Geezer Lodge

REMINDER

Just reminding you again that anytime anyone uses the word "mentor" they suck.  B.O.

SOMETHING FROM MORRIE

"When you get older, you must meet things more than halfway." -- Tuesdays With Morrie.

THINGS I SAW TODAY

Things I saw today:

Two men snoozing in sleeping bags in the park.  I don't think they knew each other.  The dog sniffed one and moved on.

A man's pate in the back seat of a taxi appearing to blink on and off as it reflected passing lights in a tunnel.

A woman trying to back into a parking spot at least one foot shorter than her car.

A dog-walker sheparding six dogs of various sizes all of which appeared bored out of their minds.

 A woman on a cell phone asking: "How could you possibly say that?"

Four sets of police cars racing off in pairs under siren.  

About a half dozen flagmen working highway construction sites.  They were as bored as the dogs. 

Arcturus in the night sky.

B.O.

BEAUTIFUL PLACES

 

A reminder that serenity can come the experience of beautiful places, large and small, manmade and natural.  B.O.

http://www.facebook.com/greenrenaissance

A LITTLE INFO ON TAXES

Here are a few charts, however tedious, on taxes.  There seems to be no other option in all this but to increase taxes (revenue) and cut spending.  I am 68 years old and on Medicare. (Plus the AARP supplement.)  I can afford a raise in Medicare premium.  Maybe some folks can't. I can. Someone in Washington looks at my taxes; why can't they assess me a little more in my premium?

We all know Entitlements and Defense is where the money goes.  This is a dangerous world, so I hate to see our forces without the tools, toys, and support. Entitlements and interest on debt are next. There is waste in government big time, oh, gosh, yes.  All the while, special interests suck off as much as they can, like starving wolves at a carcass.  My friend Connie Francis thinks we should dispense with identifying senators and congressmen by their home state. It's so outdated and irrelevant.  Why not identify them by who owns them?  "Here he is, the senator from gas and oil!"  "Introducing the congressman from agri-business...!"  "I introduce to you now the senator from big banking...!"  "Ladies and gentlemen, I am the senator from big pharmaceutical companies."

Head start programs and education (including a good GI bill)  versus farm subsidies and oil drilling tax breaks.  Seems a fairly easy choice to me.  Some government agencies can't go.  When I open that can of tuna fish or package of hamburger, I want to know that someone inspected it; and not the guy who made it. People gripe that the EPA is a unnecessary nuisance.  Really?

Thank you for listening.  I took advantage of you, and I apologize.  Rants should be delivered to wives only. We all know that.  B.O. 

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/04/how-we-pay-taxes-11-charts/255954/

  

 

LOUIE LOUIE LYRICS

Forget those dirty lyrics you all sang at the frat house.  (The FBI actually investigated the lyrics.) Here, in case you have forgotten, or never knew:

LOUIE LOUIE

Louie Louie, oh no, me gotta go, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, baby.
Louie Louie, oh baby, me gotta go.

A fine little girl, she waits for me.
Me catch the ship across the sea.
Me sailed the ship all alone.
Me never think I'll make it home.

Louie Louie, oh no, me gotta go, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, baby.
Louie Louie, oh baby, me gotta go.

Three nights and days I sailed the sea.
Me think of girl constantly.
On the ship, I dream she there.
I smell the rose in her hair.

Louie Louie, oh no, me gotta go, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, baby.
Louie Louie, oh baby, me gotta go.
OK, let's give it to 'em right now

(guitar solo)

Me see . . .

Me see Jamaica, the moon above.
It won't be long me see me love.
Me take her in my arms and then
I tell her I'll never leave again.

Louie Louie, oh no, me gotta go, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, baby.
Louie Louie, oh baby, me gotta go
I said we gotta go now
Let's step on out of here
Let's go!

B.O.

 

TRAIN TALK

 

This is something everyone should know.  Teach it to your children.  B.O.

Train Whistle Code

Train whistles are used to communicate to other railroad workers on a train or to railroad workers in the yard. Different combinations of long and short whistles each have their own meaning. They are used to pass instructions, as a safety signal, and to warn of impending movements of a train. Despite the advent of modern radio communication, most of these whistle signals are still used today:

One short:  Stop or stopping; apply the brakes 
One long:  Approaching railroad station or junction (if moving), or apply air brakes and equalize pressure (if standing) 
Two short:  A general answer signal or acknowledgement; identical to the "roger" or "10-4" radio terms 
One short, one long:  Inspect the train 
One long, one short:  Visibility obscured 
Two long:  Train is about to proceed forward; release the brakes 
One long, two short:   Additional section follows signaling train 
Two long, one short or two short, one long:  Train is approaching a meeting or waiting point 
Two long, one short, one long:  Train is approaching a grade level crossing (i.e. a road crossing). This is a widely used safety signal used to warn motorists and is blown at every grade level crossing, except where local noise ordinances prohibit it. Known in railroad rulebooks as rule '14L' 
Three short:  Train is about to proceed in reverse (if standing), or train is about to stop at the next station (if moving) 
Three long:   Train cars have come unhooked; train has come apart 
One long, three short:  Flagman, go protect the rear of the train 
One short, three long:  Flagman, go protect the front of the train 
Four short:  Request for signals 
Four long:  Flagman, return to the train from the west or north 
Five long:  Flagman, return to the train from the east or south 
Four short, one long:  Fire alarm; fire on the train 
Multiple short:  Danger, get off the tracks! Used to warn pedestrians or livestock who are on the tracks in front of the approaching train. 

 

WHEN DO THEY BECOME THE GOOD OLD DAYS?

Nostalgia cycles?  I think the past returns whenever forward motion isn't strong enough to keep it out, like a backwash after a wave.  Music, art and culture can go through natgurally occuring periods of slow, dragging creativity.  Sometimes recent history and current events and the players involved in such can seem coarse, violent and vulgar. And, whenever society hits one of these mud-slogs, the past comes right in the back door.  Better times come calling.  

Of course we re-imagine everything better than it really was, but that doesn't mean that the late 1960's and early 70's weren't a rennaissance in rock music. They were.  Or that some leaders have more integrity than others.  (Was Sam Ervin really that fine a guy?  I have no idea.  I long for him, though.)

The past is needed.  In slow, confused times we need to go back and re-experience former times to study and learn from them -- the way we didn't do the first time around.  During a particular era we'll miss it's lessons every time.

When the forward momentum in individual lives slows down, for most of us in our mid sixties, the past washes in over our dimished resistance.  We seek to learn from it, too.  B. O. 

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2012/04/17/_the_golden_forty_year_rule_and_other_nostalgia_cycles_could_trends_possibly_return_every_40_years_20_years_and_12_15_years_.html

SOME MORE BILLY COLLINS FOR YOU

FORGETFULNESS  by Billy Collins

The name of the author is the

   first to go

followed obediently by the title,

   the plot,

the heartbreaking conclusion, the

   entire novel

which suddenly becomes one you

   have never read, never

   even heard of,

as if, one by one, the memories

   you used to harbor

decided to retire to the southern

   hemisphere of the brain,

to a little fishing village where

   there are no phones.

 

Long ago you kissed the names of

   the nine muses good-bye

and watched the quadratic

   equation pack its bag,

and even now as you memorize

   the order of the planets,

 

something else is slipping away,

   a state flower perhaps,

the address of an uncle, the

   capital of Paraguay.

 

Whatever it is you are struggling

   to remember

it is not poised on the tip of your 

   tongue,

not even lurking in some obscure

   corner of your spleen.

 

It has floated away down a dark

   mythological river

whose name begins with an I, as

   far as you can recall,

well on your own way to oblivion

   where you will join those

who have forgotten how to

   swim and how to ride a bicycle.

 

No wonder you rise in the middle

   of the night

to look up the date of a famous

   battle in a book on war.

No wonder the moon in the

   window seems to have drifted

out of a love poem that you used

  to know by heart.

OIL AND GASOLINE DON'T MIX

Drilling for more oil helps the trade deficit, but not much else.  B.O.

http://t.co/9ei5Uaru