Author Archive
I hear often from friends and family alike that I’m a cynic, sarcastic, have a bad attitude, and don’t think much of this human race I’m a part of. Here’s a news flash people, I’m all of those things and a bag of chips. I was raised to do the right thing whenever possible regardless of the consequences and it’s one of the main reasons I became a police officer. But things have changed dramatically in the last twenty years. Some good changes but many that aren’t so good. I certainly wouldn’t want to be a young child being raised now. They’re all eventually turned into fearful and paranoid little people who are afraid of everyone around them except for their mother and father. I understand that in most cases it’s a necessity considering all of the lunatics and perverts running the streets but it is a sad commentary of everyday American life and values.
We as a people have become so ‘paranoid’ of each other that courtesy and helpfulness between individuals can no longer be expected. I find myself affected in this way in my dealings not just with adults but also with children. I know if I saw a child in distress I would assist immediately but in the back of my mind I would be thinking and worrying, “ Is someone going to sue me or falsely accuse me of wrongdoing” just “to be on the safe side”. I’m afraid that a majority of men in this country are “paranoid” to the extreme in matters like this. I don’t doubt there have been occasions where young children appeared disoriented or lost and people continued on about their business because of these fears. How many times has it been reported that people have stood by and watched as others are raped, stabbed, and murdered without even taking any action as simple as a 911 call.
Years ago when I was in the police academy we were educated about a law called the ‘Good Samaritan Act’. It supposedly protected law enforcement and fire/rescue personnel from lawsuits resulting from their assisting injured individuals. They stressed during this training all of the required certifications you should have just to ‘cover your ass’. CPR and basic emergency medical training come to mind immediately. That’s great for service personnel but I’ll bet any amount of money that the law is so full of loop holes that it wouldn’t be possible to use it to protect an average citizen in those same circumstances. The current thinking seems to be, it’s safer to do nothing and not get involved.
So here’s where we are now. Women and children should run and hide from all men. Men should run and hide if approached by any female, old or young, any child, or any suspicious looking person. No eye contact with anyone at any time because they may rape, rob, abuse, or manhandle you. If you see a crime, keep walking and maybe call from home later or maybe not.
This kind of behavior is destructive to our society on many levels but I do understand the underlying reasons for it. As the country continues to permit individuals to rationalize any and all bad behavior up to and including murder, the situation will never improve. All of the psycho-babble in the world cannot justify or excuse hard core criminal behavior. Where there’s a carrot there must be a stick. Lack of societal deterrence for crimes is to blame. If a crime occurs there must be swift punishment to send the proper message to others and maybe convince the new generations that this isn’t a land full of adult predators who are out to get them.
Excuse me for a minute, I need to check my alarm system, my door locks, my deadbolts, and it’s also time to feed the alligators in the moat. That should keep me safe for another night.
It must be March, it must be cold, I must be in Maine, and it must be really boring, because last night I was introduced to the Duck Dynasty. I was prepared to hate that stupid program but just out of curiosity decided to give it a look anyway and make my own decision.
It’s new season started last week and I’ve been hearing on advertisements ever since it was watched by more than 8 million viewers. I really had to check it out because if those numbers were factual there must be more to this show than I thought. I tuned into what appeared to be a mini marathon of every episode from last season and found myself thoroughly enjoying the interplay between the bearded characters and their not so bearded wives and children.
Before the night was over I’d watched six episodes as I was doing other things. The group as a whole seem genuinely likeable and seem to go about enjoying their lives just the way they want. It was real hoot and a pleasant surprise since in my opinion more than 90% or more of the reality shows on TV today are just awful. I’m not sure the Duck Dynasty is going to keep me as a permanent viewer but if things get too boring on TV I can always switch over and watch these crazy folks from Louisiana doing what they do best, making me laugh.
A good portion of my day was spent sitting before my computer screen continuing the sorting of photographs. I’m almost at the point of being overwhelmed due to the sheer number of pictures. It took me more than two weeks to just catalog, organize, and finally back up every photograph onto a removable hard drive. I can store that hard drive elsewhere and never again have that fear of losing any of my important photos. I’m finally ready to start the summer of 2013 with a new outlook and determination to continue my collection with photos I’ve been wanting to get for a long time.
This summer should be terrific since most of my projects around the house have been completed and my time will be my own to take as many photographs as I possibly can before next winter. I have a number of projects I’ve been wanting to do for quite some time and it looks like this may be the year for it.
Fortunately the state of Maine offers an endless supply of forests, rivers, lakes, and seashore that will keep me busy for many years to come. This summer will allow me to do three things I really love; gardening, picture taking, and loafing. My better-half and I have declared a moratorium on home remodeling projects for the summer and thank God for that.
Today I’ve just finished washing joint compound dust from my hair, hands, and clothing. I love working with drywall not only because when finished it looks so good but that you don’t have to wait for days to see the results of your efforts. Almost instant gratification that you normally can’t find too often.
I made a medium sized mess and was only working on finishing the interior of a small stupid closet. I’m using this closet to reintroduce myself to drywall finishing. It’s been a number of years since I last worked drywall and I’m trying to get my "touch" back. Overall I was pleased with the initial results and this will surely give me enough confidence to complete this remodel to my satisfaction. It’s just so damn messy and being a "neat freak" really doesn’t help.
The clocks have just "sprung forward" which almost always triggers my Spring Fever issues in a big way. On top of that the temperature today was in the low fifties which is like tropical weather for Maine in March. I know the chances of more snow and cold weather are likely but dammit this sure feels good. If the wind had lessened just a bit I’d have made my way out onto the deck with the cat and enjoyed a few minutes of sunshine.
I made another trip to Lowe’s today for more supplies and a chance to get out of the house for an hour or so. I think Spring Fever is affecting everyone. I actually saw a guy wearing sandals and a pair of shorts. He must be insane, it’s March for God’s sake.
The MDA volunteers were out in force and offering baked goods, smiles, and anything else that could get money from my wallet to their pocket. I ask myself the same question every year. How many hundreds of millions of dollars have been collected over the last twenty or so years for MDA? You would think by now that research that well funded would have shown some results. I’m just enough of a cynic not to believe all the hype that’s put forward on that damn telethon and would like someone to tell me and show me how much of those millions actually reached the researchers. Until then I’ll support only local initiatives where strict accountability is easily measured.
My previously all gray cat just just pranced by with a dusty white stripe down his back. He must have been in the closet nosing around and picked up some dust. He looks a little like Pepe Lepew from the old cartoon show. I suppose I’d better sweep the closet one more time and the cat as well. He insists on getting his nose into everything but that OK because he has me to follow him around and clean up after him.
We’re well into the month of March, one of the more religiously celebrated months of the year. The following days are observed by millions of people in many varied religions and countries. They are this year; St. David’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Palm Sunday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Saint Piran’s Day, St. Urho’s Day, and of course Easter Sunday.
I tend to get mixed messages because at the same time we have a total of 287 other daily, weekly, and monthly observances in March that are anything but religious. Here are a few odd and unusual observances that are in my opinion completely ridiculous.
Atheist Awareness Day, Root Canal Awareness Day, Pig Day, Day of the Dude, Corn Dog Day, Snowman Burning Day, and Earmuff Day. Go figure.
I myself have only one observance in March that interests me enough to mention. March 15-17 is Sherlock Holmes Weekend and I celebrate it each year by reading selected stories from my Sir Arthur Conan Doyle collection. Of all of the detectives written about over the years Sherlock Holmes has had more staying power than almost all of them. Alex Cross, Jack Reacher, Travis McGee, and Eve Dallas all have a huge followings around the world but nothing comes close to the Sherlock Holmes contingent of which I count myself a proud member.
Not only is it fun to read detective stories written in the late 1800’s but it’s also amazing to me how many of the skills developed by the Holmes character eventually became talents developed by many real life investigators. I was a criminal investigator and interrogator for more than than thirty years as a police officer, private investigator, and then in the private sector. The most successful investigators have an ability to look at a series of facts and circumstances from a unique angle that most people are unable to do. They place themselves into the mind of a criminal or victim which in turn helps them to understand the simplest of actions and statements which under normal circumstances might go unnoticed by the untrained. My first exposure to that way of thinking was through the Sherlock Holmes stories.
You can’t really appreciate Holmes without giving credit to his creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who died on July 7, 1940 in Sussex, England. Six years and one month later I was born. Approximately twelve years later I read my first Sherlock Holmes story and saw my first Hollywood movie version staring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. I’ve been hooked ever since.
I’m not saying that Sherlock Holmes was the inspiration for my career but I can’t tell you how many times when I first initiated a case I thought to myself “Watson, the game is afoot” .
One of my all time favorite Holmes mysteries is The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle. Find it, read it, and enjoy it.
Also thank God for my IPad, I still carry Holmes with me wherever I go.
As I promised a week or so ago, if I found any interesting tidbits of useless information and trivia, I would pass them along to you. I have a few here that are obscure, a little strange, but as best I can determine accurate. Read them and remember them because you never know when you might get caught up in a vicious game of Trivial Pursuit. A number of these items were researched by the late great Isaac Asimov. He was one of the smartest men alive in his day and had a habit of collecting and researching odd tidbits of information. Enjoy!
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Drilling an oil well 5 miles deep requires drilling night and day, seven days a week, for as long as 500 days.
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The total population of the earth at the time of Julius Caesar was 150 million. The total population increase in two years on earth today is 150 million.
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During the next minute, 100 people will die 240 will be born. The world’s population problem increases by a 140 people per minute.
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Many years ago a Harvard student on his way home to visit his parents fell between two railroad cars at the station in Jersey City, New Jersey, and was rescued by an actor on his way to visit his sister in Philadelphia. The student was Robert Lincoln, heading for 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. The actor was Edwin Booth the brother of the man who a few weeks later would murder the students father.
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There are 2,500,000 rivets in the Eiffel Tower.
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There is a salt mine in the Polish town of Wieliczka, near Cracow, that has been in operation for nearly 1000 years.
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While Columbus was seeking new worlds to the West, Italian engineers were rebuilding the Kremlin in Moscow.
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There are more than 100 distinct ethnic groups in the Soviet Union.
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Every cubic mile of seawater holds over 150,000,000 tons of minerals. There are 350,000,000 cubic miles of seawater on the planet.
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It was proposed in the Rhode Island legislature in the 1970’s that there be enacted a two dollar tax on every act of sexual intercourse.
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Morocco was the first country to officially recognize the United States in 1789.
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Some Eskimos use refrigerators to keep their food from freezing.
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In 1978, more than 1000 deer were accidentally killed in Connecticut by automobile drivers. Only 948 were killed by hunters.
Well there you have it. More useless information for you to cram into your brain so you can amaze your friends and family and possibly win a few bar bets. More to come I’m sure.
I woke up early this morning and I’m now lying in bed drinking my first cup of coffee. I’m looking out the window at all of the wonderful snow we received overnight. A few minutes ago I watched my neighbor who lives further back in the woods from us walking along his driveway dressed like an eskimo. Every morning at exactly 7:00 am he walks from his house to the road to pick up his daily newspaper. He must be strictly regimented because he varies no more than a minute or two each day. Exactly fifteen minutes later he again walks to the road with his little daughter and waits with her for her school bus.
Are you also a “creature of habit”? I think we all are in one way or another and may not even be aware of it at times. My cat just walked by the bed on his way to continue his patrol of the house. He is the poster cat for the term “creature of habit”. He in turn through his actions requires me to become part of his daily routine.
Every morning starting at 6:00 am he starts his nagging for food. He knows that after a certain period of time I’ll be forced from sheer annoyance to get my lazy ass up and feed him. This pattern started ten years ago when he and I were living the wild and crazy bachelor lifestyle in good old Sanford, Maine, a well known area for wild nightlife and many unexplained deaths from sheer boredom. Once we moved to Saco, Maine it took him more than a month to adapt to the new home and surrounding circumstances. I made the same adjustment in a matter of days.
Apparently our adaptability to change is based solely on intelligence not cuteness. If it was based on cuteness then I’d have adjusted even quicker. In case you’ve forgotten I am one cute SOB.
My better-half is the ultimate creature of habit and sometimes it’s even in a good way. She has a radio in every room of the house and cannot bear to have a moment of quiet. As she moves from room to room she turns on the radio upon her arrival. There have been times when she’s had multiple radios playing in different areas of the house. This pattern of behavior apparently started many years ago long before my arrival on the scene. My assumption is that it was her way of accomplishing three things. First she loves listening to music, second it drowned out the noise from her three children, and thirdly it blocked any unnecessary conversations with her ex-husband. Remember that is my assumption which she is certain to disagree with. Just so you know she was reading this over my shoulder and has already disagreed loudly with my assumptions.
Even the birds who visit our home three or four thousand times a day have their habits and patterns. I can set my watch by a large and annoying woodpecker who appears twice a day at the same time to eat the suet we provide. The blue jays appear as well at a different times to avoid the woodpecker. All of the smaller birds schedule themselves appropriately to avoid the woodpecker and the blue jays. Everyone and everything has patterns that coincide neatly with everyone else’s. It’s just simply the way of things and something we have little or no control over.
So, as you’re going about your daily routines, stop every so often and think about your habits and patterns and how comfortable they make you feel. We do them for a reason whether we like to admit it or not. As young people we develop habits that interlock with the habits of our family. As soon as we introduce others to our life we immediately fit them into the nitch we’ve created for them.
Is it any wonder we all seem to love jigsaw puzzles. They’re a mass of varied and odd pieces that combine into a finished and complete picture. Our lives are much the same.
So I’m being forced from my bed by both the cat and my better-half to feed one and snow blow for the other. I guess that confirms me as a true “creature of habit” with a little help from my friends.
With cold and snow still dominating the landscape for at least another month it gives a person a great deal of time to think about this and that. Today is the day for marriage to be thought about and examined. I like millions of others have been married and divorced and suffered with the accompanying emotional damage. Nineteen years of memories I would love to remove from my memory banks except for a few months of actual happiness.
I was raised by parents who dated from when they were in their teens. They lived a few blocks from each other and were inseparable as teens until my father enlisted in the Navy during WW II. I always thought their marriage was a happy one because we (my sister and I) were protected from certain things. My father later in life made me privy to a number of incidents and occurrences that brought them close to divorce and I wished he had me told me those things earlier. They might actually have helped me through some rough times in my own marriage. It was only my mothers religious beliefs concerning divorce and a fear of community and family ridicule that kept them together.
Marriage can be a wonderful thing but when it doesn’t work it a freaking nightmare. Yet millions of people still believe that they are the exception to the rule and continue to jump into what at best is a fifty-fifty proposition. A normal thinking person would almost never gamble their money on those kind of odds but are immediately willing to jump into a legally binding relationship which has a better than average chance of failing.
In the past it was ingrained in children that marriage was the ultimate goal with having kids, a mortgage, and the proverbial white picket fence. Here are a few more recent facts obtained from the Pew Research Center that begin to show just how much that has changed in recent years.
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The ratio of new marriages to divorces is 2 to 1 (Marriages and Divorces).
Total Marriages showed a sharp drop in 1998 and after a brief rebound, continued to trend down.
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The population of unmarried women will soon surpass the number of married women. This indicates a rejection of the Divine Institution of Marriage by the general population.
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The number of Unmarried Couple Households (live-in) is increasing steadily.
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Children living with only one parent have increased from 9% in 1960 to 27% in 2009. Of those 87% of the children live with the mother.
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Previous marriage experience plays a big role in whether people want to get married (again) or not.
These facts indicate that the drop in the marriage rate is due primarily to people believing that marriage is more of a problem than a solution. Apparently people these days are deciding in greater numbers that the marriage gamble isn’t worth the risk. The emotional damage coupled with the financial ramifications to both partners has taken some of the shine off of the marriage apple.
I’m currently unmarried and that will never change. I’m sharing my life with my soulmate which was always the most important thing to me. Marriage never supplied me with much of anything except a piece of paper. Living together has surprisingly given us a great deal of freedom in that we are both free to leave at any time with no divorce nonsense as a consequence. We are together because that’s what we both want. I actually find myself working harder to keep our relationship peaceful and loving like never before. It was like the marriage document itself put undue pressure on me, both emotionally and financially.
I wish the gay community all the best in their efforts to marry legally. As I’ve said many times before why should they miss out on all the benefits of marriage. Arguing, fighting, cheating, financial problems, divorce, alimony, and child support. They must be crazy.
This day is just about over and it’s been another day of continuing preparation for the drywall installation into our newly redone bedroom. It’s taken most of the winter to strip out this room and redo the electrical, framing, and flooring but at least now I can finally see the effing light at the end of the tunnel. For the first time it’s not a train rushing towards me going a hundred miles an hour.
I’ve been patiently waiting for the snow to melt so I can dig out the fire pit and have my normal spring bonfire. It’s the easiest way to clean out the garage and workshop of the winter’s accumulation of wood scraps and worthless construction materials. It beats the alternative of paying someone to pick it up and haul it away. I purposely have the bonfire each spring before the area dry’s out and the fire becomes a hazard. As in most local towns they have a lame requirement for burning permits and to that I’m forced to say "Catch me if you can". Everything right now within a hundred miles of this house is so wet you couldn’t start a fire if you wanted to. I normally refuse to obey ordinances that make no sense and this is one of those occasions. The last thing I need are town yokels showing up to give official approval to my fire. Stupid government intrusions!
I actually find myself being effected by a disease known here in Maine as Early Spring Syndrome. I forced myself to take my lawn tractor out for a short spin today to charge the battery and check it’s general condition. It was all good until I got stuck in the snow and had to shovel it out. ESS is a dangerously stupid condition that makes you feel good and ridiculous all at the same time.
I’m now sitting here in the kitchen having a coffee and watching my neighbor hanging her laundry on their clothesline. This women and her daughters truly puzzle me at times. I’ve watched over the years as they’ve hung their laundry out in ten degree weather where it freezes as stiff as a board. I must admit that a clothes line full of frozen bra’s and panties swinging in the wind can be interesting but it just seems pointless. Now if they were hanging laundry on the line wearing just their bras and panties I might reconsider just how interesting it is. I watch in amazement as they stand in a driving rain storm to hang out their bed sheets and other unmentionables. Am I missing something here? Do they really know something I don’t? I just haven’t figured it out yet. I may start taking photo’s of them in different seasonal weather conditions and publish a really strange coffee table book filled with my sarcastic and wise-ass commentary. I love the idea but I’m almost certain they wouldn’t.
Well, it’s time for the better-half to arrive from work and I think she’s expecting a meal to be waiting for her. Oh well, everyone wants something.
The start of another work week for everyone and unfortunately for me as well. It’s becoming painfully obvious that I’m working much harder being retired than when I was actually working. For some reason I expected that taking early retirement was going to be the end of my labors and believing that makes me a gigantic moron. I should have know better.
I started with a huge and complicated goal when I took retirement. I sold my home and together with my better-half we decided to update and repair her home. I must have been brain damaged as a child to even think to take on a project like that especially dealing with a thirty year old home with five bedrooms. I now only have one wish. I want to meet the effing a-hole who built this place and I want to beat him with a huge stick for about an hour. There isn’t a square room in the entire building, the wiring was a complete and utter disaster, and who in their right effing mind puts drop ceilings in the kitchen and bedrooms.
I thought I was some kind of handy-man when I started this project but I’m a whole lot smarter now. In the last five years I’ve touched damn near every wire, board, window, door, and floor in the freaking building. Guess what? I’m still not finished. If I’m lucky I’ll have the entire house completed except for the kitchen within the next eighteen months. I won’t even begin to tell you what a nightmare the kitchen will be. It has to be gutted completely and redone from scratch.
With my luck I’ll finally get this place finished and then I’ll get hit by a truck getting the mail from the mailbox. I’ve done a few things in my life that deserve a karmic slap but I for the life of me I can’t remember doing anything bad enough to deserve this house. KMN
Enough of the whining. I just left Lowes with a load of material so I can get started on the drywall installation in my bedroom remodel. Lowes should make me their official mascot for this particular store since I spent enough money here to drive their sales for the last four years.
I’m going to finish this bedroom and then I’m taking the summer off. No hammers, nails, paint, or anything else. I going to relax, take lots of photographs, visit distant lands (within Maine), and enjoy the warm weather and the beach. That should clear my head enough to prepare me for next winters project.
Someone help me, I’m trapped in Maine and I can’t get out.
I thought today I’d live up to this blogs name by providing a few items of really useless information which you could no doubt live without. I need to have a fun posting day for a change that will provide absolutely no useful content to any discussion about anything at all. How’s that for a total and complete disclaimer.
I’ve always been a huge trivia fan and anytime I find a few tidbits that are new to me I immediately send them along to you. So sit back in your nice soft chair with your refreshment of choice and read on.
1. Potatoes have more chromosomes than humans do – 48 versus 46.
2. The steam rising from a cup of hot coffee contains the same amount of antioxidants as three oranges.
3. Cleavage has nothing to do with breast size or shape. Women with concave ribcages exhibit cleavage, while those with convex ribcages don’t.
4. There are roughly 144,000 mosquitos for every person on earth.
5. Dr. Seuss wrote Green Eggs and Ham after his editor challenged him to produce a book using fewer than 50 words.
6. William McKinley was the first president to ride in an electric car – the ambulance that took him to the hospital after he was shot by an assassin.
7. In 2004, the glossy Ikea catalogue overtook the Bible as the world’s most distributed publication.
8. The Bible is the most shoplifted book in the world.
9. The actress Liz Sheridan, best known for her portrayal of Jerry Seinfeld’s TV mother, was briefly engaged to James Dean.
10. One of every five meals in America are eaten in cars.
11. The largest human cell is the female ovum. The smallest is the male sperm.
12. You can tell the temperature by listening to a cricket chirp. For the temperature in degrees Fahrenheit, count the number of chirps in 15 seconds and add 37.
13. In the summer of 1967, Jimi Hendrix was the opening act for the Monkees seven times.
14. A falling object travels slower at the equator than it does at the North and South poles.
15. Winston Churchill had a heart attack in the White House while straining to open a window.
So there you have it. Fifteen more golden nuggets of useless information to use up what space you have left in your memory banks. The month of March is sure to be long and boring and to make it complete I’ll send a few more tidbits your way in a few weeks. I just know your thrilled.
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