Welcome Blog Explosion Dregs/ Jesus v. Mohammed - Grudge Match

Regular readers: The first section of this post is to new blogexplosion readers. Please skip it. I don't even want you associating with those dregs. It is only for them. Your daily dose of Howard is below.
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Dear Blog Explosion Jerks,
The drama of the house fire has passed and now it's back to ginning up my site meter. My usual readers haven't helped out much so now it's up to you the blogexplosion dregs. I don't like you. You're full of blogs about cats or lefty or righty thumbsucking rants. Here's a hint. No one likes cats and if you're going to be a political blogger/writer, why don't you try doing some reading first. In the off chance you can compose a sentence structure above the 5th grade level and may actually have a smidgen of humor or insight, you can stay. If not, go away.

I'm only turning to you because I have no alternative. You're my shylock. Your the equivalent of a computer dating service. And I'm not talking about that nice looking Dr. Neil Clark Warren e-harmony kind of dating service. I'm talking about the kind on that one Charlies Angels where the Angels have to go undercover to a dating service that's really a front for a white slavery ring. That's what you are! Oh sure, it's funny when Kate Jackson goes on a date with that loser while Farrah fertively sneaks out the computer files. But we all know it's a slime pit and Jacelyn Smith is going to blow the whole thing wide open. In fact, you're not even that good, you're the episode about a dating service from the Shelley Hack years.

So please note all blogexplosion visitors, I don't like you. I'm only using you because I need the affirmation that only a rapidly spinning site meter can provide. Sure the love in the eyes of my wife and children are nice, but that only goes so far. 3,500 hit a day average on a sitemeter. Now that means something.
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Libya has closed it's Denmark embassy, the house of Saud is mad and even friendly little Kuwait is ticked. All because some Dane published some funny drawing of the prophet. Here's wikipedia's take. Cool. So someone does some doodles, the Euros actually stand up to the Arab street and now things are getting tense. The Arab street is burning flags. Oh, no. I want to go hide under the bed.

Look, you stone age twits, don't get your turbans all twisted over this. Like it or not, your in the modern world. Haven't Bush's smart bombs convinced you of that? In the modern world you can dick around with our Gods all we want and no one even bats an eye. If someone does bat and eye, they will be labeled intolerance.

A few weeks ago some dumbass kayne West posed as Christ on a mag cover. Here's Lewis Black's book Nothing Sacred. Yep, Abdulla, believe your eyes. that's a Jew mugging for the camera replacing the Savior in the Pieta. Here's the original statue. Yep, he made fun of the final act of the Passion - even putting himself in the place of the Christ - and we shrug and rollover.

That's because we's modern. Now if Kanye or Black had any guts (they know nobody's going to get mad at them) they'd do a few jokes about the prophet. That's enough material there.

So lighten up you Mid East crazies. Go buy some of the nice Danish butter coookies and don't be so touchy.

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Two Homes

If you like older homes - ones with history - check out my latest article for the Enquirer here. It has everything. Elvis, Sinatra, showgirls and history. It's right across the street from a school that I did a story on. Here's that. It's nice to think of the history just a little ways from my house - see the map. It's in Newport which is one of the cluster of river cities across the river from Cincinnati. Up until recently it was known for it's booze, stripclubs, and crime. From the Prohibition era until the 1960s it was known as a midwestern las vegas. everything was corrupt and anything went. People aged 60+ tell great stories those days. Recenty, an old house near us was renovated. The owners had to take out 25 slot machines from the basement. In the 50s the owners operated an illegal casino. They dot the town.

A bunch of do-gooders cleaned up the place then left. Having cleaned up the only thing making money, the city slid downhill for about 30 years until just recently. It's nice to see and be part of a rebirth.

For another home, check out these pics. The front corner use to be my room back in the day. The front of the house is all gone. It's not nearly as bad as I thought.

That blackened object in the corner was a 1920s Victrola that my grandfather owned. It was full of vinyl albums from the 1920s up to the 1950s that my grandparents owned then their daughters bought. Everything from 1920s bluegrass to Elvis.

But what are you going to do. My mother sent these photos. They said Allstate stopped by Friday morning with a $5,000 check to get clothes and a place to live. they go apartment hunting today.
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Where Howard Feeds His Daughters Beef Tongue

Thanks to all for extending your sympathies toward my parents partially burned down house. I spoke with them on Friday afternoon and they were settling down for some sleep.

After my parents called, I called my friend Mike who still lives in Fort Wayne and works third shift. He stopped by at 8 that morning and my dad gave him a tour. The upstairs is burnt up pretty good. My old room now has a great skylight. My dad's office is gone. My sisters old room is fire damaged but the walls are up. Contents are mostly gone. The upstairs bathroom is blackened. The rest of the house wasn't burned too much but what wasn't burned is covered in ash and water and torn up by the firemen working.

The insurance agent stopped by that morning with a $5,000 check so they can get clothes and what not. They're in a hotel until Monday then they move into an apartment. They can't go into the house again until the fire investigators give the ok.
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Kudo's to Katie for catching the Emenim reference. Does it bug anyone else that there's doctors out there that are familiar with Mr. Mathers? Or financial advisors?
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My eldest, Dagny, is in a basketball league this year. She's the team's best guard, but being about 4 inches shorter than everyone else and not being quite as aggressive and not quite understanding the game, she needs a little work.

I did this story for the Enquirer about the last night of Homecoming and thought it would be good to take her to a college game to see the women play. NKU is a Division II school. The crowd was slightly smaller than my high school basketball games. But she still seemed to enjoy it. I just read the article on the game here and you can see in the pic the Divine Mrs. M. (in black) holding Harper (in white) just between the two players.

We didn't stay for the men's game and the crowning of the Homecoming King and Queen. I don't remember bleechers being that hard when I was in high school. We went to a traditional korean restaurant. Here it is. We sat on the floor. I don't remember floors being that hard and I squeezed my legs under the table. We ordered our favorite Bul Go Gi and then tried Hyu Mit Gui. We didn't tell either of the girls that it was beef tongue until we were walking to the car. Although, if you looked at how it's cut, it sure looked like tongue. I wouldn't recommend it - at least cooked that way.
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Moonbatty (thanks for the link) is going to the internet for tax advice which is about 1 step better off than going to the internet to try to figure out what the red blotchy patch on your inner thigh is. This reminded me that I moderated a CPA roundtable that appeared in the Sunday Challenger today. Some of it is Kentucky and Ohio related, but much of it is useful. (it's posted as a pdf, but you'll see how it works.)

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Snap Back to Reality; Oh, There Goes Gravity

So just when I was having fun scolding you on my site meter - bang - my mother called at 3:15 a.m. today with news that their house was on fire. I didn't get much from her. She handed the phone off to my father who seemed rather calm.

It started in my old bedroom - probably a baseboard heater they said - and spread to my father's office. It's just your typical Schwartzian suburban split-level. As I was on they phone with him the fireman started knocking down walls.

I don't have a lot of sentiment attached to the house so I'm ok there. They are safe. They think the cats are dead. Scary part is that my 4-year old daughter Harper was to be there this weekend. She would have been in the next room.

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Pearls Before Swine/Gold and White Gala

UPDATE: It's 5:44 p.m. and you people ain't done squat. My sitemeter tally is laying there like a dead flounder in my sister's bathtub. I have a 7:00 meeting here at my office. When I get home I'm checking that sitemeter and, well, if things don't improve, well, you don't want to know what.

Sorely disappointed. Besides a backhanded nod from Moonbatty you people have done nothing - NOTHING - to ring up my sitemeter. It's almost like this isn't even America anymore. You act like a bunch of Canadians. What happened to that American spirit that crossed an ocean, settle on a small sliver of the East coast and within a mere couple hundred years built great cities then left them to rot, wiped out an indigenous population with no more than a single fire rifle, a nagging cough, mapped out interstates with a Mickey D's at every exit? Where is that America? Definitly not in your hearts.

My site meter daily average creeped up to 20. That's a far cry from the 3,500 goal I set for you.

This isn't so much so I can land a big $10 a day contract with blog ads. No, I'm laying down some great observations and wit here and it's going unnoticed. How many DaVinci's were never given a pencil? How many mozarts were never sung a tune? How many Howard's go unnoticed in the cold success obsessed blogosphere?

Oh, and here's my latest piece for the Enquirer. I'd give some thoughts on it, but I'm now officially sick of NKU's Homecoming. Honestly. I'm throwing up.

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You Lousy Readers / GoogleChina-GoogleCheney / Yell Like Hell

OK, we have a problem. My sitemeter says that my average visit count per day is 19. As of this writing I've had 5 visitors today. I don't want to come down too hard on you people but you're really making me mad.

If you're reading this blog you haven't referred your friends enough. You haven't come back enough. You haven't bought enough of my books. I'm a Crunchy Crustacean on the TTLD Ecosytem for god's sake! You're falling done on the job and I won't have it anymore. Straighten up and get to work! The Pure Investor Blog better have 3,500 visitors a day by the end of March or I'm really going to let lose on you people!

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Google is refusing to provide the White House with anonymous internet search results on one week on something about porn. Yahoo, MSN, and AOL have already done it without a problem. In certain quarters, google is cheered as a hero. As drudge linked today, google is also doing the Chicoms bidding by censoring what the Chinese people can read. (It reminds me of when the Simpsons went to China and visited Tiananmen Square. A sign hanging from a pagoda shaped building read "On June 4, 1989, Nothing Happened Here.") When google agreed to censor the Chinese people for the Chicom, they hung that sign. Now people will hang longer.

Remember as I wrote in my book, every business is out for the buck. Has anyone given thought to the fact that maybe - just maybe google is fighting Cheney to deflect attention away from their cooperation with the Chicoms?

Please remember what those bastards did to those kids. And who is helping them. Maybe go rent yourself Moving the Mountain.

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And here's my latest Enquirer piece. An event at NKU called Yell Like Hell.

UPDATE: It's 4:58 p.m. in the east (as the flamer Sheppard Smith would say in his overearnest cub reportery tones) and you people have given The Pure Investor Blog a grand total for today of 12 hits. That makes me sick. What kind of people are you, really? I hope your ashamed at yourselves. I've got a meeting at 6:00. I'll check in later. DON'T disappoint me. Time to knuckle down!

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Off the Tracks and a Rap Contest

Jumped in my car at 5:45 this morning. Thought I'd get to the office early and get some work done before anyone else showed up. Windows wouldn't de-ice. I scrapped but there remained a overlay of fog on them. I sat. Reviewed some notes. Still nothing. Foggy. No heat was coming.

Coolant low? I thought. Then like clock work the coolant light chimed on.

I thought I had this problem solved. I had a leak last fall, put in some sealant, but there must still be a small leak. Admittedly I'm cheap. I'd rather experience inconvenience every couple of weeks that pay a few hundred to get the thing fixed right. I had a gallon of coolant in my trunk. Filled her up and was off.

However...it threw off my timing. I got to work 1/2 after what I thought I would. the plans for the morning I made in the shower were already behind schedule and that just takes out all my energy. So I hit every site I like to check and every blog I read and even got distracted by a few things and now it's time to get to work and, as the kids whine, "I just don't wanna!"

Compound that with a meeting tonight that I'm going to make uncomfortable and there's just no motivation for me. bleech.

For those of you following my fledgling journalism career, here's my lastest story on a homecoming event at NKU - a rap contest. The student who organized it seemed like an impressive person. Enjoy.

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Happy Elections, Canada!

My paternal grandparents were a british subjects from Manitoba. They immigrated to this country separetly. However, as I'm sure with all immigrants, there was a tug back toward Canada. Actually, it wasn't that much of a tug. My grandparents house was about 25 minutes from the Ambassador Bridge.

Anyway, Canada was once a big broad shouldered country that had the 4th largest navy during WW2. They were necessary components of the D-day invasion. Canadian men of my childhood always seemed more than manly. I had a great uncle who fought in the Battle of Britain as a pilot. They seemed bigger men with slightly off- sophisticated accents. Not the hooser one of the McKenzie Brothers, but a softened British one. These men hunted and fished and braved the elements because they wanted to.

Anyway, Canada is having it's election today. The Conservatives may pull out a majority government. I don't know if that's bad or not. I don't know enough about Canadian politics. Why don't I know? Mostly because it just doesn't matter. What are they gonna do? I'm reminded of a old episode of Dr. Katz where a Canadian asked a comic what Americas really think about Canadians. "We don't," said the comic. "So until we run out of natural resources, you guys are safe."

But it seems to suggest that Canadians aren't just a bunch of simpering whiners addicted to socialist policies, U.S. trade, self-puffery, and griping about the U.S. that many of us think they have become.

Did you know there was once a Canadian comic Book hero. No? Check out Captain Canuck.

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Just Some Links...and some romance

Anybody out there? Doesn't seem like it. Anyway....

On Friday, the Enquirer published this story I did on the City of Newport applying for a tree grant. It's for the west end of Newport which is a bare and barren place. Trees would be a great improvement.

It's the start of homecoming for Northern Kentucky University (I thought Homecomings were in the fall?) anyway, here's a story about events that happened today. One thing I learned? There's some kind of National Championship for Cheerleading! Yeah, Team! Anyway, NKU won the Division II nationals. Tomorrow is another homecoming story.

Want a little romance? When Alicia and I had our 10-year anniversary I took her out to a local restaurant that the Challenger wanted me to review. They finally printed it here. I had a great time. Alicia had a great time. The story turned out ok, but it read much better when I turned it in. I think I built it up in my mind in the last 2 months. It's still good. The bonus part: the $120 dinner, the $130 room at the hyatt, and the $20 bottle of champagne are now all deductible!

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The Mother of Lutheranism

Here's a story from today I did on a church in Florence, Kentucky. It's a Lutheran Church celebrating 200 years. That's a big deal this far west.

After submitting the story I notice that 4 the church's 6 founders had the same last name as my church's organist (He attends the church in the story early sunday, then comes to our church to organ for us) has the same last name as some of the founders. I spoke with him last night and yep, he's a direct descendent. I can't imagine having that much history hanging over me. My family was still Scotland clubbing each other on the head over peat in 1806. I can only remember 1 of my great-grandparents first names now. He knows the names of several - they're written all over his church. It would be nice to be that connected, but in a way oppressive.

The church calls itself "The Mother of Lutheranism west of the Allegheny Mountains." Accurate, but not poetic.

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Stream of Conciousness

After a scolding from Joan I have taken out the offending word from the last post. Sorry to all those who I have offended.

I will admit, I feel a little dirty having written it. In my business, we use it like punctuation.

Speaking of cursing, two nights ago my 4-year old was irritating me and I asked her to quit being a pain the ass. She responded with "Sorry daddy, but sometimes your a pain in the ass too."

I can't yell at her for honesty.

I've been a little lax in my blogging...a little uncreative if truth be told because I'm had a busy and already too long week. I have a series of articles about the NKU Homecoming due out starting on Saturday and getting them together has been a nagging worry.

Oh, but this weekend my restaurant review of the Charthouse on Cincinnati's riverfront will be out. I did something a little different for me, I wrote it as a narrative of our 10th anniversary. Come back on Sunday!

Ok, this entire post has been written while I've been on hold with a large Boston based fund company. I'm getting tired of waiting.

For my male readers, please click here (it's work safe). make sure you click on "compilation video". Back yet? Amazing, eh? Make Fox News chicks look kinda lumpy. What is it about certain women. That spark. The Divine Mrs. M. has it. I'm met ugly chicks who do and hot one's who don't.

The other night I watched Gilda for the first time. Hollywood makes lotsa movies with lotsa hotsa women. What makes Rita Hayworth jump off the screen in that movie while others just as attractive don't? It's just incredible. If you haven't seen it - go now! It's also a good flick (read those quotes on imdb). But it's worth it just for the hair flip entrance (video here). You've all seen it. No, then go get the movie. Or this. As far as movie entrances go it's right up there with Orson Welles in The Third Man and Brad Pitt in A River Runs Through It.

Whoops. Carlos is back. Gotta work. Bye.

Back again: Links to film clips above aren't working. Try here. I meant Number 4 and Number 1. "sure, I'm decent." How can you not love that!

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Chuckle Chuckle, Oh! Iran has Nukes

Zoomtown was down most of today for our side of town. I think I began to go through withdrawal.

Anyway, sorry for the swearing yesterday. Moonbatty seemed to take exception to it. When the Divine Mrs. M. reads about my "being proper and never swearing" she'll have a chuckle. Maybe two chuckles. She once said to me, "You know, it's possible to say good morning without using the f-word."

I do swear more than I should. But what are you going to do. I don't here normally because i never know who may be reading (i.e. a client who may be offended.) They may not get offended by my right wing rants, but a swear sometimes sends people over the edge.

Here's a geopolitical question to ask yourself re: Iran. Which country least needs a nuclear reactor for energy production? If you answered, the one sitting on the 4th largest oil reseve in a politically unstable part of the world, you're right! Iran wants the nukes for one reason. The only reason. Power. The power to oppress their own people and the power to impose their beliefs on other people.

Vodka pundit has a nice post of the situation. Time to bone up on Iran. It's about to simmer over.

Have a happy f#@%in' day.

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Just Another Manic Monday - DIE! DIE! DIE!

If you have been sitting near by cubicle today you would have heard the following from me:

Grumble, grumble, bitch, moan, grumble grumble, dab nabbit, bitch, moan, mother f......, you die now! grumble, grumble, (nashing of teeth), grumble, moan and a bitch, (wailing), bad attitude my ass, grumble, how dare they - don't they know who I am, grumble, grumble, bit.....

G'day!

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Softball Questions

In my brief career as a reporter, I do puff pieces. I'm not trying to be Woodward or Bernstein but to pay the bills. For every story you see I get a check. That's what I'm interested in. I don't attack anyone. I know what I am and where I am. I ask softball questions...but this is ridiculous.

Also in the local news is this guy who threatened a cabbie and his wife while drunk and used the "n" word. Read the story. I can't tell what the guy was arrested for. What is his choice of insults? What he said? Is that a crime? Sure the guy sounds like a jerk, but is certain speech now outlawed? Where's the ACLU?

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Beijing Opera

I just loving about different things. Did you know the Chinese have several different forms of "opera". A style known as Beijing Opera is coming!

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Happy Friday the 13th

I'm not a superstitious guy at all. In fact, superstition offends me. It's the 21st century! Aren't we past that? Plus, the few idiots that I know where are somewhat superstitious never seem to be afraid of very real things - like their bloating bodies, their nutty kids, their stagnant career, etc.

For a number of reasons I'm in a soft blue rage over my link yesterday - not the one on Nick Lachey - but about the priest at my school. This will be the last post about it because any comments I make is bound to make someone in our close-knit community very mad. The parish and the Catholic school that the Father was in charge of is very small. He was a Pastor to a congregation already in need, he spoke each week at all the classes - including my kid's, and performed the weekly mass for them. He heard their reconciliation. This is going to be a very bad thing for us, I fear.

Yesterday's link also had a few factual errors which I corrected with the reporter and he corrected in today's story. Don't believe everything you read in the paper, sometimes things get mixed up. However, last night the story of the priest was on all the local news channels. Mistakes there as well. Here's WCPO's link. Going down the list of pictures: 1. that pic is not Father Frazier unless there's been some dramatic plastic surgery. Father Frazier is in his mid-50s maybe. That looks like an old guy from the Vatacin II council. The Church listed as Divine Mercy in Bellevue is actually St. Bernard's in Dayton Kentucky. The upward shot is actually Divine Mercy. It's a lovely building, I can tell the time from my deck by that clock tower.

I point this out because the WCPO studios are downtown - a 7 minute drive over to Bellevue to check these things out or they could just go to the website's of each church. If the media is getting these easy things wrong - what are they doing with much more complicated topics.

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School Matters/Office Matters

Here's the priest at my daughter's school.

On a happy front, Nick just bought his dad a house down the street from my office...swooon!

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Stoning Ritual

A peaceful stoning ritual erupts into a stampede in Mecca killing hundreds and nowhere does the "Christian Street" erupt in celebration.

Just something I noticed.

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The Road to Antartica

One of the things I've enjoyed about writing for the Enquirer and the Sunday Challenger is learning about people and what they do. It interests me what people dedicate their lives to...if anything. This latest story is about a physicist who traveled to Antartica for a massive ballon launch. I admire that and am somewhat envious. I'd love to be science guy like that. But I don't have the mental capabilities or the ambition. I like learning a little bit about a lot of things. I get bored easily. What can I say? I grew up in the 70s.

I honestly didn't think I'd get away with writing that opening joke (yes, a joke about a physics story), but my editor e-mailed "Hey Howard, I just got around to reading the Antartica story. I loved it. I'm hoping it runs tomorrow." I have alot to learn about what people in this business want.

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The Scalito Hearings

I know I should care but I don't. I'm in an apolitical mood lately. I've read some synopsis that he's mostly likely going to get confirmed. The drama is gone and so is my interest.

However, when he does it may be a watershed political event. If he and Roberts and Thomas and Scalia stick around for a few years and all hold fast to their current convictions and if even a moderate Republican is elected in 08, then all three branches of government will have broken the hold of the liberals. To coin a phrase, it will look more like America - at least politically.

Then we'll all learn that they are not going to force women into back alleys because no body really truly wants there to be no abortion. As long as fathers have 13 year daughters that could get pregnant and could committ them to feeding another mouth there will be abortions. In such an overtly and crassly sexualized society I think it's a necessity.

I don't mean to be flippant. I have a great deal of respect for the U.S. Senate. It's the world's oldest diliberative body. however, individual Senators seem like serious jokes. Blowhard windbags. Bush seems like a smart ass to me. What I'd like to see is him send up someone who is qualified, doesn't want to be on the Supreme Court, and has an attitude. could you image how that would change these Senators self absorbed attitudes?

To Specter, he could say in a very relaxed attitude, "You're such a bitch."
To Kennedy, "Well at least I never killed a chick."
To Biden, he should answer questions like Kevin Nealon's Subliminal Man. Every fourth word would only be "Hairplugs"
To Hatch, he should ask how his wives are doing.
To Grassley, "Do they grow all of you this ugly in Iowa?"
To Mike DeWine, "You're such a bitch."
To Jeff Sessions and Lindsay Graham, he should answer all questions with an exagerated Foghorn Leghorn accent, then after finishing mutter under his breath "Hicks"
To Schumer, he should just make the yackity yack sign with his hands as Chuck asks pontificates. If he is compelled to answer he should apologize and excuse himself by saying that midgets makes him nervous.
To Feinstein, he should be very cautious and respectful, but after a while interupt her and say, "Do you feel that? There's something between us, isn't there? Maybe we should finish this over drinks and maybe....breakfast?"

This would last one day, but it would so frighten every senator that he'd take himself just that much less serious. I think a well spoken and educated conservative lawyer should offer it up as a service to his country.

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Considering

I'm seriously considering doing this.

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Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky Airport History

Ever have a layover in Cincinnati? Well, you weren't in Cincinnati. You were about 10 miles south in Northern Kentucky. How'd this happen? Here's my story on it.

I submitted the story awhile ago and it finally ran today. I have another one submitted to the Challenger about The Divine Mrs. M and I's 10th anniverary dinner. I incorporated it into a restaurant review. This Tuesday I conduct another roundtable discussion of CPAs about tax issues. Much one I did last year. Does that sound extremely boring to anyone else? I even have an accounting degree and it sounds boring.

The kid in the picture is son of a woman at my church - the church I'm not at right now. His mother came over to work on some church stuff with The Divine Mrs. M and I offered he asked if he could play on the computer. His website of choice was delta.com. A little strange, but what the heck. His mother said he likes punching in different flight plans. Yes, a little strange, but I like strange kids. When the airport history story came up, I thought, "Let's use Alex as a nice hook to the story. It puts a face on it." I also liked that he was born Korean and that gave a little international flair to an airport story.

Alex is adopted from Korea. His mother is a Lutheran, his father is Jewish - how's that for diversity! It makes for some interesting times because Alicia has a Bush sticker on her micro-SUV and Alex's mother has had various stickers including Kucineh, Dean, and Kerry. Along with typewritten claims taped about how "Bush Lied, People Died" and "no blood for oil" All very boring, but we get along even though we were duped by that Chimpy McBushhitler idiot and his brilliant machivallian strategies.

Oh, well. Cute kid!

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Friday Death Talk - Depressing Lines

One of my morning stops is Cathy Seipp's site. She writes mostly about Hollywood/West Coast issues for National Review and Independent Women's Forum. I don't have much interest in those topics but she writes well, her posts are short, and she makes me laugh. Unfortunately, she also has lung cancer. She's never been a smoker, so I guess that's not a requirement.

Today she wrote about dogs and had this seemingly innoucuous but powerful line:

And so on. I really do love Linda, though, and one good thing about my situation is that at least I probably won't outlive my dog.

Incredible thing to write and know expecially when you have a daughter who is only a senior in high school.

On another death front, here's an update on that man who shot his wife, daughter, her boyfriend, two dogs, and cat. Most powerful line in that article:

He said the jail conducted a mental evaluation of Richardson when he was booked and determined there wasn't a high risk of suicide.

That says it all. I'm not up for labeling people crazy. One thing peopel working in my industry have taught me is that many people are just self-absorbed, self-centered aholes. I'd say 90% of investment professionals are. I've been short and I've yelled and I've spoken too roughly to my children at times and the look on their faces crushes me. Sometimes I will haunt me for days. It is the look of betrayal that cuts the deepest.

I'm mostly anti-death penalty, but if this guy isn't on suicide watch then I hope they gas him. Ok, I feel bad about writing that. The Divine Mrs. M. told me that the surviving son mentioned in the article attended our church last year. He has a wife and kid. I sorta remember them. There's too much death.

Finally, on a broader stage, Ariel Sharon might as well be dead by the sounds of it. He's 77, way overweight and in a stressful job. Didn't someone say, "What's the plan sir for the likely to happen." But I don't think that's the way men like them live. Here's a pic of him with Gen. Dayan during the Yom Kippor War. Bandaged, patched...and smiling. Makes my petty worries seem, well, petty.

Here's Charles Krauthammer on Sharon. To end of a positive note, read just the introduction to Wikipedia's bio of Charles Krauthammer. Life goes on and overcomes.

What kind of God makes life so precious but so fragile?

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Journalism, Journalism, Paying the Bills

This work for the Enquirer is starting to pay some bills which is very nice.

However, I did miss a story from the end of last year. Madame Butterfly and Moonbatty should like this story I did about a man who loved dogs. I like dogs in theory, but as far as having a white dog and mostly black slacks and coming home to a hyperactive lab - it's just not for me. Ace, the dog I note in the story, had a little adventure when I was putting this story together. Note to grown and drunk men, don't try to fight a police dog. Way to go Ace!

In a story that will interest not many except those in Newport, Kentucky, here's a story about a nice man who has really shaped his city...and it leaving for Arizona where Madame Butterfly lives.

And here's another for Madame Butterfly. About five minutes walk from my house is the small industrial park with Thomson Enamel's sign hanging out front with others. I think enamel and I think bathtubs. I figured it was some place that did industrial work of some kind.

But Thomson Enamel - and the very interesting 90 year old man who runs the company - in Bellevue Kentucky is the Western Hemisphere's only supplier to glass enamel to jeweler makers. Kinda cool. The glass she works with comes from a place I pass every day.

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New Year's Crapulotions

I always have an itch on the new year to start a reading program. At the beginning of a Bible we have there is a "read-the-Bible-in-a-year" chart. I'd love to do that. I also have a nice book called The Lifetime Reading Plan that I'd love to start on but I know both won't be done. I'm not going to read Descartes or Rosseau(sp?). I'm reminded of this because I say an author interview show last night with the writer of another book I have Great Books. It's similar to the first, but is a man's return to Columbia to redo their great books program. A great books program is something I would have loved to do, but I just didn't take the opportunity for that.

I was once a great reader, but during my 20's fiction fell aside as I read my way through ugly finance text book to uglier Econ and accounting texts. I then did the same while pursuing my CFA designation. By the end of my 20's I didn't have the mind for fiction. I still have a hard time reading it. I just don't see the point. I know that's foolish, but the practical Howard in me

One long three day weekend late in the first semester of my freshman year, I read through Madame Bovary. It was a weird weekend close to finals where the campus seemed to have emptied out. No one was around. On Friday afternoon after classes I picked up Flaubert's book - I don't know how I got it or why I picked it up. It's not something that would appeal to a mid-western 18-year old male.

The translation must have been good because by Sunday afternoon I was finished. I remember reading it in the dining hall and in the community room and in my room non-stop. Sometime, in a fit of boredom or pique, I wrote "Emma is a Bitch" on the wall next to my bed. Just a little scribble, I probably didn't even think about it.

On Sunday night, my nominal girlfriend at the time (nominal in that she named herself that even though I didn't consider her that, but I was never one to worry about those things) S. stopped by. She was a nice blond little girl from the Region that stood about 5'2" with a slightly pockmarked face from a bad case of acne and that Chicago accent.

I was zonked and tired and not much in the mood for talk but she noticed the writing on the wall and got all testy. Who's Emma? I explained to her how I spent my weekend and didn't even remember writing that. I showed her the book and suggested she read it. But I knew she wouldn't.

The look of total incomprehension and incrudulity and just plain annoyance that I would choose to spend a weekend wasting my time reading a 19th century French novel about a bourgeois adultress that came across her face was hysterical. I knew I just wasn't in the mood to be around this person. With no real plan, I excused myself for some reason, went down the hall, went for a walk. I came back a couple hours later. She was gone. The scribble was still there. My roomate had returned by then. He said she was still there when he got there but was seriously wicked pissed that I had disappeared.

We had a Spanish class together. I avoided her during the last week of class since it didn't look like she was going to apologize for giving me that look. In the new semester, we had Spanish 202 together, but she dropped it. Maybe if I had read Don Quixote?

I don't know how I got off on this tangent, but the end result is I don't think I'll formalize as a resolution better reading habits, but maybe...just maybe... I'll try Madame Bovary again.

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First Post of the Year

You ever want to blog about something but you didn't establish your blog under a nom de cyber so when anonimity is required you can't blog about it? Kinda sucks, eh?

It's at times like this that I wish blogger had software that allowed password protected entries or that I wasn't too lazy to move my blog over to my own domain. Anyway, e-mail me and I'll e-mail you back the entry.

On New Year's Day we went to our new family tradition - the Boar's Head Festival and today the Enquirer printed my first story of the year.

Yawn. Harper was woken by a tremendous clap of thunder so I sat with her on the couch until she fell asleep. Now I'm awake and blogger incoherently. Back to bed.

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