What?

…..My BIRTHDAY!…… …..It’s MY Birthday, YEAH!….. …..AND, I’m spending it in the Great NW with some of our Northwester MR Community members….. A Great (can’t say that word too many times!) Experience will be had by ME, and, hopefully those around me will tolerate the whims and wishes of the Birthday Boy……

Sorry, I just can’t hang around here BS’ing all day long – Gotta get out and party Portland down to the ground…… A person only get’s a chance to be “King of the Hill” once each year and should use that opportunity to the MAX!…… All you non-B-people have an enjoyable day too….. (I am modest for a King, eh?……)

(I will accept LATE presents without gripping too much (Ha!))……

Lucy Vodden (née O’Donnell), who was the inspiration for the Beatles’ song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” has died, following a long battle with the autoimmune disease lupus. The British housewife — whose passing was announced by the St Thomas’ Lupus Trust charity — was 46.

Vodden first achieved pop culture fame as a tot, when John Lennon’s son Julian drew a picture of her in nursery school in 1966. He took the picture home to his pops, explained it as “That’s Lucy in the sky with diamonds,” and a song legend was born.

The married housewife officially fessed up to being the Lucy from the classic song — which was released as a part of the group’s iconic “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” album — two years ago, telling BBC radio:

“I remember Julian and I both doing pictures on a double-sided easel, throwing paint at each other, much to the horror of the classroom attendant… Julian had painted a picture and on that particular day his father turned up with the chauffeur to pick him up from school.”

Yep, it’s yearly inspection time for the Great Northwest Seattle HQ…… After a short vacation in Portland (01OCT-04OCT), I’ll then be heading for Seattle (05OCT-11OCT) to conduct a surprise inspection on Jektown and various unsuspecting MR community members…..

You say, “How can it be a surprise inspection if I’m Posting the fact that I’m on my way?”…… Well, I intend to catch those slackers who haven’t been checking in with us lately…… PD Bob wants names and addresses…. I haven’t told him yet that I planned the trip at the same time he has a mission he can’t get out of…… Of course, he has a body of an over-sized rodent and the memory of an elephant, so, he will insist on the info as soon as I get back….. He’s already working on a “Punishment SOP” manual…… So-o-o, I advise all Northwester’s to be prepared….. White glove inspection is the protocol…..

……me if you can….. If you’re like me, and, I know that you’re probably not (Ha), you always have more personal projects than you can ever get done…… My problem is I can’t keep my big mouth shut when it comes to volunteering help to others….. They can just be talking about some little problem and/or project that they are having trouble with, and my mouth is offering suggestions, help, whatever, before my brain engages and I realize there goes another one of my personal projects directly to the back burner…..

“Just say No” is a lot easier said than done, believe me!…… I’ve thought of Duct tape, but, people might stare, and, it’s also hard to breathe with the old hooter only….. Any suggestions from the MR Community of “Dedicated Misfits”?….. I know I am asking for it – So-o-o, give it your best shot…… (I’m actually using this ruse as an excuse for not being on the Blog for the past couple of weeks – is it working?….. So-o-o, HELP me if you can, I’m feeling down (and overloaded, overworked, and under productive)……

Oh, yeah, PD Bob just loves suckering me into any of his harebrained schemes……

One of my earliest musical influences. Another page turns in Rock history.

Mary Travers, whose ringing, earnest vocals with the folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary made songs like “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “If I Had a Hammer” and “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” enduring anthems of the 1960s protest movement, died Wednesday night in Danbury Hospital in Connecticut. She was 72 and had lived in Redding, Conn.

The cause was cancer, said her spokeswoman, Heather Lylis.

Ms. Travers brought a powerful voice and an unfeigned urgency to music that resonated with mainstream listeners. With her straight blond hair and willowy figure and two bearded guitar players by her side, she looked exactly like what she was, a Greenwich Villager straight from the clubs and the coffee houses that nourished the folk-music revival.

“She was obviously the sex appeal of that group, and that group was the sex appeal of the movement,” said Elijah Wald, a folk-blues musician and a historian of popular music.

These tune sure bring back some memories.

Ellie Greenwich, one of the most prolific song writers of the 60’s & 70’s, died Aug. 26
of a heart attack & pneumonia. She was 68. Here’s a list of only some of the songs she wrote:

“Leader of the Pack”
“Why Do Lovers Break Each Others Hearts?”
“Hanky Panky”
“Da Doo Ron Ron”
“Today I Met The Boy I’m Gonna Marry”
“River Deep, Mountain High”
“Christmas Baby (Please Come Home)”
“I Can Hear Music”
“Do Wah Diddy Diddy”
“Chapel of Love”
“Be My Baby”
“And Then He Kissed Me”

Also produced some of Neil Diamond’s early hits, like “Cherry Cherry”

“After the mortgage business imploded last year, Wall Street investment banks began searching for another big idea to make money. They think they

may have found one.

The bankers plan to buy ‘life settlements,’ life-insurance policies that ill and elderly people sell for cash.

Then they plan to ‘securitize’ these policies, in Wall

Street jargon, by packaging hundreds or thousands together into bonds.

They will then resell those bonds to investors, such as big pension funds, who will receive the payouts when people with the insurance die.”

A whole new meaning to the term “cashing out”.

(from the Seattle Times)

As just said in the previous post I just got home at 1300 today Labor Day.
Now I work in one of the most federally regulated industries that there is, But my industry feels that the holidays should be abolished and we drivers should live in our trucks 24/7 365. Now our company owners and adminstrative staffs would be screaming from the mountain tops and rioting in the streets if they did not get to take the holiday weekends off. But we are expected to work thru all holidays and if we say something about taking off they act as if we are taking food out of their mouths and money out of their bank accounts.

It seems to me that the only workers that get to enjoy holiday weekends are those who have a Union Collective Bargaining Agreement, and the government. The reason I stated that my industry if Fed Regulated Is that other Federally Regulated Industries Close down for the holidays.

What ever happened to the 40 hour work week, 8 to 5 Mon. Thru Fri.? I haven’t had 2 consecutive days off since Jan. 15th. And people wonder why I’m In a bad mood!

Anyway back to the holidays, I feel that the only thing that should be open on holiday weekends should be Emergency services. People should plan for the holiday and stock up accordingly.

I think a lot of it comes from what we as americans have contorted the holidays into. Memorial Day used to be about remembering those we have lost and Remembering the servicemen and women who made the ultimate sacrifice. The 4th of July is to celebrate our Independance from Great Britain. and Labor day is to celebrate the working man who built this country. instead they have become just days to drink a little more than usual and cook out.

Anyway Hope all of you had a good Labor Day but while you were partying hope you all took a few minutes to remember that not all Americans got to spend the holidays with their families, weither they were working or serving in a forign land protecting your right to take a day off.

Remember we need to keep this Blog going, we all need to spread the existince of it to the world we have a great forum to talk and address our grievences as well as laugh sometimes here. So spread the word MRambler/blog to everyone you meet.

Sorry bout the spelling on some of this BTW Jek, Wheres the spell Check on this new version?

Since I got home at 1300 today the top story on the news today has been the injury of The OU Quarterback Sam Bradford. Ok lets get some perspective.

There are Thousands of soldiers serving in wars all over the globe.
The president is proposing a Socialized Health Care Plan.
A burgular was shot and Killed in Nichols Hills.
Unemployment hits 10% Nationwide.
Approx. 100 businesses closed their doors forever this weekend, adding to the unemployment figures.
The Scottish courts released a convicted terrorist last Month.
One of the Followers of Charles Manson and a convicted murder is trying to get perrolled.
The California highway Department (Caltrans) Is working on the Bay bridge to repair a crack found on thursday.

You get the idea.

But the news in OKC is more worried about Bradford’s shoulder injury. I’m sure it hurts but there is more pressing things that deserve the press time that is being wasted on this.
GET OVER IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It’s just a game it’s not the end of the world!!!!!!!!!!!
How about giving OSU the same amount of coverage for their win. Or how about this. Just a thought cover the sports related stories during the SPORTS!!!

I thought of this (and, believe me, sometimes thinking isn’t as easy as it used to be) when I tried to look-up the correct spelling of “Alzheimer’s” in my 1977 Webster’s pocket dickshunary (Ha!)….. It wasn’t there….. I did find “Senile”…… So, I’m thinkin’ it’s just a new name for old age forgetfulness that’s been around forever….. Ever remember sayin’ “Whoa, that old dude must be “Senile” – he can’t even remember his own name.”……

What was I talking about?….. More importantly – How did I get here?….. ….And, doubly more importantly who the hell am I?……

…..Remember Prairie Dog Bob?……. I had almost forgotten about him as he has been gone on some extended adventure for a couple of months……. Actually everything around here had become calm and serene…… Well, he finally burst into MR Headquarters yesterday, wheezing, sneezing, coughing, and sweating….. Not only was his face pale, his fur even looked pale…… As he collapsed onto the closest chair, I noticed he had a thermometer sticking out of his mouth and was mumbling incoherently about not feeling well…… I said, “No lie, you look like Death warmed over”….. I immediately grabbed a dust mask and slapped it on….. I didn’t know what he had, but, I was sure I didn’t want it……

After I gave him some allergy and cold medication, he finally calmed down enough to tell me he had the Piglet Flu (P1D1 Virus) – the Prairie Dog version of the Swine Flu (H1N1 Virus)…… I still wasn’t sure that I wasn’t in danger of contracting whatever PDB had, so I tightened the mask up and began sanitizing any and everything in the entire HQ…… It smells just like a hospital in here now….

PD Bob seems much better today, and, I don’t think I contracted anything new – my allergies are so bad, I can’t really tell….. As soon as he wakes up I’m going to quiz him as to where he has been and just what is Piglet Flu as compared to Swine Flu….. Yes, I still have my mask on…… More to come…..

It just doesn’t feel like it’s been 40 years……. I missed it in ’69 – not because of funds, transportation, or time, but, because of the non-existence of good rock stations in Oklahoma at the time…… I found out about it after the fact….. I’m not sure if I would have went being so far away, but, still I didn’t get the opportunity to decide one way or the other….. If Woodstock occurred today, I wouldn’t make it due to lack of funds and transportation thanks to our wonderful economy….. Times have changed severely over the past 40 years and most of it not for the better……

The other big concert that our poor rock radio in Oklahoma caused me to miss was Jimi Hendrix at OU in May of 1970….. Again, I heard about it after the fact….. Hendrix died in September of 1970….. So much for Oklahoma rock radio – yecch!……

Guitar legend Les Paul dies at age 94
Aug. 13, 2009, 11:17 AM EST

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (AP) — Les Paul, the guitarist and inventor who changed the course of music with the electric guitar and multitrack recording and had a string of hits, many with wife Mary Ford, died on Thursday. He was 94.

According to Gibson Guitar, Paul died of complications from pneumonia at White Plains Hospital. His family and friends were by his side.

He had been hospitalized in February 2006 when he learned he won two Grammys for an album he released after his 90th birthday, “Les Paul & Friends: American Made, World Played.”

“I feel like a condemned building with a new flagpole on it,” he joked.

As an inventor, Paul helped bring about the rise of rock ‘n’ roll and multitrack recording, which enables artists to record different instruments at different times, sing harmony with themselves, and then carefully balance the “tracks” in the finished recording.

With Ford, his wife from 1949 to 1962, he earned 36 gold records and 11 No. 1 pop hits, including “Vaya Con Dios,” “How High the Moon,” “Nola” and “Lover.” Many of their songs used overdubbing techniques that Paul the inventor had helped develop.

“I could take my Mary and make her three, six, nine, 12, as many voices as I wished,” he recalled. “This is quite an asset.” The overdubbing technique was highly influential on later recording artists such as the Carpenters.

The use of electric guitar gained popularity in the mid-to-late 1940s, and then exploded with the advent of rock the 1950s.

“Suddenly, it was recognized that power was a very important part of music,” Paul once said. “To have the dynamics, to have the way of expressing yourself beyond the normal limits of an unamplified instrument, was incredible. Today a guy wouldn’t think of singing a song on a stage without a microphone and a sound system.”

A tinkerer and musician since childhood, he experimented with guitar amplification for years before coming up in 1941 with what he called “The Log,” a four-by-four piece of wood strung with steel strings.

“I went into a nightclub and played it. Of course, everybody had me labeled as a nut.” He later put the wooden wings onto the body to give it a tradition guitar shape.

In 1952, Gibson Guitars began production on the Les Paul guitar.

Pete Townsend of The Who, Steve Howe of Yes, jazz great Al DiMeola and Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page all made the Gibson Les Paul their trademark six-string.

Over the years, the Les Paul series has become one of the most widely used guitars in the music industry. In 2005, Christie’s auction house sold a 1955 Gibson Les Paul for $45,600.

Just how many greenbacks are the current administration going to print and pass out to questionable entities in the name of “Bail-Out”?….. I don’t know, but if they don’t stop sometime our currency won’t be worth the paper it’s printed on……

At first I thought this new administration was off to a good start, but, when it came out that we are financing bonus’s for CEO’s of bankrupt corporations, I have to wonder….. How could anyone deserve a bonus when the company they work for is bankrupt?….. Someone explain that one to me, please?….. And, we’re not talkin’ a few dollars, we’re talkin’ bonus’s that most of us could live the rest of our lives on by working only when we felt like it……

Then there’s the auto industry – not only do we bail them out, we are financing the “cash for clunkers” program….. I don’t have the time or the space to detail all the requirements that your so-called “clunker” and the new car you are buying must meet to get the $4,500, but, believe me, the “clunker” can’t be something you just dragged out of a salvage yard….. Yet, they’ve went through a billion dollars so far, and extended the program for another two billion!!!! If we are in such a recession, where are people getting the money to buy new cars?….. New cars are not cheap even with a $4,500 rebate, and, you are talking about a complicated set of rules to qualify for the rebate…… Where is the money really going?…… You throw in the fact that quite a few of the rebates will only be $3,500, you are talking close to 750,000 new car sales for the government’s 3 billion dollar program….. Like the Senator that wanted an accounting of the first billion that disappeared so far, I would like to see some accounting of the whole program myself….. Yeah, what’s the chance in that?….. A snowball in Hell?…..

I haven’t even touched on the closings of over a hundred Post Offices (It’s more important for that CEO to get his bonus than it is for you to get your mail), or, the Medical Care programs…… The outlook is not good…….

I recommend everyone buy themselves a supply of wallpaper paste, because at this rate it won’t be long before the American greenback will be good for nothing except papering you walls with – if you still have a house with walls to live in…….