Saying Goodbye

In the spring of 2003 I had to put down Dutch, my 14yr old English Pointer due to Lymphoma. By the fall I felt that I’d significantly recovered from that enough to consider getting another dog. Over the previous few years I’d developed an affinity for Mastiff breeds and after doing some exhaustive research, attending a number of dog shows to speak with owners I decided that I would look for a Bullmastiff. The Bullmastiff is a relatively new breed of dog, first appearing in England in the mid-1800’s. The breed was created to serve the needs of estate gamekeepers who needed a quiet, agile, powerful and fearless guard dog for the purpose of guarding game on private estates against poachers. They were trained to track an intruder, use their formidable strength and weight to bring an offender to ground until the gamekeeper caught up to place the offender into custody.

In contrast to the fearsome working function of the dogs they are also very docile around their families, intelligent, intuitive and accepting of strangers who are welcomed by owners. It’s argued by many that they were the first guard breed designed to work exclusively with a handler in the same fashion that the Belgian Malinois and German Shepard are used as police and military dogs with a single “partner”.

Public vs. Private Funding For Sports Stadiums

I had a somewhat bizarre exchange last night on Twitter between myself, Keith Law and Jeff Fletcher. Both of whom are well respected sports journalists. Keith is a member of the Baseball Writers Association of America, a former front-office guy for the Toronto Blue Jays, used to write for Baseball Prospectus and is currently a senior writer at ESPN. Jeff Fletcher has covered the A’s & Giants for the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, spent a few years at AOL Fanhouse, has a Baseball Hall of Fame vote and currently writes for both the A’s & Giants official magazines.

The topic of the discussion was public funding of professional sports stadiums. Mr. Law and I both oppose the premise on the grounds that there is no proof of economic benefit to the area’s in which publicly funded stadiums are built (except to the owners of the teams). Further, I object to the practice on the grounds that the Government should not tax the public where the beneficiary of said tax is a private entity.

Jeff Fletcher disagrees and made the following points to support his point of view:

The end of a life well lived.

I spent eleven years as a Helicopter Air-Crewman in the United States Coast Guard. I've personally saved no less than 27 lives. I've seen a far greater number of lives lost. Commercial fishermen, pleasure boaters, drug smugglers, airline crash victims, victims of natural disasters, human traffickers, victims of Asian slave trade, refugees from Cuba & Haiti and worst of all, fellow Coast Guardsmen lost in the line of duty who gave their lives "That Others Might Live".

I've seen some grisly stuff. But I was always able to process it somehow. Either via professional detachment in the case of the innocent, or contempt for members of society's dark underbelly I was able to work through what I saw, compartmentalize it and move on. Not that I wasn't deeply impacted, but I was able to deal with it.

This year I experienced something new. For the first time in my 41 years I lost a family member. I'd been blessed until now to have never lost a parent or grandparent. My folks are in good health and my maternal grandparents are as well. But over the last 7-10 years my paternal grandmother fell victim to Alzheimer's Disease.

The Tyranny of the Stupid - Sunnyvale California Edition

On Wednesday June 29^th the Sunnyvale City Council will hold a meeting to discuss the “issue” of public complaints surrounding the existence of “US Firearms”. US Firearms is a business that sells firearms, offers gunsmith services and offers numerous courses of training in the safe and legal use and storage of sporting (hunting) and defensive firearms. Further, they offer training and guide services to novice hunters.

The row over the presence of this establishment began shortly after its opening in October of 2010. An article appearing on The Peninsula Press website and re-posted on SFGate listed a number of opposing viewpoints related to the shops existence. One particular quote jumped out at me from Sunnyvale Elementary School teacher Gina Lermont,  

“I feel as if having [a gun store] in close proximity to many schools is a danger,”  

 “I’m not sure if I want to educate my second graders on something like gun safety.”

Think of the CHILDREN!!!!! 

Excuse me but, within 100yds of US Firearms there are numerous fast food restaurants. Is Ms. Lermont charged as a result to educate her students on the health impacts of eating lousy food?

Within 100yds of US Firearms there is a liquor store that also sells tobacco and pornographic magazines. Is Ms. Lermont charged as a result to educate her students on Alcohol, Tobacco and Inter-Racial Porn Consumption Safety?

Within 500yds of US Firearms there is a strip joint. Is Ms. Lermont charged as a result to educate her students on Pole Dancing Safety?

The Annoying Co-Worker Chronicles - Ep3

The morning routine....

The badge passes through the scanner 1’s & 0’s fly through the system confirming identity and CLICK as a microswitch releases the lock. Enter the building and sense that the schizophrenic HVAC system has today decided that the interior weather will be something akin to Tuscaloosa in August, it was Green Bay in November yesterday. Swing by the desk; Ctrl-Alt-Delete and tap out 3^rd Grade Teachers name and the aged laptop whirs to life, Outlook collecting the morning litany of action items. To the break room - a filter, a cup of grounds and start the brew.

Emails – delete, delete, delete the silly forwarded jokes…not at work please folks, those I’ll handle later, don’t ask me to do your job, list reduced by ½….coffee…now. Back to the desk. People filtering in. Mike the engineer gets his coffee, yells at the BMW service department on the phone. That guy with no apparent purpose other than socializing fills his gas-can sized mug and begins his rounds. It’s almost time…

A Central Coast Sojourn - Paso Robles, Cambria & Cayucos

This last weekend Kathy and I celebrated our 5^th wedding anniversary. Nothing could make me happier. When we got married 5 years ago in Italy we rented a villa in Tuscany and invited 30 of our friends to join us. We’d toyed with the idea of repeating that for our 5^th but neither of us could spare the two weeks off and the exchange rate is horrible right now anyway. Besides, we’d just gone to Barcelona in March to celebrate Kathy’s birthday. Hence a little more low-key, but no less treasured celebration was called for.

We decided a quiet weekend within a day’s drive was better in terms of direct cost, opportunity cost at work and the reduced stress of not having to deal with airports and long flights was just a bonus. After looking around a bit we chose the wine region surrounding Paso Robles for our daytime knocking around with overnights in Cambria and Cayucos.

Do you really want the "next guy" in charge of your healthcare?

The year is 1993 and the then First Lady of the United States, Hillary Rodham Clinton sat before Congress testifying in support of Universal Healthcare Legislation. Many elements of the bill were different  from current healthcare legislation but the core of it bore more similarities than differences:

The Clinton health plan required each US citizen and permanent resident alien to become enrolled in a qualified health plan and forbade their disenrollment until covered by another plan. It listed minimum coverage’s and maximum annual out-of-pocket expenses for each plan. It proposed the establishment of corporate "regional alliances" of health providers to be subject to a fee-for-service schedule. People below a certain set income level were to pay nothing. The act listed funding to be sent to the states for the administration of this plan, beginning at $13.5 billion in 1993 and reaching $38.3 billion in 2003.

...it was less expensive though...