A Scattered Brain

In memory of the tragic and horrific events that occurred five years ago, I want you all to remember where you were and what you were doing when you first heard about the events happening on 9/11/01.  Here is my story:

I was feeling absolutely horrible and so I was going to work a few hours later than usual.  I arrived at work around 9:00 and started my daily troubleshooting of peoples’ computers and was working specifically with one of our Implementation manangers in his office when a woman burst in stating that a plane had hit the World Trade Center.  At that time, I assumed it was some small commuter plane that had hit accidentally and went back to work.  Then our office became more of a buzz as the truth started to come out.

Someone found a small 13″ T.V. and we placed it in a corner office by the window so we could watch with reasonable reception.  In the business I was in, we had quite a few clients that worked in both buildings of the WTC.  I was still feeling terribly ill and went home around 12:00 to continue to watch the events unfold at home.  At some point while talking to Kylah in the morning, she stated that she thought it “was that Bin Laden guy” and I completely agreed.

Later, I found out that the very first customer I had talked to who worked for Janus Funds in Colorado happened to be at the WTC for a conference and was one of the 2,800 killed.

Please, never forget what happened that day even though the media refuses to show it; and always remember those who passed and those who have fought to help prevent anything like that from happening again.  And, please share your thoughts of where you were and what you were doing that day.

Here are two stories that indicate that the world is most certainly about to end:

First, apparently Pluto is actually NOT a planet.  After years of growing up believing that there are 9 planets and hearing that there may in fact be 10, I’m told that in fact there are only 8.  What’s going to be next; Earth won’t be a planet anymore?

Second, and even more of a sign of the end times, there will no longer be 24 hour marriage licenses given out here in Las Vegas and that they will in fact close at midnight.  Midnight?!?!?!  It takes at least until 3:00 am to make the ill-advised decision to get married while drunk.  I know they say it will save the state some money, but the math just doesn’t add up to me.  Doesn’t the publicity alone pay for being open all night long?

I heard about this on the radio and while I think it’s hilarious, it is dispicable how AOL treats people when all the guy wants to do is just cancel his account. For all of those using AOL, my sincerest apologies to when you finally decide that it is overpriced and useless in this day.

Here’s the link to the report:

Vincent Ferrari and Matt Lauer Interview

There are places where you can find the full audio of the message, but they keep changing so I won’t bother posting one here. My favorite line was: “The card is mine, it’s in my name; the account is mine, it’s in my name; cancel… the… acount!”

Enjoy!

Spencer

P.S. Sorry I haven’t posted in a while. I was thinking about starting a weekly bowling blog to go along with my league, but figured most of you wouldn’t care anyway. Have a great day!

Greetings!

Today is the day that illegal immigrants are going to show us how important they really are.  This should and hopefully will completely backfire.  If I owned a company that employed anyone who will not work today (legal or illegal) they would be FIRED if they don’t come into work.

Let’s look at this in different areas.

First, if you are here legally, the immigration reforms don’t affect you!  Stop whining and complaining.  You are here, enjoy it, be happy, and feel blessed for you are in the greatest country in the history of the world.

Second, if you are here illegally, you have no rights!  You are breaking the law and should be sent back from where you came from.  No exceptions, no five year amnesty law, nothing.  Go back and when you get your stuff together, re-enter legally.  I have no problem with people coming in and following the appropriate procedures so by all means come in legally.

Third, stop following like sheep.  Most of the people that aren’t coming into work today don’t even know what the proposed changes are.  And back to step two, you don’t have the right to protest anyway.  All the protests that started a few weeks ago would have been a great way to round up a good portion of illegals and deport them.

Fourth, who came up with May 1st as the day to walk out???  Who actually sat down and thought that the Soviet holiday of May Day was a good day to pull a silly stunt like this?  Yes, let’s pick a Soviet holiday to show our illegal solidarity.  Insane!

And to the point that they’re trying to make; that they’re all important to the U.S. economy, they really aren’t.  Illegals do the work that “Americans won’t do” or so we’re told.  Bullshit!  They take jobs away from Americans who can’t get those jobs because illegals are taking them all away.  If they want to show their importance, come into the country and make a contribution to society legally.  All of the money illegals are making is going back to their families in Mexico.  How does it help the U.S. economy to take money made here and export it without any benefit to this country?

So, go to work, or go back home, when you’re legally here, then I’ll listen to what you have to say.  For now though, become legal or go back home.  And to the ones here legally already, go to work, this doesn’t even concern you.

Being here illegally doesn’t make you an immigrant, it makes you a criminal and you should be deported until which time you make the effort to come in legally.

Greetings!

I just came back from my first business trip in over three years and want to talk about airport (illusion of) security. Both airports I had to go through security at upset me and made me really wonder, even more so than ever, are they doing ANY good at all?

First, at the Las Vegas airport they still make you take off your shoes. Airports are not supposed to do that any more, and LAS is the only one that I know of that does. I also say “make” because they don’t leave it as an option. Sure they may say it’s a suggestion, but everyone damn well knows that if you don’t take your shoes off, you’ll be hand wanded and harrassed even further.

At JAX, they don’t ask you to take your shoes off, in fact one person in front of me started to and they told her to leave them on. A little consistency would be nice, but that would be too much to ask. The item that upset me here is the use in a couple of lines (not all of them) of some new ion chamber. I had to go through one today. You step in, place your feet on the yellow mark, and then air gets blown at you from head to toe in little bursts. What the hell does this do??!?!? After being in this machine for about 15 seconds you get to then go through the metal detector. Now going through one machine isn’t enough, you have to go through two? I have no idea what happens in the ion chamber or what it is checking for if anything, but it is very disturbing.

Of course this brings up the entire subject of airport security to begin with. Our rights are being trampled on for the name of security and the airports are the most blatent evidence of this. I have to submit my personal belongings and myself to possibly extensive searching, yet I don’t complain. I’m told to take my shoes off and dance like a monkey (well, not really about the monkey part) and I do it without question. The TSA has complete control and they know it. Why? What if I say something? Complain? Yeah, straight to even more searching and probing and a visit to that back room for questioning. So I say and do nothing but what they ask. And you know what? So do you!

When are Americans going to say enough is enough? Profile!!! Is an 80 year old grandfather and his wife really a threat? Should they have to go through this hassle. Should the rest of us? It’s all an illusion of security; an attempt to make you feel safer. But at what cost? First, we’re not any more secure and second we lose our personal liberty during that time. Large cost, no reward, no thank you.

“But they are trying to make things safer?” I understand that, and they have good intentions despite trampling our rights. But remember, when 9/11 happened, the terrorists used legal items in their attack. The appropriate solution was taken, make more items illegal on planes, that’s a little inconvenient possibly, but not a huge impact on our liberty. But the rest is all for show. I am not safer by taking my shoes off or going through some ion chamber. I’m not safer when they randomly pick me to rifle through my bags to see my underwear and clothes for the next day. I’m not safer when I see them do the same thing to a little old lady. Should they profile? That’s a much bigger issue that is hard to answer, but if I have to, in a word, yes.

Well, I’m pretty tired from a three day trip to spend 6 hours with a client and fly coast to coast twice. Keep on keeping on and have a great day. Stay safe; you are your number one security protection!

So, today marks the anniversary of our time in Iraq.  The news reports are trying to use this as an attempt to make the entire mission a complete failure and are really touting (hoping, in fact) for an all-out civil war.  Let me give my less pessimistic view.

In 3 years, we have gotten rid of one of the most evil dictators the world has seen since Hitler.  Groups that have never worked together (Kurds, Sunnis, Shi’ites) are at least trying to work together to form a representative government.  The US has lost only 2,400 GI’s.  Of course, any loss is big, but to put things in perspective of wars, this is truly amazing.  If you count all of the American lives that have been lost in car accidents (around 120,000) as well as any number of other sources, 2,400 becomes a much smaller number.  Again, I wish there would be no loss of life, but in this perspective, it is a relatively small number.

Of course, there have been many mistakes and many set backs.  The entire world believed, most likely correctly, that there were large amounts of weapons of mass destruction.  My question isn’t so much of why we haven’t found them, but how did we allow them to get exported to other countries so effortlessly right from under our noses.

On the issue of timing.  In this 30 minute solves everything (e.g. sitcoms) society, people expect and demand that an effort such as this take no longer than a few months to a year to finish.  This is an unreasonable expectation and in no time in the past has a country risen in that short of time.  Even the U.S. took about 11 years to form a constitution from the time that we declared independence.  Germany took well over a decade (and then about another decade after reunification to get back to their full economic prosperity).  Japan took around 40 years to rebuild and become what they are now.  How can we expect to get a country that has been oppressive for thousands of years to change quickly?

Will there be a civil war?  I don’t know.  Should we stay involved if it fully comes to that, I’m of two minds.  We are part of the reason one may start, admittedly, so it is our duty to try to keep the pace.  But civil wars, by definition are ones fought within.  What would have happened if the British had lended a hand to the South during our civil war?  There’s no real way to know.

Remember, we are in this for the long haul, and in time, possibly decades, I believe Iraq can be a source of light in the Arab world.  I support our troops, believe in our mission, and despite some mistakes and set backs believe that everything we are there for is just and right.  Please keep in mind when you hear all of these negative 3 year reports that there is more good going on than is being reported.  Just ask the troops who have been there and you will get a much different story than what you hear on the news.  News is there to make a profit, just like any other business… and good news is not good for profits.  I don’t even need to address how many of these papers / news sources just want to see Bush fall flat on his face (oh well, I guess I did mention it a little )

Have a great day all, and please continue to support and pray for our troops.  Without them, you wouldn’t have the freedoms to do anything that you do, including blogging here on MySpace!