There are many issues that should be on our plate. Immigration is one that continually bothers me. Perhaps I should say "illegal" immigration.
I'm a 62 year old house painter and guess what industry the folks from Mexico are taking over? Did you say CEO positions of major corporations? Sorry, but you're wrong. Whenever I go in to a paint store, Mexicans are pretty much all I see now days. They live 6 to a one room apartment, work hard and cheap and still manage to send money home every week/month. It's no secret. My brother used to work for a pretty large painting company and they hired a lot of them. All the big companies do. Again, it's no secret. Have you driven by a Home Desperate, I mean Depot? They line the roads in and out. Are the folks from INS making daily sweeps? I doubt it. The State can find me whenever they want 'cuz I have to follow all the rules and choose to show everyone who I am by painting the name of my business on the side of my truck. (Something not all legitimate tradesmen do. They don't want the State knowing where they are. A State inspector saw our trucks at a job site and stopped by. He has the power to do an awful lot. I got fined $1,000.00 because something to do with the State wasn't in good standing. Just what I needed in January!)
I read a story last week about US putting up another 700 miles of fencing along the US/Mexico border. Sounds like a plan to me. Apparently there's some concern about cost. Really? Take prisoners out of prison and let them build it. Too bad if they don't want to. (Last time I looked, many of them have it better behind bars vs. a lot of people on the outside!) Encouragement can be in the form of extra pennies per hour. We can put some towers every so often with powerful lights on top and platforms up there so guys with rifles can stand. I don't say we have to shoot to kill, but we could use rubber bullets. It's all about detering them.
I also read a story recently where certain States are going to make it easier for illegals to get a drivers license. Washington being one. What's next? A house and a car?? A tremendous amount of them collect Welfare, too. Don't want things to be too tough. They might go home!
Here's something I pulled off the internet while looking for info. Pretty much sums it all up.
Mon, 07/16/2012 - 4:06PM
Monday, June 24, 2013
Friday, June 21, 2013
Friends
For my entire adult life, I've enjoyed bringing people together. When I lived at home my dad had to get me my own phone number. (We're talking 1968 here. No cell phones or call waiting.) I was always on the phone trying to get a large group of people to gather here or there. Many times it was at my parents house. They were young at heart and enjoyed interacting with my friends.
I was the first person in our group to get their own home. I was 23. The neighbors weren't big fans of me and the 2 guys that moved in with me. Every Friday and Saturday night 20 - 25 people would just happen by. Loud music and smoke billowing out the doors were a common thing. Things quieted down on Sunday. We'd sit around and recover from the other 2 days. Then there were the actual nights when we invited people 'cuz it was party time! Those gatherings were huge. I guess the 1970's were a more tolerant time 'cuz I don't remember ever being visited by the police and being asked to turn or tone it down. We probably were but I just don't remember.
As you move through life, you lose touch with some friends and make some new ones. I never went to college or joined the service, so those opportunities evaded me. My entire work life has been spent working for one business and it's never employed more than 2 or 3 others, so I'm not meeting anyone new there. (When I was younger, they were usually uncles and cousins.) Playing on various adult sports teams allowed me to meet some new friends and as my wife I aged, we'd meet parents of kids in our kids' classes. My wife was a stay at home mom, so no new friends there.
My attempt at getting the old gang back together ran into the 1990's. We'd meet on the Sunday of the Memorial Day weekend down at Carkeek Park. I'd reserve a cook spot and we'd hang out until it got dark. It was good seeing everyone that came having a good time. Many were regular attenders. Some came this year but not the next. They all were laughing and sharing memories. For whatever reason, I quit organizing that get together.
Friends. You can't buy them, yet they're not free. In my humble opinion a real friendship has to be worked on by both parties or it isn't a true friendship. I'm in my early 60's now and true friends are counted on my fingers. Not sure where they are all now. Some have passed away, some have moved. I've had a few find me on Facebook. Gotta love FB for that. Bottom line here is, don't let too many days go by without making an effort to find an old flame or someone you knew many years ago. They might just be looking for you, too!
Big Dogg Out!
I was the first person in our group to get their own home. I was 23. The neighbors weren't big fans of me and the 2 guys that moved in with me. Every Friday and Saturday night 20 - 25 people would just happen by. Loud music and smoke billowing out the doors were a common thing. Things quieted down on Sunday. We'd sit around and recover from the other 2 days. Then there were the actual nights when we invited people 'cuz it was party time! Those gatherings were huge. I guess the 1970's were a more tolerant time 'cuz I don't remember ever being visited by the police and being asked to turn or tone it down. We probably were but I just don't remember.
As you move through life, you lose touch with some friends and make some new ones. I never went to college or joined the service, so those opportunities evaded me. My entire work life has been spent working for one business and it's never employed more than 2 or 3 others, so I'm not meeting anyone new there. (When I was younger, they were usually uncles and cousins.) Playing on various adult sports teams allowed me to meet some new friends and as my wife I aged, we'd meet parents of kids in our kids' classes. My wife was a stay at home mom, so no new friends there.
My attempt at getting the old gang back together ran into the 1990's. We'd meet on the Sunday of the Memorial Day weekend down at Carkeek Park. I'd reserve a cook spot and we'd hang out until it got dark. It was good seeing everyone that came having a good time. Many were regular attenders. Some came this year but not the next. They all were laughing and sharing memories. For whatever reason, I quit organizing that get together.
Friends. You can't buy them, yet they're not free. In my humble opinion a real friendship has to be worked on by both parties or it isn't a true friendship. I'm in my early 60's now and true friends are counted on my fingers. Not sure where they are all now. Some have passed away, some have moved. I've had a few find me on Facebook. Gotta love FB for that. Bottom line here is, don't let too many days go by without making an effort to find an old flame or someone you knew many years ago. They might just be looking for you, too!
Big Dogg Out!
$7 Billion here, $60 Billion there.
It was recently reported that the US would scrap or leave around $7 billion dollars worth of war equipment over in Afghanistan. Apparently it's too expansive to ship it all home. Besides, some of it is outdated. So, rather than leave it in working order, they'll blow it up or tear it apart over there. I'm not sure what we're talking about, but I'm going to go out on a limb and guess we're not leaving behind or wrecking any B-2 bombers or Nimitz class aircraft carriers. (I did read where some of the items being left behind are newer mine sweepers that cost $1 million each.) Don't get me wrong, $7 billion dollars is a lot of money. I could retire tomorrow if I had that kind of dough. This amount of money is just the tip of our foolish spending over there. Allow me to jog your memory.
It has been reported that between 2003 and 2012, we spent $60 billion rebuilding Iraq. Maybe that figure is slightly lower 'cuz $8 billion just kind of disappeared. Poof. Gone. Now how does that happen? Is this a case of the fox watching the hen house?? By the way, why do we always have to rebuild the places we go and blow up? Is this our attempt at showing the locals that we're really not bad guys? It has also been reported that many of the projects that the money was "supposed" to be used on, were abandoned.
Depending on what source you use, the war could cost US maybe as much as $3 trillion dollars. Now I don't know about you, but I can't afford to pay any more in taxes. Just where do you think we're gonna get that kind of money? We're probably going to borrow it from China, pay interest on it and then what did we get for our time and trouble in Iraq and Afghanistan? We get to feel good about our efforts to bring democracy to that region of the world. Ain't happening folks. Before the last plane leaving there touches down back home, things will pretty much be back to what they know as normal. That part of the world has been fighting for 100's if not 1,000's of years. How silly of us to think we're going to go in there and change them. There are way too many factions that want a piece of the action. The only way they know is to fight. Maybe we should ship the Crips and the Bloods over there. Could throw in MS13 for good measure.
For some reason, president Bush was given a free pass on the war in Iraq. As recently as 6/22/2013 he still defends his decision to invade Iraq. Around 150,000, give or take 15,000, Iraq civilians have died. Over 8,000 US soldiers have died. I still remember him and Tony Blair standing before Congress telling them and US about all the weapons of mass destruction Saddam had. Not one thing was ever found. Not one! So what did we go over there for? Was our intended goal to just free the Iraqi people of Saddam's rule? I think this president Bush felt the prior president Bush didn't finish the job. (He did what he said he was going to do and nothing more.) Lots of people were saying we were in it for their oil. Whether you want to believe it or not, China is getting half of Iraq's oil production and Iraq is one of the worlds highest producing countries! The report I read said 1.5 million barrels a day are going to China, not us. Perhaps we struck a deal with China. We get them access to oil and they take a little off the amount we owe them.
I think if historians ever take a good hard look at how we got into the economic mess of the early 2000 - 2012 years, I think you'll find this little trip into the Middle East was a big part of it. Granted, you don't just wake up one morning and you're fat. We were due for a correction, but this time it's lingering. We really over extended ourselves and maybe the only way out is bankruptcy. Sooner or later the bills will come due. You can't hide forever. China will some day no longer loan us money. Then what do we do? I don't want to sound like an alarmist, but I'd put a little food aside, stack up some firewood and fill a few jugs with water 'cuz one of these days the shit IS going to hit the fan!
Big Dogg Out!
It has been reported that between 2003 and 2012, we spent $60 billion rebuilding Iraq. Maybe that figure is slightly lower 'cuz $8 billion just kind of disappeared. Poof. Gone. Now how does that happen? Is this a case of the fox watching the hen house?? By the way, why do we always have to rebuild the places we go and blow up? Is this our attempt at showing the locals that we're really not bad guys? It has also been reported that many of the projects that the money was "supposed" to be used on, were abandoned.
Depending on what source you use, the war could cost US maybe as much as $3 trillion dollars. Now I don't know about you, but I can't afford to pay any more in taxes. Just where do you think we're gonna get that kind of money? We're probably going to borrow it from China, pay interest on it and then what did we get for our time and trouble in Iraq and Afghanistan? We get to feel good about our efforts to bring democracy to that region of the world. Ain't happening folks. Before the last plane leaving there touches down back home, things will pretty much be back to what they know as normal. That part of the world has been fighting for 100's if not 1,000's of years. How silly of us to think we're going to go in there and change them. There are way too many factions that want a piece of the action. The only way they know is to fight. Maybe we should ship the Crips and the Bloods over there. Could throw in MS13 for good measure.
For some reason, president Bush was given a free pass on the war in Iraq. As recently as 6/22/2013 he still defends his decision to invade Iraq. Around 150,000, give or take 15,000, Iraq civilians have died. Over 8,000 US soldiers have died. I still remember him and Tony Blair standing before Congress telling them and US about all the weapons of mass destruction Saddam had. Not one thing was ever found. Not one! So what did we go over there for? Was our intended goal to just free the Iraqi people of Saddam's rule? I think this president Bush felt the prior president Bush didn't finish the job. (He did what he said he was going to do and nothing more.) Lots of people were saying we were in it for their oil. Whether you want to believe it or not, China is getting half of Iraq's oil production and Iraq is one of the worlds highest producing countries! The report I read said 1.5 million barrels a day are going to China, not us. Perhaps we struck a deal with China. We get them access to oil and they take a little off the amount we owe them.
I think if historians ever take a good hard look at how we got into the economic mess of the early 2000 - 2012 years, I think you'll find this little trip into the Middle East was a big part of it. Granted, you don't just wake up one morning and you're fat. We were due for a correction, but this time it's lingering. We really over extended ourselves and maybe the only way out is bankruptcy. Sooner or later the bills will come due. You can't hide forever. China will some day no longer loan us money. Then what do we do? I don't want to sound like an alarmist, but I'd put a little food aside, stack up some firewood and fill a few jugs with water 'cuz one of these days the shit IS going to hit the fan!
Big Dogg Out!
Sunday, April 14, 2013
More and More People
Today's Sunday Times front page had an interesting front page article. Apparently financiers are worried about the apartment bubble busting. Those of us living in areas where mass units are being built have been wondering about this and more for years!
Take the Ballard/Greenwood area for instance. Over the past 3 or so years, complexes, containing 100's of units, have been built up and down some of our busiest streets. I've lived in this area for 61 years and I can't see any difference in the actual streets now vs. when I got my license in the mid 1960's. OK, I lied. There is a BIG differnce. The streets are really crowded now due to more buses/cars/trucks on them AND 'cuz lanes have been taken away for bikes. Keep in mind that for the most part, where these new complexes are being built, NOBODY was living prior. We're adding more and more people and "apparently"not giving any thought to doing anything to relieve the traffic backups. I guess Mayor McSchwinn is hoping we'll all give up our cars and ride bikes or take Metro.
The big picture has to be that all facets of government will bring in more in taxes now. It only makes sense. A vacant lot can only be taxed so much. Build a 30 + unit apartment, or bigger, complex and wa-lah.....a bigger tax footprint! Soon there'll be enough revenue and all those fine folks in Olympia can go right back to spending just like the good old days!
Steve "Big Doogg" Drake
Take the Ballard/Greenwood area for instance. Over the past 3 or so years, complexes, containing 100's of units, have been built up and down some of our busiest streets. I've lived in this area for 61 years and I can't see any difference in the actual streets now vs. when I got my license in the mid 1960's. OK, I lied. There is a BIG differnce. The streets are really crowded now due to more buses/cars/trucks on them AND 'cuz lanes have been taken away for bikes. Keep in mind that for the most part, where these new complexes are being built, NOBODY was living prior. We're adding more and more people and "apparently"not giving any thought to doing anything to relieve the traffic backups. I guess Mayor McSchwinn is hoping we'll all give up our cars and ride bikes or take Metro.
The big picture has to be that all facets of government will bring in more in taxes now. It only makes sense. A vacant lot can only be taxed so much. Build a 30 + unit apartment, or bigger, complex and wa-lah.....a bigger tax footprint! Soon there'll be enough revenue and all those fine folks in Olympia can go right back to spending just like the good old days!
Steve "Big Doogg" Drake
Friday, February 15, 2013
Going, Going, Gone!
Going, Going, Gone!
Over a year ago, we started cleaning out the attics and any other place stuff was just sitting. We had a garage sale in May that didn't do very well, so I said never again. Too much effort, planning and such goes into putting a garage sale on to accept less than decent results. So this winter, we started cleaning out the other attic and putting stuff on craigslist and ebay. I still had 4 pinball, 2 slot and 5 stand-up arcade machines + one pachinko machine. I wasn't playing any of those machines and knew that if we moved, we didn't want to take any of them with us. (The dream is still alive to some day move to Maui.)
One morning I got up and started taking pictures of them all. They were going to get posted on craigslist.com as soon as I got done. (I'm not sure how this site makes any money. I've sold and bought small and large things and never been charged.) The first week, I sold 3 arcade machines to a guy that belonged to a local group called S.M.A.C. or Seattle Metro Area Collectors. He also took pictures of the rest of what I had and posted them on S.M.A.C.'s website. No charge. Long story short, it took 10 days or so to finally unload all the machines accept for the 2 slot machines. I had to keep re-listing them on craigslist, but they finally went. One thing that was a constant amongst all of those that came here to buy my machines was their ability to remove the machines and not tear up my walls OR wood trim on their way out. It wasn't that way when we brought them in. A giant thanks goes out to all of them!
Now that the machines are gone, and I generated over $3,000.00 in doing so, I'm back to digging in the attic. I'm finding some neat stuff that I put away. So far, the oldest thing I've found are really old magazines. The 1940's and 1950's are very well represented. There was even a publication from the local Plasterer's union. I forget "the" date, but do remember it being from the 1920's. Hard to believe what shape they're in! Other old things include old letters from high school aged gal pals. I didn't figure my wife needed to see them, so they went bye-bye. I also found a 1968 copy of a UW Homecoming program. We played UCLA that year. Also in this attic are old programs from Seattle International Raceway events that we went to, West Coast Hockey League games we attended and a program from the Mariners very first ever opening night game that I was at! I'm keeping that one. Now it comes down to what do I want to drag around with us the rest of our lives vs. it doesn't mean that much to me and I'm selling it. What's hot are drag racing items from back in the late 1960's through the 1970's. No sooner do I list them and someone bids on them.
Now all I need to do is convince my wife that she needs to get rid of some of the patterns she's had hiding in our rec room closet. In the 33 years we've been together she's not once gone up there to retrieve a pattern that she thinks would be fun to make. Not once! Me, I sold my car and now I've gotten rid of some other things I wasn't using. Might as well generate a little $$$$$ vs. packing stuff up to just follow us wherever we go once we exit Ballard. It was tough seeing the car I'd waited so long in life to get, drive up the alley, knowing it wasn't coming back, but it was the right thing to do. It's time I hear her say that getting rid of some of those old patterns is the right thing to do. Either that or we're heading for a fabric shop real soon!
Big Dogg out!
Over a year ago, we started cleaning out the attics and any other place stuff was just sitting. We had a garage sale in May that didn't do very well, so I said never again. Too much effort, planning and such goes into putting a garage sale on to accept less than decent results. So this winter, we started cleaning out the other attic and putting stuff on craigslist and ebay. I still had 4 pinball, 2 slot and 5 stand-up arcade machines + one pachinko machine. I wasn't playing any of those machines and knew that if we moved, we didn't want to take any of them with us. (The dream is still alive to some day move to Maui.)
One morning I got up and started taking pictures of them all. They were going to get posted on craigslist.com as soon as I got done. (I'm not sure how this site makes any money. I've sold and bought small and large things and never been charged.) The first week, I sold 3 arcade machines to a guy that belonged to a local group called S.M.A.C. or Seattle Metro Area Collectors. He also took pictures of the rest of what I had and posted them on S.M.A.C.'s website. No charge. Long story short, it took 10 days or so to finally unload all the machines accept for the 2 slot machines. I had to keep re-listing them on craigslist, but they finally went. One thing that was a constant amongst all of those that came here to buy my machines was their ability to remove the machines and not tear up my walls OR wood trim on their way out. It wasn't that way when we brought them in. A giant thanks goes out to all of them!
Now that the machines are gone, and I generated over $3,000.00 in doing so, I'm back to digging in the attic. I'm finding some neat stuff that I put away. So far, the oldest thing I've found are really old magazines. The 1940's and 1950's are very well represented. There was even a publication from the local Plasterer's union. I forget "the" date, but do remember it being from the 1920's. Hard to believe what shape they're in! Other old things include old letters from high school aged gal pals. I didn't figure my wife needed to see them, so they went bye-bye. I also found a 1968 copy of a UW Homecoming program. We played UCLA that year. Also in this attic are old programs from Seattle International Raceway events that we went to, West Coast Hockey League games we attended and a program from the Mariners very first ever opening night game that I was at! I'm keeping that one. Now it comes down to what do I want to drag around with us the rest of our lives vs. it doesn't mean that much to me and I'm selling it. What's hot are drag racing items from back in the late 1960's through the 1970's. No sooner do I list them and someone bids on them.
Now all I need to do is convince my wife that she needs to get rid of some of the patterns she's had hiding in our rec room closet. In the 33 years we've been together she's not once gone up there to retrieve a pattern that she thinks would be fun to make. Not once! Me, I sold my car and now I've gotten rid of some other things I wasn't using. Might as well generate a little $$$$$ vs. packing stuff up to just follow us wherever we go once we exit Ballard. It was tough seeing the car I'd waited so long in life to get, drive up the alley, knowing it wasn't coming back, but it was the right thing to do. It's time I hear her say that getting rid of some of those old patterns is the right thing to do. Either that or we're heading for a fabric shop real soon!
Big Dogg out!
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I don't like hating anybody either, but I'm finding myself being a bit more vitriolic towards them than before. I have light at the end of my tunnel due to retirement up ahead, but what about my son? He's 29 and is in line to take over the family business my father started in 1953 and passed down to me on 12/31/1999. Will he eventually be in the same position the guy in California found himself in? If I had to guess, I'd say yes.
For some reason, we're wanting to coddle these people and I don't know why. We weren't afraid of what the rest of the world said about US when we invaded Iraq and Afghanistan. I don't condone US doing what we did over there, killing close to 200,000, but something has to change or we'll be fighting to get English used in our schools!
Big Dogg Out!