The brilliance of StarBucks

Here is a conversation between me and one those mindless slopeheads that work behind the counter at Starbucks.

(by the way, I tried to put a tab or spaces in front of the clerks responses to better separate and make this easier to read, but Google Blog does not recognize spaces in front of text. I guess the moron programmers at Google missed the memo)


Me - Hi, I’d like a small coffee
“Ok, one tall coming up”
No, I said a small
“A tall is a small.”
Then what is a medium?
“Grande”
Grande means “huge”.
“Well, it is a medium here.”
So, I fear to ask, what is a large?
“Venti”
Venti means “twenty. I don’t get it”
“Venti’s are 20 ounces.”
How many ounces are “grandes?”
"Sixteen"
So why don’t you call a medium a “sedici”?
What does sedici mean?
Sixteen
(Silence from the slopehead behind the counter)
Do you realize how idiotic this is?
"Um, I don’t know. Do you want a coffee?"
Yes, I’ll take a dodici
"What’s that?"
A small, I mean tall, which is one less than “Huge”, and two less than “twenty”

My Debating Skills (and ensuing rant about religion)

You could put me in a debate competition and give me the position of defending the statement “The earth is round”, and I would get eaten alive. Every single time in my life that I have tried to conflict and argue a subject, even one that I am fluent in, I get torn to shreds. Especially amusing is when I try to debate politics. Hahahaha!!!!! When growing up, my brothers and I were never allowed to argue, my dad would tell us to “be quiet and try to get along”. Excuse me for my tear jerking therapy statement, but it is true. I bet this certainly has something to do with my debating skills.

One time I was discussing religion and my stance was that Christians are pretty pompous and egotistical because they believe that their beliefs are right and all the other religions in the world are wrong. Check out this quote from an independent group that gathers statistics:

A comparative survey of churches and religions - AD 30 to 2200: there are 19 major world religions which are subdivided into a total of 270 large religious groups, and many smaller ones. 34,000 separate Christian groups have been identified in the world.

It seems even the Christians are unable to agree with each other. So anyway, in my discussion with this person, I asked “why did you pick Christianity out of 270 choices”. “Because it is the best choice and only one that is right” was his answer. Considering the fact that Christianity represents only 30% of the world, his answer seems rather pompous and rude. As always, I went on to lose this debate since religions are based on faith. You can’t argue facts with faith. If you get a religious person in a corner they usually just start ranting versus from the bible until you wander off. But I’m no different, I’ll continue to use logic until I’m blue in the face.

Have you ever seen anybody change their mind in a debate based on the other person’s argument? “Bob, you are right! I never thought about that, I now I see I am wrong and you are right”. It’s never happened. People debate and argue, never giving in even to the death. I’ve never seen a single person back down and change sides.

In summary, my debating method now consists of just agreeing with everybody even if I know they are dead wrong. My motto is “unless somebody could get hurt, there is no advantage to arguing with people”. Aggressively trying to convince other people of your opinions is really just an act of insecurity. Those who are secure with where they are in life usually sit back and watch the fight while smiling. Now, quickly I would like to point out an exception to all this; if you are simply goofing around with your friends and say something like “bush is a no talent ass clown”, that’s more of a fun sport among friends. Obviously you cant prove that bush has ever been employed by a circus. Additionally, sometimes it is a good idea to start a debate with a loud opinion in order to get people stirred up and thinking. Sometimes the ensuing arguments can bring new facts to the surface.

My neighbor Arnold, World Champion of Torturing Inanimate Objects.

Arnold lived next door to use when I was growing up, and was highly skilled at torturing anything that did not have a pulse. He was a very kind kid to anything living, especially animals, but if you were a screwdriver, you better run for cover.

Arnold’s earliest influence was his hero, “Jody Dade”, who lived a few doors down. Jody once took a saucepan out back and shot it full of holes with a 9mm pistol because “it burnt his beans”.

Here are a handful of stories and events about Arnold and his skills.

When around 16, he was driving his grandfathers 1960 pickup and it died at a stop sign and would not start. He jumped out and grabbed the jumper cables. Did he proceed to jump start the truck? HA! He took the cables and begin slinging them on the hood in a violent whipping action while shouting “SHIT TRUCK! SHIT TRUCK! SHIT TRUCK!” as loud as he possibly could. He family still has this truck, the scars of it’s past can still be seen on the hood.

He got a “new” truck soon after, a 70s model, and was quite happy with it until one day it stalled at the red light when he pressed on the gas pedal. “Oh, you want to be a city truck, huh?”. From then on, at each light, he would hold the brake and when the light turned green, he would floor it while holding the brake and then release the brake launching it hard. He would run it wide open until the next light when he would wait until the last minute and then stand on the brakes as hard as he could.

In addition, in the mornings, he would would start the motor and immediately put it in gear and floor it, giving the engine no time to warm up.

Small objects that misbehaved, such as nails that bent when hammered, little things that hid from him, and so on, were sentenced to his torture chamber. This special place was an area on the exhaust manifold on his truck engine, the part that gets very, very hot. These objects were taught a lesson by spending various length sentences being burned hot. The severity of the crime committed would dictate the length of the sentence. There were several objects that were “in for life”, but most items got a pardon after a few months or so.

“Abrasion” was a very popular torture method at started up later in his life, maybe in his mid 30s. If you say, drop a screwdriver while working on something, when you lean down to pick it up, you drag the tip on the concrete for a couple of seconds before going back to work. This teaches the tool to not make the mistake again of “jumping out of your hand”.

Once I came home from work and Arnold was out on the patio with some small can with a fire blazing away in it. I walked up in a way that he was not aware that I was watching. I heard him talking to the can. “I’m sorry picante sauce, but if you would not have jumped off the table, I would not be having to set you on fire”.

ANYTHING that ARnold knocked over and made a mess was tortured mercilessly.

Once Arnold got sick with a sore throat. “I’m gonna teach this baby throat of mine a lesson” he announced. He went out back and started gargling with lemon juice and Tabasco, hoping that the acid would damage his throat. But it did not end there. He would gargle, and then start screaming as loud as humanly possible to further damage his throat.

Many objects were destroyed, but if it was essential that it “stay alive”, like a tool, Arnold would use a bit of abrasion or hammer damage, but keep it alive because “It has a job to do”.

Arnold’s “city truck” like all pickups, tended to not handle so well because the back of the truck would bounce quite a bit if the bed were not loaded. This is typical of any truck. Well, Arnold did not think this bouncing was acceptable, so he filled these 3 steel pipes with 300 pounds of concrete and welded them on the rear of the bed to “make it behave”.

Arnold had kind of wavy curly hair, and when it would get a bit long, his bangs would start to hang down around his eyes, so he would get his mom’s sewing scissors out and cut off his “fag curls”. His mom of course would kick his ass for using her sewing scissors.

The lawnmower that arnold used was an old beat up thing. Arnold used to say that lawnmowers were worth no respect and should be worked hard with never an oil change or spark plug cleaning or a wash-down. This mower of his of course started running not too well, and on occasion, the engine would die if you hit high grass. It did this one too many times and Arnold announced "I have had enough of you!". He drained the oil out of the engine and started it up. He then put the throttle at maximum so the engine was just screaming away.

He calmly went inside and enjoyed a sandwich while listening to the sound of agony coming from the tortured mower. After a couple of minutes, the engine go so hot (remember there was no oil in the crankcase), that it seized up and ground to an immediate halt. The next morning it started up fine and has been running ever since.

One time Arnold’s mom set him down on the kitchen counter when he was like, a year old, and while she was talking on the phone, he ate a whole stick of butter. to this day, he still likes to eat butter and also raw meat.

Me and Arnold played golf a few times together when we were in our mid teens, and arnold, as you can guess, did not show the best sportsmanship if things went wrong.

Once, on a par 4 hole, Arnold hauls off and whacks one, big hitter, long. He sent it into the bottom of a 10,000 foot glacier. Oh wait, that’s from CaddyShack. in reality, the ball dropped in a muddy ditch halfway to the green. In normal golf, this is called “casual water”, and you can take your ball out with a 1 stroke penalty. Well, Arnold starts whacking away at the ball, and I stop him and explain the concept of casual water. “NO! I AM GOING TO PLAY FAIR!! He keeps burying his club deeper and deeper in the mude “SEVEN, EIGHT, NINE....”. I walked back to the other guys at the green. “...SIXTEEN! SEVENTEEN! EIGHTEEN!”.

We made him stop at 22 so we could move on. He had successfully dug a pretty nice little pond.

Tennis was similar. With each bad shot, Arnold would whack the ground with the side of his racquet. After a while, the raquet was pretty much square, I am not kidding. And the edges were beat beyond recognition.

When Pizza Hut first came out with their pan pizza (thick) back in the 70s, Arnold started calling them "Dough Hut" and refused to eat there ever again.

The agony of the 2009 albuquerque gas race

The 2009 gas race was a no-go thanks to weather nonsense that cropped up right at the worst possible time: smack dab in the middle of inflation.  The gas committee weather man Randy Lafavor called the winds to be 6-8 knots during inflation, and our private weatherman Don Day called the same thing.  There was a last minute change in the low down in the south that “packed up the gradients” as don said and caused a ridiculous amount of wind; some 25 knot gusts that caused holy terror for us.  Randy beat himself up for this error but it was totally not his error, he did the best he could.  Weather is not exact or well behaved, as we all know.  

Brian and I drew the lucky bean and were first to launch, so 10 minutes before the start we dropped the diffuser in preparation for launch.  Well, we tried to drop the diffuser.  Thanks to me, the ropes were not properly positioned inside the appendix and they got all knotted up on the diffuser while still installed. When we opened the appendix and lowered the diffuser, it was a complete mess, requiring the exciting and embarrassing visit from the manlift.  Our crew member Mick Heim climbed aboard the manlift and successfully got it all untwisted.    Dropping early was our second mistake.  Before dropping, we should have confirmed that launch was on schedule, but we did not.  They put us on a 30 minute hold which meant we were now no longer able to add gas to the balloon.  To make things much, much worse, was that I did not properly tie off the diffuser closer line which allows us to seal the bottom of the bag so the gas does not escape or get mixed with air.  Well, within 10 minutes, we lost the whole bottom of the bag of gas.  We tried to grab the line with people jumping in the air as the balloon swung down near the ground.  Yes, it was that windy, and that ridiculous looking.  The line was short because the bottom of the line was tied in one of those stupid “daisy chain” knots that I have despised since 1985.  They are unnecessary and cause issues since many crew members do not know the secret trick to getting them undone.  I realize that I am alone in this opinion.  All the cool teams use daisy chains.

Out comes the manlift again, and once more Mick climbs up and gets the closer line down.  This was far more difficult than it sounds since the balloon was banging around back and forth like a hootchie mama on a trapeze.  We were now able to seal the appendix, but at this point it was too late.

Now, what might not make sense to any of you that do not fly gas, is that the loss of gas is not an issue for flight.  When gas balloons rise, the gas expands and fills the bottom anyway.  Our situation would have simply meant that we would have climbed about 3,000 feet without having to ballast.  In fact, the balloon actually climbs smoother with a soft bottom.  The reason the gas loss was such a problem was that it allowed the bottom of the bag to essentially become a sail and reeked hell by letting the bag swing all over the place:  A full bag is far more stable in the wind.  Things got so bad that at one point Bert Padelt’s envelope was rolling on the ground, and this is substantial because Bert is a highly skilled gas pilot.

Our basket got a real workout, but you would too if you had 2,000 pounds of sand tied to you in a 25 knot wind.

John Kugler had enough sense to pull early, and the rest of us pulled after the officials called the race around 730ish.  Hearing $60,000 worth of helium release into the atmosphere was truly depressing for both the teams and the gas committee.  The amount of work to get this event off is extraordinary.  We start planning and preparing two months in advance, pouring an embarrassing amount of money into the gear and such for the race.

From the time we got to town the weather guys were already sure that Saturday was probably our only chance and even then the weather was going to be problematic during the entire flight with all sorts of thunderstorms and other various forms of hell to entertain us along our journey.  The winds were so fast up top that 60 hours could  be too fast getting to the east coast.  Best guess trajectories showed landings in or around the Carolinas and Virginia.  This of course means crossing the appalachian mountains with landing possibilites in forested valleys.  Looking back at the weather, there were indeed substantial thunderstorms which very likely would have resulted in a short flight to Kansas or so.  That’s about two bucks a mile.

A really annoying thing that happened right off, was that when we arrived at our launch site after briefing, our launch area was full of hot air teams still partying away.  I think fiesta should have probably gone out there an hour earlier and got them to move off, but this did not happen so we were unable to start our work until they packed up and moved out.  Once again Brian and I drew the lucky bean because in the middle of our launch square was a monster special shape chase commander and about 20 sauced up people and a very busy margarita machine.  The officials went over and explained the situation and asked them to move as quickly as practical because preparing the gas balloons can take all afternoon right up until launch time.  Well, 10 minutes later I walked over to their scene and they had not moved an inch:  they were all still sitting down and the margarita machine was flowing well.  The race official had to go over a 2nd time to get them moving.  Only then did they slowly, very slowly begin to fold up their chairs.  20 minutes later I walked over and they were all standing around outside the monster-commander doing nothing.  I asked if they would mind driving off the site and they informed me that they were traveling with another team and were waiting for them to finish packing.  Again, they only needed to drive about 50 feet to clear the gas area.  5 minutes later, they finally chugged their chase commander out of the way.  There were several other groups that behaved in the same way, seeming to have no concern whatsoever on their actions.  This is not only rude to the gas teams but also to the race officials who had to keep asking them to please cooperate.  I find this discouraging because these teams who think they are entitled to special treatment make a bad name for the balloon community in general.  I like to party on the field as much as any of them, but being rude is never an acceptable behavior.  We asked for no special treatment, only courtesy in helping us out by moving the party over just 3 launch squares.  In Stark contrast Many of the other hot air teams were polite and immediately packed up and were off the area within 5 minutes.

During the wind from hell, Brian held down the fort and I went around to each of the pilots giving them the weather information I had got from Don:  things were going to stay bad for at least an hour and we could hope for 10-15 steady at best for launch.  I found that all the teams were very pessimistic and ready to pull.  Andy Cayton’s basket sustained serious damage.  Mark Sullivan said his basket was now “much shorter than it used to be”.

After Wally Book told us the event was scrubbed, the bag hit the ground, and instead of depression, we all felt relieved and almost happy.  The stress and known weather dangers ahead weighed heavily on us and we were grateful to be on the ground.

The gas inflation teams, put out an extraordinary effort, worked tirelessly from 1pm until we were packed up at 9pm.  They stayed at our sides and did any task that was asked of them, including going to buy me a hat at concession row so i did not get a redneck.  

We went back to the hotel and ate pizza and drank a cooler full of premium Lone Star beer.

It took me 40 minutes to copy a driver file from XP to a Vista machine

And I never got the file transferred

The details...
I needed to copy a driver file for a USB device I have from my xp machine to my vista machine.

1. i cant find a single memory stick.
2. i try to email it to myself.
3. gmail wont let me because it is an executable
4. i rename it to a .txt file and email it. gmail is too stupid to know it is really an .exe
5. I am reminded that Obama really wants moms to return to school
6. i go to vista and download the file but i dont see the extension so i cant change it from .txt to .zip.
7. i dont know how to set vista to show extensions
8. i go back to XP and use a CF card (as a thumb drive)to copy the files.
9. i go to vista and it wont recognize the cf card.
10. i go back to xp and use yahoo to xfer the file
11. I go back to vista, open yahoo email and dont see the file.
12. I realize i did not even have the correct device plugged in.
13. I plug in the correct device that i need the driver for.

The driver installs normally.

I pretty much hate everything right now. I have little life left and i just wasted 40 minutes of it because of the despicable morons in Redmond. i hope microsoft goes out of business and steve balmer commits suicide.

The Segway, Amazing Invention, or Worthless Crap?

If you have never seen a Segway, it is this little two wheeled "thing" that is supposed to me a personal transport vehicle. A long time ago some inventor got the idea for a very small vehicle that people could use to get around instead of a big car. It would respond to simple body movements; lean forward, it goes forward. pull back, it stops and then goes backwards. Word on the street is that this guys spent a pile of money developing this thing, maybe 200 large, maybe a million, but it does not matter, it was a shitload of money.

when I was bored to death in Montreal waiting for the Bjork show to start, I decided to go give one of these things a try at a rental place. For fifty bucks you get to ride around a little bit for maybe 30 minutes. But of course they dont trust you so one the guys there has to go along with you.
They start out giving you a little traing course and yes, it was pretty easy to figure out. I was the only one there, and for good reason, it started raining. they were nice enough to give me a raincoat for the ride. I asked lots of questions while riding, like "How do you lock it up if I want to park outside a store and go inside?". "You can't lock it". "Well, what keeps anybody from stealing it?". He informed me that it was designed to roll inside the store. It did not matter if you took the key with you, I could pick up this thing and throw it in the back of a pickup truck pretty easy.
The inventors actually thought that people would drive this thing right through the front door, into the elevator, then to their desk, work the day, and then ride it home.
It has a pretty short range, I think under an hour for sure. It costs a lot of money, I think $4,000 or so.
The best complment I can give this thing is
"A worthless toy"

The History of my Pathtic Choice in Vehicles

Most folks take time and figure out what sort of car they need, go buy it, and live happily ever after. Not me, and it is not surprising; it's in my genes. My dad actually paid money for a Ford Pinto. My brother Robert bought a Chevrolet Vega. These are two of the worst automobiles (and i use that term loosely) that ever came out of Detroit.
I'll discuss three vehicles here that all started when I bought my first hot air balloon in 1986.
1. Gray truck
So I needed a truck to haul the balloon around in. I found a pretty darned nice looking one, gray, with seats with no rips. Only one problem; six cylinder. Load up the balloon and two people and 60 was pretty much max speed. Then it got worse, much worse. I bought a new balloon and it came with a trailer. Towing the trailer now meant a maximum speed of about 50 or 55 with a best gas mileage of about 10. Yes, ten miles per gallon. We did a trip from Tennessee to Albuquerque, 22 hours in this lumbering thing, never exceeding 55.
2. Jeep Cherokee
HA!! This is a worthless piece of shit of a car. I thought the word "jeep" would mean a rugged vehicle with a big engine and skid plates, and tow hooks, and big gas tank, and all that, making my gray truck look like a mommy car. Well, It's not. This thing also had a six cylinder, 4 speed, 18 gallon gas tank, no skid plates, plastic everything, and so on. I have no idea why i bought it, but back then i was really relentless about not changing my mind. Hook up the trailer, and yep, it would do 55 i 4th gear, and if you floored it in 5th gear, you could get 65. That is, until you approached a hill at which time it would promptly grind to a stop unless you downshifted back to 4th, which meant max speed of 55 again. It also tended to overheat when pulling the trailer so I would come barreling into the parking lot of a balloon race, smoke bellowing from under the hood, with the back end looking like a ghetto car. YEs, that was another thing, the suspension on these things are meant for "mommies" to take their kids to soccer practice. We called it the "sag wagon". I had to go install air shocks just to get the rear end up enough so it did not rake the muffler on small bumps.
3. Ford Explorer
Finally a REAL vehicle i thought!
Whatever, it is a cushy mommie car as well, narrow (not built on a real truck frame), underpowered, sags in the back, small gas tank, but I will say that it would pull the trailer pretty well at 65. Crappy mileage when hauling the balloon of course. This thing was really expensive and had all sorts of unnecessary options like "puddle lamps".
4. Miata.
enough said

Finally, after two decades, I bought a real vehicle; a ford pickup (f150), which happens to be the most popular vehicle ever sold in the US. Good reason; it is a real vehicle. The V8 engine hauls my balloon at 90 if I want. Suspension is solid, plenty of power, 18 mpg even with the balloon in the back, 25 gallon tank, and so on. I is white, sleek, and means business.

Oh, i forgot, i also bought a scooter, that RULES. it is a yamaha vino, gets 75 mpg, looks sleek, and allows me and my shortie to go downtown and park right in front the restaurants and bars.