Who gets drunk at two in the afternoon? Plus who gets drunk at two in the afternoon and suddenly decides that she needs some hardware?

I had a woman customer this afternoon who came in looking for a piece of pipe. She wanted either one-quarter inch or three-quarter inch, she couldn't remember which. She finally decided on one-quarter and about a half hour later, she was back, looking for one-half inch. Both her first two guesses proved wrong.

She added that she had to walk back and forth to the store because she didn't feel up to driving.

This points out the danger of mixing alcohol and hardware. Each year hundreds of people are injured or worse while attempting to repair something while they have a snoot full. Remember, friends don't let friends shop drunk, especially for plumbing items.


Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

Measles

Tell me if this seems reasonable.

One of the guys I work with at the hardware store asked me to move this garden statue of Buddha from one location in the store to another because, as a Christian, it would be against his values to do it. Oh yeah, it was still in the shipping box.

Does this mean that I get to refuse to stock pest control products because I don't think we should kill things? Can I refuse to sell grass seed because it is environmentally unfriendly to the desert?

Here's something else, but I'm not sure what my point is.

Our city is in a state of heightened alert over some cases of the measles. I'm not sure when measles became a big deal in this country, but apparently it is. I'm guessing the because it is so rare, it is newsworthy.

Back in the 1950s my siblings and I, along with most every kid we knew, got the measles. For us, this meant staying home from school, wearing our PJs all day and getting to wear sunglasses, because it was believed that measles made for very sensitive eyes and blindness was a possibility.

No one I ever knew died or was maimed for life by the measles. In fact the odds against a kid in the US dying from the measles was only about one in one thousand in the late 1950s, prior to the introduction of a measles vaccine in 1963. The vaccine eliminated the virus in the United States for all intents and purposes.

The homeopathic and naturopathic husksters use the low rate of death from measles in the years just prior to the introduction of the vaccine as proof that it is not needed. The fact is, that measles deaths declined as children's health and hygiene improved throughout the twentieth century. Measles kills almost exclusively those with weakened immune systems and those living in unsanitary conditions.

However, if we have a vaccine that keeps a million kids a year from contracting the virus, why wouldn't we use it? For sure, from time to time a child dies from complications of the vaccine, but very, very infrequently. Far less than the one in one thousand that measles will kill.

In the year 2000, measles killed 750,000 children worldwide, almost all in third-world countries. The American Red Cross, WHO, the CFDC and UNICEF, through the Measles Initiative, have vaccinated 400,000,000 children worldwide and by 2006 the number of children worldwide who died from measles was down 68%. In Africa, the rated plunged 91%. So clearly, the quacks are wrong about the effectiveness of childhood vaccines. But idiots can never be convinced against their wills.

Want to hear something sad. In Africa, parents often didn't bother to even give their children names until they survived their bout with the measles. It just killed too many of them.

All our local cases of the measles are connected to a visitor from Switzerland who had not been vaccinated and contracted it prior to arriving here in our fair city.

So, I guess my point is that the next time you hear some imbecile raving about how childhood vaccines are dangerous and unnecessary, tell them Merle Sneed says that they are irresponsible and ignorant of the facts.












Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

Our local paper ran this story this morning about some groups of people who place and maintain water stations in the desert to help prevent the deaths of illegal crossers into the United States.

Maybe you have to live in the Southwest to appreciate the hatred and vitriol that surrounds the illegal immigration issue. Or maybe it's in every part of the country and I just am not aware of it.

These are some of the comments left by readers in response to the story. I chose these because they are typical and brief. Spelling errors are as written. A full ninety percent of commenters want illegals stopped at all costs, even to the point of death.

Donald H. said,

Where are those water barrels, anyway? I need some target practice. We need the borders secure, not enticement to tresspass!

From Clifton C.,

These BLEEDING HEARTS are aiding and abeting criminal's and should be sent to prison in MEXICO. Mabey after they see how the mexican government treat's AMERICAN crimial's they maight have a change of mind about the ILLEGAL ALIEN CRIMINAL'S they help. Clifton loves to capitalize to emphasize his points.

And our award winner from Randy L.,

TRAITORS THAT NEED ARRESTED. If they die, it's their own fault.


In a perfect world the poor of Mexico could find work in their own country that provided them a decent life. In a slightly less perfect world, we would have a sensible immigration plan that would allow people to work in this country as needed and would a have a system that would include some kind of reasonable enforcement of the border.

Instead, we have a tidal wave of the poor and desperate from south of the border risking life and limb to better themselves. Is a drink of water too much to give?

So long as I am on a rant, Jeremiah Wright, famous for being Barak Obama's pastor, spoke yesterday at the NAACP Fight for Freedom Fund Dinner last night in Detroit.

No white person in America can look at the video of Rev. Wright's now famous sermon to his congregation, without being at least a bit put off. Me included. To hear Wright describe the attacks of 9-11 as, America's chickens coming home to roost, is disconcerting and gives rise to reflexive defensiveness and denial among non-blacks. I happen to think that he is wrong on that score.

Additionally, I think we tend to dismiss Wright's criticisms as whining and blame blacks not taking personal responsibility for themselves. After all, we all know African-Americans who are doing just fine, so those who aren't, are just not trying hard enough.

At the Detroit dinner Rev. Wright said of himself, "I am not one of the most divisive" black spiritual leaders, he said. "I'm one of the most descriptive."

Rev. Wright describes the view of many, probably most African-Americans in this country. It is a view that most of us non-blacks don't get. Even the most successful black Americans will tell you that something is wrong in society. This in spite of their personal successes.

Walter Williams, a professor of economics at George Mason University and a conservative black American has outlined his points for avoiding poverty. They stand in stark contrast to the reality for many black Americans.

According to Williams the keys are, first, graduate from high school. Second, get married before you have children, and stay married. Third, work at any kind of job, even one that starts out paying the minimum wage. And, finally, avoid engaging in criminal behavior.

Consider the following;

A black baby is about three times as likely to be born to an unwed mother as a white one. Lyndon Johnson was distressed that black illegitimacy rate was twenty percent in the sixties, in part spurring the Great Society programs. The rates peaked at seventy-four percent and are still at sixty percent today.

African-Americans are incarcerated at rates at least twice their percentage of the population in forty six of the fifty states.

African-American family income is two-thirds that of non-white Hispanic families.

African-Americans graduate from high school and college at rates below all other major ethnic groups.

I think that as uncomfortable as his message is, the Rev. Wright makes a point. Something is wrong in our society and it is about more than taking personal responsibility.





Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

The key to being a good manager is keeping the people who hate me away from those who are still undecided.--Casey Stengel

Apparently, our hardware store has something called an employee communications plan. The plan calls for the manager or assistant manager to have a ten minute meeting with each employee, each month. The purpose is to allow the little people the opportunity to air their concerns, comments, etc.

On Friday, the assistant manager summoned me to the break room for one of these meetings. Since it was my first monthly communications meeting in my four month hardware career, I'm guessing that this is one of those tasks that seems like a better idea in theory than in practice.

Personally, I love these opportunities, because I generally have an opinion on every subject and am short on people wishing to hear them. Also, as my dad used to say, when they lose the power to fire you, work takes on a whole different meaning.

I'm fortunate to have bosses at the hardware store who are good to work for. What makes it interesting is that no one in the chain of command seems to be looking to move upward. When no one craves anyone else's job, the assh*le quotient goes way down.

I told the assistant manager that I only want to work three days a week. I was hired to work twenty-hour weeks and I am up to thirty-two at the moment. The additional hours are because a longtime employee is off work with a serious illness and they cannot make the decision to replace her just yet, so I am willing to go along for awhile. But, when she gets back or when she is replaced, I want to go back to three days.

He seemed very sympathetic to my request. He even asked me what my ideal schedule would be. Since I was hired to work all day on Friday and Saturday, it seems reasonable not to try to weasel out of those, so I told him that my ideal schedule is Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, three eight-our days.

I think it will eventually work out that way, because he wrote what I said in a big binder.








Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

Happy Arbor Day Dennis

The remains of the tree.




Commenter Dennis wonders, "...isn't it Arbor day or something? And you're posting a tree being killed?"

Well, Dennis, Arbor Day is the last Friday in April and I cut down the tree on Thursday. So, I guess the answer to your question is no.

Additionally, the tone of your comment suggests that I am somehow at fault for the death of this tree. Have you considered that maybe it had it coming?

True story here.

I have this customer who comes into the hardware store all the time. Apparently he is a handyman of sorts and apparently he only owns one shirt, a black polo with the words, 'Powers Gym' embroidered on it. I've seen him dozens of times over the past four months and I am completely serious when I tell you that he has had that shirt on every one of those times. He is also kind of a grumpy, pain in the butt.

On Tuesday this guy stops me in the hardware aisle and asks me what I know about Pack Rats. Pack Rats are a problem for people who live in the suburban areas of our town. You might wish to read about Pack Rats in a post I wrote in 2006. Anyway, my guy wanted to get rid of a couple of Pack Rats that were up to no good.

Pack Rats are hard to deal with because they are smart as rodents go and they are very cautious.

I took him over to our rodent eradication aisle and started by showing him a live trap, since killing is my last choice, unless you are a tree. Just kidding Dennis.

He said that he didn't want to capture the rats since he didn't want to be bothered with relocating them.

Okay, how about some good old-fashioned poison, I wondered. Can't do that since it might kill an innocent bystander from the animal kingdom.

I also suggested a thing called a Rat Zapper, a kind of electric chair for rodents. No, he didn't want to have to dispose of dead rat. Sticky traps? Same objection.

The guy grabbed a ultrasound device from a hook and asked me about it. The device is reputed to chase away vermin by emitting an objectionable sound, a sound above human hearing. I told him I didn't know how effective it was. This launched him into a long diatribe about how he bought one and it didn't work. Why ask then, I wondered?

Finally, trying my best to disguise sarcasm and annoyance as sincerity, I asked, "So you want to get rid of Pack Rats without killing them or capturing them alive? You just want them to go away of their own accord?" He says yes.

You just can't make this stuff up.




Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

Our weather is warming up. It is in the nineties now and probably will stay there for a while. That's only until it hits one hundred, though.

The usual suspects and I went to play golf today. I'm adopting a new attitude about this golfing business. The fact is that I will never be more than average, so I might as well get used to it and stop pressuring myself. The idea is to have fun with my friends.

I will be testing out my fun theory in earnest because, the Seafood King has decreed that he and I will be playing on Monday afternoon, as well as on Thursdays during the summer. I hope I have twice the fun as I have now.

Speaking of twice the fun, Son Sneed and I cut down our Desert Willow tree today. I wish I had thought to chronicle the event in photo, but I didn't. We used a chain saw to cut it down in sections and then used my swell wood chipper to grind up all but the biggest chunks of the tree. Even if I says so myself, we were downright Paul Bunyon-esque. Two hours to cut it down, grind it up and stack what couldn't be ground up.

I bought the wood chipper on eBay for making compost. It turned out that it wouldn't grind up leaves and other small stuff, so it has been sitting in the garage. Today was its day. We ground up a ton of tree limbs and branches and spread it around various parts of the yard as mulch. I have a formidable stack of green wood that I am thinking I will put a 'free firewood' sign on. Maybe someone will haul it away.

The tree was pretty to look at but kind of fragile. Branches kept breaking off in the wind. Plus it is a messy tree in the Spring and Fall. It grew at a funny angle and gave the impression that it was just a matter of time before it toppled into the street and with our luck, maiming a passerby.



Here's a shot of the tree after a storm last summer. Anyway, its gone now.



Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

My current archnemesis, the evil Mexican Palo Verde blossom.

This is a hybrid tea rose called Medallion. It will turn to a light apricot color as the bloom opens and ages.


Most of my rose bushes are hosting leaf-cutter bees. The bees cut crescent shapes out of the leaves, which they use to create a nest. Leaf-cutter bees are solitary, rather than social bees and don't create hives. A single female nests and raises its young. The damage to the plant is largely cosmetic, so I don't worry about it. Besides, these bees are important pollinators and need to be left unmolested.

In other news, I'm sort of feeling like the shine is off this hardware store job of mine. It has passed from a part time diversion to full time pain in the neck. Don't get me wrong, I like the work and I enjoy some of the people I work with, it's the hours I am beginning to resent. More specifically, I am beginning to resent the restrictions on my time that comes with a regular job.

I am working about 13 hours per week more than I agreed to. This is due to the illness of a coworker who has been off work for over two months now. It is beginning to look like she isn't ever coming back and I fear that I may be her permanent replacement.

My pal,the Seafood King offered to teach me to do some paperwork for his empire. I would basically take three days a month, so that's pretty tempting. We'll have to see how this works out, I guess.





Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

Earth Day

We're doomed. One way or another the end is near. Of course, near is a relative term. Sometime in the next billion years we are going to get fried, broiled, baked or blasted. Even if we avoid all of those calamities, the damn sun will go out and we will freeze or something. Just saying.

But hey, today was Earth Day, so maybe there's some hope. Everywhere I go, people are going green. Not Shamrock green mind you, but a pastel green. But a light green is a place to start, I suppose.

My personal Earth Day efforts pretty much amounted to doing nothing different than usual. I live a pretty simple life. I drove to work in my little clown car, one mile each way. At thirty miles per gallon in the city, I used about eight ounces of gas. I supposed that I could have walked or biked, but after a standing on my feet all day, the last thing I wanted to do was walk home. Plus I drove one of the high school kids home, right on my way. This kept his father from making a two mile round trip.

We recycle all of our household waste. Nothing goes into the trash but garbage. I do use more water than need be, but having a lot of plants requires water. Not a colossal amount of water, but more than I could get by with. I changed every bulb in the house to compact fluorescent, to save electricity.

Anyway, I think I do a pretty good job of not being wasteful and that's all I have to offer. Maybe when solar panels get affordable, I will look into that, but for now I'm doing what I can.

There were a couple of Earth Day items that caught my attention today.

First of all, I noticed that someone at the store put up a large sign that says, "Choose to Reuse" on a display of reusable bags. The kind that can be used in lieu of those awful plastic bags.

I have to question our store's commitment to reuse, though. Every Tuesday and Friday, we empty dozens of cardboard boxes, flatten them and then toss them into the trash, where the are hauled to the landfill.

I asked the powers that be about recycling them and was told that they thought of that but hadn't really done anything with the idea. Cynical Merle might conclude that choose to reuse might really be choose to buy our bag.

Secondly, a woman came in today asking for a particular gardening item that we don't carry. I told her as much and she asked if I knew where she might get it. When I told her that I was pretty sure she could get it at the nursery a block down our street, she responded that she wasn't going to drive all over town on Earth Day looking for something. She said she would go home and call.

It occurred to me, but not to her apparently that if she went home and called, she would have to drive back to get it. Or drive somewhere else to get it. I offered her our phone to make some calls, but she said she preferred to do it from home. Seems odd to me.

Anyway, Happy Earth Day.







Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

Clogs

If the Sneed household was a game show, rather than a freak show, our theme for the past couple of days would be, 'Things That Get Clogged Up'.

This picture is of a Mexican Palo Verde tree that overhangs our back yard. It technically belongs to the synagogue adjacent to us, but it also extends over our wall. For a couple of months a year it is a welcome guest, blocking out the sun and providing afternoon shade. For the other ten months it drops crap onto the patio. Crap I have to deal with.

The tree has a yellow hue now because of the one trillion tiny yellow flowers on it. Yesterday morning, I noticed that the pond was running slowly and when I investigated, I found the pump clogged with little yellow flowers. This will persist for another month of so. In addition to unclogging the pump, I will be sweeping up tons of these blossoms.

Then there was the clothes dryer. The lovely Mrs. Sneed informed me Saturday that the dryer was not drying the clothes very quickly. She suspected trouble with the exhaust hose behind the dryer and suggested that we needed to move the dryer and check it out.

Our store had a very unimportant, but mandatory meeting, at seven yesterday morning. When I got home about eight-thirty, Mrs. Sneed had the dryer pulled out and the exhaust hose off. It was not clogged, leaving us to conclude that a new dryer was in our future.

As we visited with our children later in the morning, it occurred to me that maybe something was lodged in the vent pipe on the roof. I got the ladder and climbed up on the roof. I was pleasantly surprised to find a wad of lint the size of a Pomeranian blocking the top of the pipe. Once I removed the clog, we were good to go, dryer-wise.

As if that wasn't enough, I was cleaning our bathroom this morning and discovered that my sink was clogged. A couple of weeks ago I dropped a bottle of aspirin into the sink and what I couldn't scoop up went down the drain. I reasoned that if aspirin dissolves in your stomach, surely it would dissolve in a sink trap. Turns out that my reasoning is faulty.

I disassembled the trap under the sink and found about a hundred aspirin stuck together in the shape of a ball. They are the sustained-release type of aspirin, the coated ones and apparently don't dissolve unless they are submerged in water. With the glob gone the sink is back to normal.

Now if only my sinuses would clear up.






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Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

Play Ball!

John Wayne Ratzinger made his first appearance at storied Yankee Stadium today.

Working in front of a standing-room-only crowd, the Pontiff used a mix of mostly off-speed pitches to baffle a barnstorming team of evangelical Lutherans from Brainerd, Minnesota. The Pope ended the day with six strikeouts and two walks, while giving up just one hit in eight scoreless innings. Father Neil O'Hagin came on in the ninth and retired all three men that he faced, to preserve the win.

"I didn't have my good fastball today, so I had to try to keep them off balance with my off-speed stuff," the crafty old hurler said at the post-game news conference.

The Pope was only threatened once. He walked the Lutheran's lead off man, Sven Johansen, in the sixth. Babe Johnson followed with a sharp liner to left, moving Johansen to second with no outs. Karl Olson then hit a wicked grounder to the sure-handed Monsignor Liam O'Malley, who fielded it cleanly and forced Johansen at third. The Pope settled down and struck out both Einer Olsen and Ed Tolleruud to end the inning, and really the last hope for the outmatched Lutheran squad.

The Pope describes how far outside the nasty curveball he threw to clean up hitter Ollie Olson was. The Pope struck out Olson to end the fifth frame.


The Pope proved that naysayers wrong who said that he was too old to be a number one starter for a major religious organization. He said after the game that even though he's eighty-one, he has the arm strength of a seventy-five year-old. He said his youthfulness is due to a good diet and the guidance of a personal trainer.

Whatever his age, on this day he was masterful on the mound.

Vatican spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi, said that it was gratifying to see the Pope back on top of his game after his shelling earlier this week in Washington, D.C.

In that Tuesday afternoon affair, the Pope lasted only two innings, giving up six earned runs and nine hits to the Seventh Day Adventist All Stars, before being pulled for up and coming young fireballer, Father Lou Moritz.

The Tri-managers of the Vatican team blamed the Pope's poor performance on jet lag and possible signal stealing by the Adventist team. They don't anticipate any carryover to the upcoming Italian season, which begins next week. The Vatican Warriors of God club is expected to contend for the league title, behind the strong-armed Pope and several young hitting prospects brought up from their Triple A franchise.






Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

In the Dark

This is my Guy de Maupassant rose bush. The flowers take a long time to open and are like an Old Garden Rose form. Very unlike what we expect roses to look like in the United States.

The most important news of the day is that Mrs. Sneed and I are celebrating our thirty-ninth wedding anniversary today. Happy anniversary, Mrs. Sneed.

I had to work today, like all Saturdays. The only good thing about it is that I get off work at four, instead of six.

The adventure for the day was when a car knocked down a power pole, and killing the electricity to the neighborhood. We spent the afternoon trying to wait on customers in semi-darkness. The cashiers had to keep track of all the sales by paper and pencil until the registers came back on. It was not unlike a hardware store from a century ago.

The cashiers were processing credit card transactions with an imprint machine. I haven't seen one of those in years and our eighteen-year-old cashier had never seen one. Time flies I guess.

Any thoughts that the employees had about an early closing were quickly dashed by the manager. When I left at fourish, the power was still off. The show must go on.


Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

Trouble broke out today in Washington when several Jehovah's Witnesses tried to put a copy of Watchtower under one of the windshield wipers on the Popemobile. An angry pontiff, Joseph Wayne Ratzinger, told Felix Amuhada of the Greater Southwest D.C. Kingdom Hall to, "Keep your heathen mitts off my ride." Mr. Amuhada told the obviously irate Pope that he (Amuhada) was concerned about the Pope's eternal soul and reading Watchtower would go a long way toward helping the Pope understand God's plan for him. Papal guards and Mrs. Amuhada intervened before the altercation got physical. Today was golf day and it was windy and cool. I guess that is marginally better than windy and hot. This year is a particularly bad one for allergy suffers like me, so the wind is not a welcome guest. Add to the wind the dozens of old geezers clogging up the golf course and it made for one long day. I've always been fascinated in how things are connected. A day or so ago Ched wrote in her blog about O. Henry. Every child of my generation was treated to O. Henry's short stories as a part of their education. The Ransom of Red Chief and The Gift of the Magi, were my favorites. I have a rose called Guy de Maupassant, named for one of the fathers of the modern short story, who like William Sydney Porter (O. Henry) wrote stories with surprising twists. Guy de Maupassant wrote a story called Rose, which perhaps is why the flower was named for him. If not, it is an interesting coincidence. In Rose, two wealthy young women are discussing affairs with servants when one relates a story of her maid Rose, the best maid she has ever employed. Unfortunately, Rose turns out to be a man in disguise, who is hiding from the law, a fact she discovers when the police come for Rose. The twist in the story seems to be that her friend has also employed Rose, but never knew of his real identity. Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

Dumber and Dumber

Something in Ched's blog today caught my attention. She asked, are kids dumber now than in preceding generations? I don't think that they are stupider, but they can get by with a smaller base of knowledge because of technological crutches. Years ago smart people began to predict that we would become fat and useless because technology was taking away hard work and giving us too much leisure. That has kind of turned out to be true, generally speaking. Our brains are no different from our bodies. Don't demand that they work hard and they will become dull. I kind of think of a knowledge base as either having a specific application, or contributing to our wholeness as a person. There is considerable overlap, but think of them as two separate things for this discussion. It seems to me that the world is more specialized than it used to be, so knowledge has become more focused. The growth of new media has allow us to become more selective in pursuing information and the result is the loss of general knowledge. I heard Stephen Fry talking about Oscar Wilde this week. He was telling an anecdote about Wilde translating the Bible from Greek as a part of his acceptance to study at Oxford. How smart must Victorians have been? Few today can translate Classical Greek, but few need to. Are we the worse for the wear? Who knows? Maybe what we used to learn isn't that important anymore. When I was teaching at the middle school, one of my chronic discipline problems was a young girl named Tamika. One morning Tamika was being detained in the office for one offense or another. She had been sentenced to sit there until after lunch. From where she sat, she could not see the clock and as we all know, time moves more slowly when you are stuck somewhere, so she was antsy about the time. As I passed by, Tamika asked me what time it was. I replied that it was a quarter until noon. She asked again and again I told her a quarter until noon. At that point she told me to stop 'messing with her'. I was perplexed. What occurred to me a few seconds later was that she didn't know how to tell time on an analog clock, or at least was not familiar with the terminology. I told her it was 11:47 and with a big, huffy sigh, she said thanks. Does it matter that Tamika could only tell time on a digital clock? My intuition says yes, but I'm not sure I believe my instincts. She also could do math with a calculator, but struggled to do it manually. She knew what to do, but not how to do it. She has a calculator for the 'doing it', so she will get by. I happen to think that the narrowing focus of our knowledge base is a negative. Assuming you accept my premise that it has narrowed. I think kids today are as smart as we train them to be. Unfortunately, reading has become passé for many kids and reading was the chief way in which they garnered a good base of knowledge. The calculator has robbed them of their number sense. If the calculator say something, they have no way to tell if it makes sense. On the week's Skeptics Guide to the Universe podcast, Yau-Man Chan, physicist and engineer, as well as star of Survivor, talked about how his graduate level physics students no longer understand how many of their experiments work because of digital instrumentation. They plug in numbers and get a result. Much like popping a quarter into a gum ball machine and getting some gum. These are not stupid people, but they no longer need to know certain things to succeed. So, I guess I would say that by most standards kids today are less knowledgeable than their predecessors. The question is, how much does it matter? Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

Among the huge haul of loot I received for my birthday, was a gift certificate from Son and Daughter-in-Law Sneed, at a fabulous nursery near our house. I used it this morning to buy this amazing rose tree and green ceramic pot.

The rose is called Mandarin Sunblaze and as you can see it has beautiful orange flowers. What's not to love about that? Nothing, that's what.

In other news, my new schedule at the hardware store includes me working from noon to six pm on Tuesdays. Imagine my surprise today when I strolled in at noon and was greeted by a collection of numbskulls intent upon quizzing me about my start time. They take great delight in tormenting me about the schedule. Since I'm the only guy working a moving target, this seems a bit unfair.

One of the cashiers, an annoying woman under normal circumstances, asked me mockingly, "What time were you supposed to work today?" My inclination was to tell her that I was scheduled at Shove-it-up-your-keister o'clock, but I resisted the temptation. Instead I allowed as how it was incumbent upon those changing my schedule to inform me of such. In the absence of that notification, all bets are off.

So, for the next hour or so, I was pissed off about the situation. That was before the boss gave me my three-months evaluation. She apparently thinks I'm swell. Go figure.

The evaluation was kind of interesting. There were several categories with ratings of one to five. I got to rate my self first and then turn in the form to her. I figured that my boss would give me all threes, so I gave myself all fours, with a couple of three and a couple of fives. It has been my experience that if you admit to being average, there is no shortage of bosses willing to agree with you. I admit nothing.

To make matters worse, the boss acknowledged that she had hosed the schedule and that it was not my fault that I was late. The old win-win.








Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

Monday

Well, the good news is that our oldest son, and our daughter-in-law told us yesterday that they are having a baby in November. Actually, they had their four-year-old Aiden tell us, but it works out either way. We are very happy about this news. Just last week I was telling Mrs. Sneed that I was sure that we won't have anymore grandchildren and she was telling me that I'm full of crap. Turns out she's right again. My handyman friend asked me to help him put up an evaporative cooler on a customer's house today. I figured that it would take a couple of hours. It really took us over eight hours. That's eight hours on someone's roof in the hot sun. I may be too old for this. Actually, if he could use me two days a week, it would be a pretty sweet deal. He pays me much better than the hardware store guys and a couple of day's work would more than cover what I make in thirty hours a week at the store. Speaking of the hardware store guys, I found out something interesting. Mrs. Sneed is planning a trip for the grandkids and any parents interested, to Disneyland in June. We are staying at the Grand California at the park which is something she has wanted to do. Since Disney thinks their hotel is paved with gold, I have resisted. I asked my boss if I could take off three days from work, unpaid mind you, and she told me that anything over one day has to be approved by the owner. There are several stores in this owner's empire and he apparently has time to micromanage the scheduling of part time employees. Very strange. Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

If you are in New York or Washington next week, be prepared for traffic disruptions caused by the visit to America of Joseph Wayne Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI.

Pope Benedict XVI, will be delivering a message, Why Society Needs Religious Values: It's Time to Let the Priests Out of Jail and Toss the Godless Atheists In. Now that was just uncalled for.

Also, today is my birthday. Okay, it's not my actual birthday, but it is being commemorated today, following the passage of a little-noticed Congressional resolution. Banks and other financial institutions are closed today, as are all nonessential government offices. Busses will run on a Sunday schedule.

We had to delay the celebration because Daughter Sneed thoughtlessly scheduled her honeymoon over my birthday. She has a thirty-something year record of this sort of thoughtlessness. So, we are having a family breakfast this morning to celebrate and exchange gifts. Actually, I will be the only one getting the gift gifts, but isn't having me as a dad gift enough? I think so.


This is a rose on a rose tree on the patio. The bloom is initially orange and turns pink as it ages. I took this shot as Noah and I were cutting off spent blooms. Here's a tip for you. Never hold a rose so that a four-year-old can cut it. Noah nearly severed the tip of my thumb. It bled like crazy and scared the beejezus out of the kid.








Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

I've been thinking about how cool it would be to have a convertible sports car. Don't ask my why I've been thinking about this, because it makes no sense from the Merle Wayne Sneed point of view. You know, the cheap bastard point of view? Of course, I'm unlikely to actually buy a sports car because I am in the end slow to action and cheap with a buck. Besides, like most things in my life, the sports car will find me when the moment is right. This reminded me of one of my favorite stories, one I posted about in 2006. It illustrates another of my favorite Sneedisms, which goes, "Don't try to force something to happen, it rarely works out like you hope." This is a repeat of that post, It Was Har"D"ley Worth It. If you look at the title of my blog you will notice that my first rule of finances is to live on less than you make. It is what I have always done and it has served me well from both a financial and a quality-of-life perspective. A second lesson that I learned is to never try to force something to happen, particularly if it involves a major financial event. Things will either fall into place or they won't. Too often we don't recognize that when things block us from getting something we covet, it is because it is not good for us. Life is shouting no and all we hear is yes. For instance, take the case of Ray and Steve, two guys I knew many years ago. Ray was shrewd and Steve was young and not too savvy. Ray was a Harley-Davidson man, not an outlaw biker guy, but definitely unconventional. Ray was the sort of fellow a young and impressionable guy finds appealing. Steve was drawn to Ray's swagger. Steve decided that he needed a Harley motorcycle too and, as luck would have it, Ray happened to have an extra one he was willing to sell for $2000. This was obviously many years ago, 1970 to be exact. There are some things about Steve's finances that you should know. He made about $120 per week, he pretty much defaulted on every financial commitment that he made and he often lived in his 1965 VW Beetle because he was habitually being kicked out of where he lived. He also had no money saved. Steve set about trying to get a loan to buy Ray's bike. He called all the usual places to no avail. He resorted to calling second-tier finance companies, he asked his family members and coworkers for a loan, he even asked Ray to carry the note. Everyone said no. The pursuit of the motorcycle consumed Steve. For a couple of weeks he plotted strategies to get his hands on $2000. He made calls throughout the day to various lenders, proposing various schemes. He made no progress. This should have been a message to Steve. Finally, he wore his father down. Steve's dad called a friend, the president of a small local credit union, and worked out a deal to get Steve a personal loan. Dad must have guaranteed it somehow. Steve gave Ray the money and picked up the used Harley. Steve was euphoric and proudly roared up to our building on it each morning...for about a week. Then the Harley died. Before the first payment was due, it gave up the ghost. Steve was crushed and asked Ray what he intended to do about it. Ray said he intended to do nothing. It turns out there is no warranty on a used Harley that you buy from a coworker. Steve managed to get the dead Harley to a motorcycle repair shop. The mechanic gave it a thorough inspection and announced that he could fix it for $800. As I mentioned earlier, that was almost 2 month's pay for Steve. So the motorcycle sat dead at Steve's dads house for a couple of months. What Steve also didn't know is that in a small city Harley guys tend to know one another. So Ray knew what was wrong with the dead bike and what it would take to fix it. One day, a short time later, Steve was lamenting his bad luck to a bunch of us at break. Ray asked Steve if he wanted to sell the dead Harley back to him. Steve jumped at the chance, but the catch was Ray only offered $500 for it. Still Steve reasoned that it was best to cut his loses. He sold. Since Steve had a signature loan on the bike there was no lien to clear. The deal was made. A few days later Ray roared up to work on the resurrected Harley. At break time Steve asked Ray about the repairs he had made. Ray, not content to have taken advantage of the kid, said he fixed it for $50. It was only 50 bucks in parts if you knew how to repair a Harley. See Ray was a Harley guy. Steve was out of his league. The next time you are pursuing something ask yourself, "Am I trying too hard?" Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

Merle Wayne Sneed

Steven Levitt, coauthor of Freakonomics, has a running theme in his blog for the NY Times, about murderers with the middle name Wayne. Lots of guys saddled with the middle name Wayne, are prone to murder it seems. In fact, I read somewhere that Wayne is the most common middle name for US inmates under conviction for homicide, although I don't remember my source and I may have made that up. The variations, Dewayne, Dwain and Dwayne are also common among those with homicidal tendencies. Chuck Sheperd, author of The News of the Weird, has weighed in with his own compilation of notorious Waynes who have been convicted of murder. Here in our neck of the woods, a guy named Clark Wayne Xxxx, was shot to death last year, after he got into a fight with his brother, Lyndall Dwain Xxxx. The rare double Wayne. Lyndall Dwain's trial began on Wednesday and he is expected to join the ranks of the incarcerated Waynes real soon. He confessed to having 'unloaded' his assault rifle on his brother, although he says his brother provoked him. The question is, why the prevalence of murderous Waynes ? Do sociopaths tend to fancy the name Wayne and seal their son's fate with it, or does the name have some mystical evil power that unleashes homicidal mania? Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

Even more proof that the kid can't smile and keep his eyes open at the same time.

Noah went home yesterday and this morning I have to say that the house feels a bit empty. His folks got stuck in Dallas overnight due to a flight delay and finally made it home yesterday afternoon. As always, American Airlines took the weasel way out and claimed the delay was due to weather and that in the case of bad weather, they are not obligated to worry about what happens to the stranded passengers.





Last summer I bought these two roses at Target. They were two bucks each and were at death's door, or at last looked like it. they are starting to really flourish.

I was looking at an article in Money Magazine today about people living paycheck to paycheck. It offered the usual advice for making you money go farther and even how to break the cycle of being broke. Too bad people can't learn a bit of simple discipline.

Of course, the easiest route to having some money in life is to plan to pay yourself first. Broke people thing they can't afford it, but they are wrong. Even a minimum wage worker who commits to saving five percent, can accumulate hundreds of thousands of dollars for retirement if the stick to it.

Of course, broke people will tell you that saving five percent is impossible given their brokeness. I don't buy that story for a moment. Even the brokest person I know has a cellphone. Nearly everyone has something they choose to spend money on that they could sacrifice, if they wanted to. Mostly people want to do what they do, without a thought to the future.

Did you know that there is a correlation between being broke and smoking? The poorer a person is, the more likely they are to smoke. At five or six bucks a pack, that's a lot of present and future dollars going up in smoke.










Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

Princess Di - Maybe Dead, Maybe Not

There really are very few conspiracies in life. Most things are just what they appear to be. What makes successful conspiracies rare is that they involve people, lots of people and people cannot keep their yaps shut. Conspiracy theories like those that claim the 9-11 attacks were fake or planned by the evil genius Bush, that Oswald didn't shoot Kennedy or at least had an accomplice, that Elvis isn't dead, and that the Air force has a fleet of alien spacecraft in the Nevada desert, all involve too many folks to keep them under wraps. However, that observation is lost on tin foil hat crowd, which seems to get bigger in numbers, not smaller. Despite the amazing feats of science in the last century which have gone a long way explain how our world works, a sizable portion of the public continues to believe in the unprovable. Many believe that we are regularly visited by extraterrestrials. Others fervently believe the stars hold some sway over our lives, that we can communicate with the dead, that the dead are among us in spirit, and that if we believe in the right way, we will have a life beyond this one. All with no tangible evidence to support their beliefs. Let me repeat that, there is no evidence that confirms any of these beliefs. The next positive test that proves the existence of the paranormal will be the first. Yet a sizable portion of the citizenry holds tight to these things. I wonder why life comes up short for so many? Or as Peggy Lee asked in song, Is That All There Is? On August 31, 1997, Diana Princess of Wales along with her suitor, Dodi Al-Fayed, died in a tragic traffic accident. The circumstances of her death seemed fairly straightforward. She got into a car with a driver who was drunk, failed to fasten her seatbelt and was sped across Paris, being pursued by crazed and reckless paparazzi, when the driver lost control and wrecked the car. The result was tragic, but foreseeable. It seemed to be your run-of-the-mill, drunken driving fatality at the time and nothing has changed in the intervening years. The conspiracy theorists quickly assembled three possible alternate explanation for the accident. All far less likely that the obvious explanation, but plausible enough to gen up interest from the fringe. They theorize that Diana faked her own death and is living somewhere with Elvis. Okay not Elvis, but at least Al-Fayed. Scenario two has Diana murdered by rogue forces within MI6, the British secret service, for sullying the name of the Royal Family. As if they don't do that themselves on a regular basis. Lastly, some figured that enemies of Al-Fayed killed him in revenge for something he or his father had done. After months of testimony, millions of pounds and hundreds of witnesses, the Coroner's Jury concluded today that Diana and Al-Fayed got into a car being driven by a drunk, didn't wear their seat belts and died in a crash caused by the driver's impairment and recklessness in trying to avoid the paparazzi. The sad part is that this won't faze the conspiracy folks one wit because the inquest was just a part of the conspiracy. Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

Sunday

One day more. Noah's folks are are somewhere between Orlando and Dallas on the second-to-last leg of their trip. They are arriving home late tonight and will picking the little guy up in the morning. I feel like a hostage waiting for the Swat Team to arrive. We've had quite a bit of fun this past eight days, but the care and feeding of a four-year-old is best left to younger people, at least for extended periods of time. As our old next-door-neighbor Art used to say, my fun-meter is pegged. Not to be political, but Mark Steyn had a great line about the Clinton campaign in a article this week. Steyn liken her near-hopeless campaign to the last patron in a smoky bar at closing time. Steyn wrote, They’re locking up the joint, and no matter how many nickels she drops in the jukebox it won’t play “Hail To The Chief.” Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

Friday

This is a hybrid tea rose called Granada. It is one of my new roses and is a spectacular bloom, at least to my eye.

It's back to work today. Mrs. Sneed gets custody of Noah for the next two days. He is fun to have around except that I'm forced to watch PBSkids Sprout nonstop and he makes a mess of everything. I recall being much more tidy as a child.

I took a bunch of junk out of the backyard yesterday and put it out on the curb. Unlike many cities where the garbagemen actually will pick up large items, we are restricted to what will go into the garbage can. Twice a year the city picks up bulky items and tree limbs, brush and other large yard waste. Our spring pickup is next week.

Among the items that I put out were an old Webber grill and a large wrought iron plant stand. This morning anything that was metal or contained large amounts of metal, was gone. We have quite a number of people who patrol during bulky pickup time and take whatever can be recycled. I think that is a win-win for everyone.

Even things that are still reusable, like old furniture items get taken, mostly for use in Mexico, I think. Better than going to the dump.



Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

Happy Birthday Ched!

Today is our friend D. Chedwick Bryant's birthday and Noah and I wish her the happiest of days.



Well the bee saga ended this afternoon with a happy outcome for all involved. The only causlty was the $50 that it cost me to have the bee guy show up.

I waited in vain all morning and into the afternoon for my buzzy little friends to move on to parts unknown. They seemed quite content to stay put in our oak tree.

For my part, I would gladly have let bee be bees, had my young assistant Noah, not insisted upon riding his bike and creating all manner of mayhem in the vicinity of the bees. I told him to knock it off, but I'm guessing that defense wouldn't work when I had to explain how he got stung a zillion times.

I finally broke down and called the bee removal (killer) guys. They sent a very nice older guy named Vic out to our place. The damn bees must have had scouts out looking for pest control trucks, because while Vic and I were at the front door, the entire swarm in the back yard just upped and left. Sneed timing.



Vic did hang this swell bee trap in the tree in case they are lurking nearby, waiting for the coast to clear. Actually, he said it's to catch the foragers who were out foraging when the queen bee decided to pull up stakes. Those poor guys got left without so much as a hearty goodbye.

Vic did confirm that removing the bees means blasting them with a lethal dose of something, so I'm glad they moved on before the blasting commenced.







Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

Bees

One should never underestimate the resolve of an idiot. Particularly his resolve to maim himself or worse.



This is a very large swarm of bees that took up residence in the oak tree in our backyard. It's hard to get a good perspective on the size of this swarm, but trust me when I tell you that it's big, real big.

Most of the honey bees in the wild in our part of the world are the Africanized variety, often called killer bees. Of course they are not really killer bees, unless you are very unlucky or an idiot. Which brings me back to my first point.

The smart guys and gals advise against messing with bee hives or bee swarms because doing so can result in a mess of pissed off bees. And that means stings and plenty of them for those in the vicinity. The smart money suggests contacting a bee removal company instead.

Bee removal is a misnomer. It is actually a bee killing company and I am not in favor of killing bees and mostly not in favor of paying someone else to do it.



So here's my solution. I decided to blast them with the hose. I was betting that they weren't going to sting me a million times, but just to be sure I put a plastic bag over my head. Long sleeves might have been a good idea, but I didn't think of that.

Anyway, I blasted them with a high-pressure stream of water and knocked them out of the tree. About 30 minutes later, they were back.

I also called a removal company and they told me to leave them alone. What I have also learned is that bees swarming like this in a tree are probably just resting up before moving on. We'll see.








Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

Handyman

I had something of an adventure today. A lot of people might not call it an adventure, in fact some people might wonder if I've lost my marbles, because it involved some hard work for not so much money. It all started when one of the regular customers in the hardware store asked me if I was interested in doing a little side work. He does home repairs. In one of those 'it seemed like a good idea at the time' moments, I said yes. Then I immediately regretted it, because I have a little bit of fear of the unknown, plus the work I already have is more than I need. The reason I agreed to be this guy's helper for the morning, actually three hours, is that I have always thought that I would like to try being a handyman. Minor electric, plumbing and that sort of thing. This seemed like a good way to see what that is like. The job this morning involved taking out a double sliding glass door, and putting in a set of French Doors. Let me be clear that when it comes to hanging doors, I got no skills, but ripping up stuff is right up my alley. The old door was built in the 1940's and was a solid steel frame. Nothing like you would find in today's lightweight materials. It involved a lot of sawing, prying and banging. What's not to like about that? It was kind of fun and I got paid enough to cover my golf this week, with enough left over for lunch. The old win-win. Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky