLPA and Wally-World as prime examples and I find I must agree heartily with him. You can find hs great synopsis at: saeanything.com

Work continues on the show - mostly gathering sheet music at the moment though I have a keyboard at home now so should be able to midi in to my sound card and start producing charts for the songs I can't find sheet music for.

The hydaulic clutch on the MG is giving up the ghost... DOT 3 has been running down the clutch pedal onto my new rubber floor mat lately. I ordered a clutch rebuild kit today and should have it Monday before the cold weather hits. Otherwise, I'll have to find some kind of heater for the
garage to continue working there. I still have an unexplained high frequency vibration which is very sporadic - maybe a U-joint? I dunno. I'll check the drive shaft U-joints when I go underneath to finish the clutch and connect the speedo cable.

That's about it for today. Got to get some last minute Christmas shopping done this weekend.

Catching up....

After chastizing Joe for not updating his blog I have managed to go a week without updating my own. Pot and Kettle syndrome I guess. Anyway, it's time to catch up on things. All in all, it's been a pretty productive past seven days.

It looks as if we will have a couple more "Wild Blues Women" for the March show which tickles me no end. All the gals really seem to be enjoying putting this together. Carolyn has agreed to do costuming and has already met with Karen, Amy, Wendy, and Connie. Some characters, plot ideas and so forth are starting to come together. We won't meet again until January 4th so I've got my work cut out between now and then getting more music together - charts! I need charts!! - and getting a rough script ready. I talked to Don Clark in Fowler today and he may be interested in playing guitar for the show! That would be great because it frees me up for a lot of other things. I still have to get a list of other musicians from Patty Ahern to see if we might raise a horn or two....

Saturday, I forced myself to get down to work on the MG. Cleaned out the fuel lines et al. again and finally installed the new coil and cleaned everything south of the battery all the way to the plugs. Turned the key and "Bingo!" it roared to life!! I drove it around a little just to celebrate and, in fact, drove it to work tonight. I'll see now if the headlight adjustment I made helps 'cause the low beams were pretty much focused about 6 feet in front of the car! The turn signals remain somewhat of an enigma. I replaced the switch on the steering column and the flasher unit but only the left signal was working until today. Today I noticed the left one had quit too!
No turn signals at all! How many of you boys and girls remember how to use hand signals? Do they even teach that any more?

Sunday I just kinda vegged a bit and only did a little stuff on the CVB grant and grant summary for the Trail of Fame. I finished all that Monday and early today and then took it down to Andy. One day early too!! He was suitably amazed! New grant application and an actual summary of last year's grant along with a real live budget and budget projection for next year! I wonder how often they get that kind of thoroughness?

That pretty much brings things up to date....

"Let us live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry". - Mark Twain -

What the heck is going on here??!!

So we have elected a president. I had hoped that would be the end of it, but very much like 2001 people who supported the losing side remain polarized with a vehement hatred for the winning side. There seems to be no middle ground for them. Of course, I can afford to examine middle ground issues since my candidate won. Nevertheless, I remain astonded at the attitude of the losing side.

I understand what it is like to have your candidate lose. Been there - done that. I did not like the administrations under Johnson, Carter and Clinton. But there is a huge difference between not liking the election results and the elected individual, and the type of pure hatred I see and hear from the losing side today. I've never seen democrats, liberal or otherwise, so upset.

There is no denying the past several elections have been very close but is that a reason to hate the winners and the people who voted for them? It is a given that the media and the public will poke fun at any current administration. That has been going on since the American Revolution. Just look at the political cartoons. However, the rancour against the present administration is totally overboard. It is not poking fun, it is vicious, libilous slander - or even worse. The losers have compared the president to Hilter, announced that the National Security Advisor is "Aunt Jimima", and the Secretary of State an "Uncle Tom".

Why is this happening? The losers would have you believe that the present administration did things (exactly what they can't pin-point) which caused this horrible rift in our society and use that as justification for their hatred. I've seen a lot of things come out of our seat of power that I didn't like during my lifetime, but have never felt compeled to "hate" the president or other members of the administration because of it. I have never stooped to name calling and racial smears. I have never suggested that the president is an idiot even if I did disagree with him.

If I were to do or say the things the losers now are doing and saying, I would rightfully be called a bigot, a racist, and totally intolerant of my fellow humans. Please, people.... Get over it! Deal with it! Losing is part of life. It won't kill you. It won't destroy civilization as we know it. It won't even be remembered 50 years from now unless you do something violent and silly in the name of hatred.

Surely, if I could deal with Johnson, Carter and Clinton without resorting to hatred and name calling, you can deal with Bush. I don't care if you dislike him and his administration. That's part of the game. Vehement hatred, on the other hand is nasty and destructive. It helps no one and no thing. All it does is tear down society.

It is *YOU* and not Bush or his administration that created the rift in our society. And hatred was your tool of choice.

There. I feel much better now......

Egad!! Two posts in one day??!!

Don't panic. This will be short and sweet....

The burning question I ask of anyone who might stop by this blog and be able to provide a meaningful answer.....

"Is there truly a balm in Gilead"?

And your reponse is.....

Morbidity

Just noticed that despair.com has their 2005 Calendar on line. Only a couple of months that I hadn't seen before however. Worth a look for all the down-trodden peons of the work-a-day world. I couldn't find the poster of theirs that I like best these days...

RETIREMENT - When you have given so much to the company that you have nothing else we can use....

Yeah. That's it. That's what I've been working for all these years - useless obscurity!!

Why do we all feel obligated to leave a mark upon the world? Why can't we just accept the fact that a few years after we are gone the only people who will remember us will be the lawyers squabbling over what is left of our money? Man! That's a morbid thought!