rmiles7721

Wordless Wednesday

rmiles7721October 10, 2007Site News

Appropriate for Blogtoberfest 2007 here are some shots from last year. Enough with the words, let’s get with the wordless.

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Atlanta…

rmiles7721October 10, 20072Blogging

We had a pretty good time last night. All of the usual suspects were there, and I got the chance to meet Blackfive as well. Guess I need to update the sidebar again but I think I shall wait until after this weekend. I will get to that shortly.

Line of the evening:

“Am I in the right fucking church?”

It’s been at least fifteen years or so since I have been in the area where we ended up last night and boy has it changed. Actually I have been to a couple of concerts prior to the Omni getting torn down but that was normally a case of riding the train in, going straight into the Omni and watching the show. It is amazing how different Marietta Street has changed since the days of the Metroplex.

I arrived a little early and took a walk around Centennial Park since I have never been there. Shot a couple of photos with my new phone mainly just to try it out. Noting worth posting, but the pictures are pretty darn good.

I finally wandered down to the Embassy Suites where we were to meet up. Elisson and Shovel Boy arrived shortly after and we went on in to Ruth’s Chris Steak House for a drink and to await the others. It wasn’t long before Blackfive arrived and we all sat around and chatted for awhile awaiting the rest of the group. Three beers later (for me anyway, I was the light-weight since I had to get up early today) and everyone else arrived.

Rather than spend a small fortune we got a cab ride a few blocks away. According to the information desk whom Blackfive had to threaten with bodily injury (maybe not) to get the information out of, there was an Indian restaurant four blocks away. It was more like eight, at least driving it. Had we walked it might have been four or five taking shortcuts.

I had some kind of shrimp dish, which was pretty good, particularly after adding a wee bit of this spicy mango stuff. Indian food looks so damned nasty, yet is pretty good. I couldn’t eat it every night as some folks can, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I enjoyed the conversation, although as usual I was pretty quiet and just took it all in. It is interesting to note that although people are slightly different than their blog personas you can usually tell who is who because their stories sound just like their blogs. The more entertaining and popular ones are usually also the entertaining and ‘popular’ conversationalists as well.

At one point in the evening we did have to steer clear of the shovel fiasco and go back to the ‘safe’ topics of religion and politics, but Eric had to make clear what had happened last October. It was nice hearing it from his side, which actually closely mirrored what I have heard from other bloggers, minus the wide-eyed fear Smile What is interesting is that he is having us back (not that I was able to make it last year). I doubt if I can get the time off and I think that may even be the weekend of Pete’s birthday party, but I will damn sure try, particularly since I may or may not end up skipping out on this weekend.

That brings me to my conundrum. I am really torn about this coming weekend. I am extremely angry with my boss and work right now, as I am on duty this weekend. I have four choices at present. Either I skip the weekend entirely and go to work while the wife and our friend attend, or I attend as planned and commute home Saturday and Sunday morning. The big problem is that I don’t particularly want to drive three and a half hours at four in the morning, particularly after a night of heavy drinking. My other choice is to go, and then drive home Friday night, go to work Saturday, drive back up there and drive back home Sunday morning. That choice entails not drinking at all because as I said before, I am a lightweight. I just don’t drive after drinking. I had three beers in all last night, and although I was nowhere even close to buzzing when we finally left the restaurant last night, I was ready to take a damned nap and those last few miles home were done with the air and radio blasting and the windows open. My last choice is just to say “fuck you” and go, take care of business over the phone and deal with being in trouble when I get home. They won’t fire me or anything, I am about 99.9% sure of that, but it doesn’t mean that they will make my life any easier. At some point between now and then I guess I will make up my mind.

Spain

rmiles7721October 10, 200757Travel

Barcelona is the capital of Catalonia and is the second most populated city in Spain at the present. It’s located on the southeastern coast of Spain, on the Mediterranean Sea. It is one of the major shipping ports in Europe as well. Although the city dates to three or four hundred years prior, it was a Roman colony around 15BC and you can still see the effects of the Romans in some of the architecture and in plenty of ruins there.

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One of the really cool things about Barcelona is that there are 68 municipal parks ranging from fairly small to pretyt large recreational areas. They cover right around 10% of the city itself, which makes it a pretty green place to visit. There are also several beaches in Barcelona, just under three miles of coastline, making it a pretty popular destination for holiday in Europe. Hotels in Barcelona or as they say there, Hoteles en Barcelona, are easy to find, and like anywhere else, the earlier you book the cheaper they are.

As with many of the older cities in Europe, Barcelona sports many theaters and halls for live music, including the world-famous Gran Teatre de Liceu opera theater. Barcelona plays host to several music festivals throughout the year and also hosts the Catalonia Symphonic Orchestra as well.

Madrid on the other hand is well inland and sits right in the middle of Spain. Fittingly, it is the capital of Spain and really the financial capital as well. You can really see the difference from Barcelona, particularly from the Muslim influence that has been there since the 9th century.

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Madrid is a pretty large city and thus boats entertainment and things to do 24 hours a day. Hotels in Madrid are pretty easy to find as the population of Madrid is so great. There are quite a few museums and music halls in Madrid as well, and the night life is very active particularly on the weekends when the younger people will stay out all night dancing and leave only to go to work the next morning. That type of stuff was great for me twenty years ago but I don’t see me dancing the night away any time soon.

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Wednesday Hero

rmiles7721October 10, 20075Site News

This Weeks Hero Was Suggested By Greta, Who Is Herself A Solders’ Angel

Lance Cpl. Cory Jamieson
May Not Solder Go Unloved
Back in 2003, self-described “ordinary mother”, Patti Patton-Bader, started an organization called Solders’ Angels because her son, Sgt. Brandon Varn, wrote her a letter from Iraq in which he showed concern that some of the brave men and women there weren’t receiving any mail or support from back home. Well, she wasn’t going to allow this. She called a few friends and family asking them if they would write to some of the soldiers. They’d never met them. Didn’t know who they were, but they wrote. And in a few short months, Solders’ Angles went from an idea an “ordinary mother” had to having chapters all over the country and thousands of angels all over the world letting soldiers know that they were loved and respected by writing hundreds of thousands of letters, sending care packages, medical supplies, body armor and lending comfort and support to military families. Solder’s Angels and the people who run and support it are heroes in the truest sense.

These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero.
We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived

This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your blog, you can go here.
This is an Open Track-Back post for Wednesday, October 10th.

Congressman Westmoreland Supports the Fairtax

rmiles7721October 9, 2007Politics

This is probably old news but I haven’t been to Representative Westmoreland’s homepage in quite some time. The last time I visited there was nothing definite at all concerning the Fairtax but now his statement on taxes is thus:

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The burden the federal tax system places on our families and businesses is one of the reasons why the Congressman first ran for office in Georgia, and continues to be a motivation for his service in the U.S. Congress.

The Congressman has pursued the issue of lower taxes throughout his time in the state legislature and in Congress. But despite reducing tax rates, the tax system is so complicated that most people don’t even try to do their own taxes. When it takes additional help to comply with our own laws, something is seriously wrong.

He strongly supports future reductions in the tax and regulatory burden on the people of the United States, and also support efforts at eliminating the income tax completely and replacing it with a national retail sales tax, also known as the FairTax. By implementing a consumption-based tax, we will catch elements of the underground economy that currently pay no taxes, while significantly reducing overhead costs to companies, which will result in lower prices

Most importantly, no one will have to fill out tax forms each year, or have money withheld from their paycheck each month. Eliminating the Internal Revenue Service will be a huge step forward toward a fair system, and the elimination of all of the various loopholes will guarantee uniformity across the board. We must have a tax system that everyone can understand, and that is as little burden as possible.

You’ve got my vote again dude.

I’m off…

rmiles7721October 9, 2007Blogging, Technology

I have to start getting ready to head in to Atlanta. There are a few bloggers meeting up around Centennial park someplace and I plan to be there. I am running way behind today because of my stupid cell phone dying a painful death. It’s been acting up quite a bit lately and just turns itself off, drains the battery or reboots randomly in the middle of a call. I bought a brand new battery for it yesterday and the damn thing was drained by today and wouldn’t turn back on.

I went to Verizon this morning and ended up getting a Moto Q 9m, not exactly the phone that I wanted but it is pretty cool thus far. I have 30 days I think if I want to switch so if the XV6800 comes out before then I may just have to get it instead.

The main thing I don’t like about it is that it is somewhat laggy and slow to respond. Haven’t tried it blogging yet but I did take a photo and try to send it to Flickr unsuccessfully. Maybe I will have more time to play with it later and see what the problem is.

Topical Tuesday

rmiles7721October 9, 20073Site News

Another meme I am trying out for Tuesdays. I kind of like this one because it makes you think and damn does that hurt sometimes 🙂

Anyway here is what Topical Tuesday is all about…

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Topical Tuesday is a new meme intended to inspire the art of discussion via our blogs. Each week, on a Tuesday, a new topic will be placed on the main site for people to post about. Topics are open, and don’t necessarily need to be intended for serious discussion – after all a meme should be nothing if not fun!

This weeks topic is The Greatest Superhero and why.

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I loved comics as a kid and still do to some extent although I don’t buy them very often. There are two that are near and dear to my heart and they are Spiderman and Batman. I guess to me though, the Batman is the greatest superhero. Batman is a haunted soul with quite a bit of darkness in him that is his main motivation. Although in the last few years Spiderman developed a bit of a dark side I think that Batman had it all along. It was even more apparent just how dark he could be in Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns. This is one of my all time favorite graphic novels. My copy was unfortunately destroyed a few years back but sooner or later I will get my hands on another original copy. Until then Batman will always be in my head.

I know this is a short entry this week but I wrote this last night and was up much too late. Didn’t get home from work until after ten.

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TMI Tuesday

rmiles7721October 9, 2007Site News

I’ve been hunting for a silly meme to take the place of Tramp Stamp Tuesday since I have moved it to my nameless blog that’s somewhere else 🙂 and came across TMI Tuesday last night. With TMI Tuesday I ask some questions and if you dare you answer in the comments or link to your blog with the answers.

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So here are your questions for this week…

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1. Top or Bottom?

2. Ever shaved your privates?

3. Is this too personal?

4. Do you care?

5. Do this meme again next week?

Me, Myself, and I

If you want to see other people’s TMI Tuesday posts or participate go check out the home for TMI Tuesday.

Deputy Kills 6 Over Insult

rmiles7721October 8, 2007Site News

I’ve been insulted a time or two in the past. Heck, more than that. You live and learn and brush stuff like that off. For Tyler Peterson, a Wisconsin cop, being called a worthless pig was just too much for him and he was apparently so distraught over it that he felt the need to kill six people and put a seventh in critical condition.


The youngest of his victims was 14 year old Lindsey Stahl.
This is a pretty horrible incident and I guess the questions and finger pointing will start pretty soon. I know that most police forces do psychological testing but exactly how much testing would they be able to do in a small town such as this? I live in a small town like that. Most of the officers in my community have worked in bigger towns with larger police forces and just want to be out here for the quiet, so that makes me a bit more confortable but who knows when someone is going to snap. It’s unfortunate for the victims that he had a gun with him when he did.

Back to Work…

rmiles7721October 8, 20072Site News

I only thought today was a long day. I ended up getting home around five or so, sat down and had dinner with the girls, spoke with Eric and Zonker for a brief moment and now I am getting ready to go back in…

I am having issues at a couple of my stores that my presence for a few hours should solve. I don’t intend on staying too terribly late but do have a couple of things to take care of.

I did manage to take tomorrow off so will head to Atlanta mid-afternoon to meet up with a couple of folks.

I may have some time to get online later this evening…