Some animals are more equal than others.

An enlightening story out of Snohomish County, that should give hope to all of us about how the culture surrounding DUI's might be changing.

Strike that, it's a frustrating story proving that depending on who you are, you can get away with anything.

Snohomish County judge won't be charged with DUI

If me or thee was pulled over for erratic driving, and then said we only had one beer, while our best friend/witness said it 2 glasses of wine, I'm pretty doubtful they would give us the benefit of the doubt.  Heck, I KNOW they wouldn't....they would nail you to the wall.  But if you and your best friend/witness are judges, who know enough not to TAKE the field sobriety test, well, it's just 'too hard' to get a conviction.

So much for the 'buzzed driving IS drunk driving' commercial.

Well, that's not THAT big of a number...

Recently, I was listening to one of Toby Keith’s newer songs, ‘Beers Ago’. The hook in the song is how times have changed, and things were different ‘1462 bears ago’.

 

 

That got me thinking…just how long is 1462 beers ago? Obviously, it’s going to be different for different folks…but let’s try a rough estimate.

IF I didn’t start drinking until I was 21(Not true, but in case my kids read this someday, we want dad to look pure as the driven snow, that is 16.5 years of legal drinking, or roughly 6022 days. That means to have reach 1462 beer, It would be 1 beer every 4 days.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Now, this is not true now…but there was a time when a Sunday watching football meant 8-12 beers. Figure in another 2-4 during Monday night football, and then 2-4 watching college football on Saturdays, and we are looking at a conservative estimate of 240 beers over the 20 weeks of televised football. And that’s rounding down to avoid looking like a total lush. In that case, it’s a hair over 6 FOOTBALL seasons to get to 1462…and that’s if I didn’t drink any other beer the rest of the year.

Did I mention I used to be a sailor, and some points, I attempted to live out the stereotypical life expected of a sailor? Hell, there was one underway we spent 3 weeks going in and out of Port Canaveral, Florida for three weeks doing weapons testing…I’m sure I was good for 80-100 beers during THAT port call alone.

At that rate, I think Toby Keith must have written this song when he was about 25 or 26 years old…

I just know if I was writing that song now, I'd have to find something that rhymes with 4500 beers ago..

Why sad songs are sad.

Looks like Sunday might turn into my 'sad country song' day.  This weeks song is another 'older'(Mid 90's) one, by Sawyer Brown.



It's sad because...this is how it usually happens in the real world.  No big knock down, drag out fights...just two people kind of drifting apart, and not sure why it happened.  This is the kins of scenario that worries me...not because I really think it will happen, but because NO ONE ever thinks it will happen.  I'm probably hopelessly old fashioned, but a refuse to believe a statistically significant number of folks go into marriage planning to break each others hearts someday. 

Now, because we want to leave folks happy around here, how's about some more Sawyer Brown, performing what is one of the better remakes out there.  For the life of me, I can't figure out why Sawyer Brown wasn't bigger.  I mean, they had success, but, they were good...they should have been HUGE.  Not the best quality video, but it's what I could find. 

A find!

One of the books I often see on 'preparedness library' lists is an older copy of the Boy Scout Fieldbook.  Since it's tough to find older Boy Scouts who still have copies of their fieldbooks, it's a matter of keeping your eyes open.

Today was my lucky day.  One of the local used book stores was having a $1 sale...clearing excess inventory to finance more shelves.  After selecting a few books with my daughters, and not finding anything I wanted on the sci-fi table, I swung over to the non-fiction table, and there it was...a 1979 Boy Scouts of America Fieldbook. 

 

 

Now, I hate to say that 1979 is OLD, but it appears to be old enough.  I've just flipped through it real quick, but it appears to be chock full of all kinds of things to make living outdoors less lame.  It certainly looks like a resource that will live up to it's reputation. 

Scary Movies

With Halloween fast approaching, I though I would sit down and make my list of my favorite scary movies, or at least, movies that scared me.  A lot of this has to do with the age I was when I first saw the movie...things that scare you at 10 might not scare you at 30.  I have always tended to go more for 'suspence' than straight gore or torture porn.

This list isn't specifically in order from most to least scary, but it is the order the movies popped into my mind, so that must count for something. 

1.  Poltergeist.  I seem to remember this being the first REALLY scary movie that I watched.  It was playing like 8 times a week on HBO, and my parents told me I wasn't allowed to watch it...but I snuck in a viewing anyway, and boy, was that a mistake.  The clown under the bed, the steak on the counter, the guy pealing off his face...and the worst was the tree breaking through the window to drag the kid out of his bed.  To this day I have an urge to cut down any trees within 20 feet of the house.

2.  Jaws.  Not so much the shark attack scenes, but for me the scene that made me jump the first 700 times I saw the movie was when Hooper was down inspecting Ben Garner's boat, and the head rolls out through the hole in the side of the boat. 

3. The Ring.  I watched this one when I was working off station for the Shipyard.  I was working back shift, and they gave us the night off, so one of my buddies let me borrow it.  2AM in a dark hotel room is not the right time and place to watch this movie.

4.  The Exorcist.  Not much to say...a classic, and one of the best.  For me, I think the scene where she impales herself with the cross is the most shocking...that, and split pea soup.

5. Saw.  I know...I said I'm not much into torture porn, but one night my WIFE came home with this movie.  She had read the description, and thought it was some kind of suspenseful crime movie.  About 20 minutes in she said 'this is not what I thought it was going to be.'  We watched it...the first 1 was pretty good...2 was okay, and think that was all I have seen.

6. Final Destination.  Not so much flat out scary, as 'make you jump entertaining'.  And so very creative in ways death WILL get you.  The scene with the bus is amazing...not sure how many times I watched it in slow motion to see how they did it.

7. 28 Days Later.  A good movie, and while they aren't really zombies, it's the standard to which zombie movies will be held.  If the troubled version of World War Z can't be at least this good, then just don't bother to release it.

8.  Alien. I think I liked Aliens better...more of a 'shoot 'em up action flick', but Alien was scarier.  When they start looking for the escaped creature, and you realize it has grown, and grown, and grown...

9.  Pet Semetary.  First off...all this time, and I didn't realize that THAT was the way the title was spelt.  Full of good jumps...and the scene where they cut poor Herman Munsters Achilles...ouch.  I wasn't a parent when I first saw it, but it does make you think 'How far would I go for even the chance of getting my child back?'  Up there with Misery as one of the better Stephen King movies. 

10.  The 6th Sense.  Just a great suspenseful ghost story.  It's the glimpses that get you, like the folks hanging in the gym.  Haley Joel Osmet does such a fantastic job of acting like a frightened puppy the whole movie, and then...there's the twist.  Anyone who went into that movie cold and says 'I saw it coming' is a LIAR.  Most of all, they are lying to themselves.  It almost made me feel bad for the folks that did The Others(which could get a spot on this list...better movie than Final Destination, but not as neat).  I did see the end of The Others coming, but only because The 6th Sense put that idea on your head. 

Corn and Pumpkins.

We don't have a great many 'family traditions' around here.  Dinner on our wedding night is ALWAYS pizza at home, because on the day we got married, I totally miscalculated the time it would take to drive from Virginia Beach to Baltimore via the scenic Delmarva Peninsula, so we had pizza in our hotel room instead of a nice dinner out. 

One of our others would be that we TRY to get to the corn maze and pumpkin patch every year.  We've had better luck with keeping that going since moving to the Tri-Cities than we have making it to the U-Cut Christmas Tree Farm...not many of those in the Palouse. 

Today was shaping up to be our only opportunity this year, and with my wife having friends over to make soap in the afternoon, it was my job to herd us out the door nice and early.  We were in the car by 9:10, and on our way. 

It was a little cold and damp to start the morning out, but my wife was trying hard to be excited.

 

 

The kids had a good time, and that is what really matters.  When your kids are giggling while climbing on the hay pyramid, and poking the goats in petting zoo, it's easy to be excited.

 

 

After that, it was in the maze.  We navigated in the usual manner...letting each girl take turns when we got to an intersection.  As always, I took the rear...that way the girls could distract He Who Walks Between the Rows, while I make a break for it.

 

 



It must have been a good summer for corn here in the lower Columbia Valley...plenty of irrigation and plenty of hot days led to some of the corn stalks being 10+ feet tall. 

When the maze was done, and we picked a few pumpkins, we had to swing through the store for goodies.  Country Mercantile is a dangerous, dangerous place.  There are fresh fruits and vegetables and 100's of fudges and candies made on site.  They also have something like 1000 different types of canned fruits and veggies, with tons of jams and dips and salsa's.  The dangerous parts are they tables full of jam and dip and salsa samples.  Everything tastes SO good...but, none of it is cheap.  Most of the jars cost around $7-8, and so a basket full of tasty treats rapidly adds up. 

It's one of the reasons I am ECSTATIC that my wife took up canning last year.  I can say with a straight face that the homemade blueberry butter I put on my toast this morning was better than the blueberry jam I put on a cracker at Country Mercantile. 

Still it's a good place to swing by, and one of the places we always bring out of town guests.  Might as well give them some free advertising.

Washington Ballot Breakdown.

The past few years, I have tried to put my thoughts down on the state-wide ballot measures here in Washington. With ballots arriving in people mail boxes, one of my friends actually poked me and asked if I was going to get that done this year. Since it’s nice to be appreciated, here goes:

Statewide Ballot Measures

Initiative to the People 1185(Save the 2/3^rd Vote for Tax Increases(Again) Act. Back in 2007 and again in 2010, The People of Washington have approved initiatives that would require a 2/3rds majority vote to allow taxes to be raised. The Legislature has gotten around these by filling lawsuits claiming it’s an ‘Unconstitutional Limit on the Power of the Legislature’. I’m not sure why we think they just won’t find a way to ignore this a THIRD time, but at least in doing so, you will force them to show their true colors. I’m voting in Approval of this initiative.

Initiative to the People 1240(Washington Charter School Initiative). This would allow for 40 public charter schools to be created over the next 5 years. To decide whether you want to vote for or against this, I guess you should first understand what a ‘charter school’ is. To my understanding, a Charter School is one which operates outside the jurisdiction of a school district. This allows them to get around some of the restrictive rules , regulations and statutes of most public schools, in exchange for a promise of creating documented results of improvement. I’ve got NO problem with that, since I’m an ‘ends justify the means’ type of guy. Previously, the voters in Washington voted down charter school initiatives in 1996, 2000 and 2004. Hopefully, the 8 year break has given folks a chance to figure out Public Schools are broken the way they are running now. I am voting in Approval of this initiative.

Referendum 74(Same-Sex Marriage Referendum). Early in 2012, the Washington State Legislature passed a bill giving same sex couples the right to now just enter into ‘civil unions’, but to get married. Hours after Governor Gregoire signed that bill into law, a referendum was filed which would essentially let the voters of Washington State overturn that law. An Approved vote supports the bill, a Rejected vote would repeal the law.

Once upon a time, when I was an ignorant 17 or 18 year old, I would have voted against this one. Now…this is not to say that you are ignorant if you are against gay marriage. I understand some folks have religious beliefs that lead them to believe save sex relationships are wrong in their gods eyes. I don’t have that…I would have just been against it because I used to think ‘gays are icky’, and this is ignorant. My opinion has changed. This world is full of unhappiness. If someone feels they can decrease that amount of happiness by getting ‘married’ to someone they love instead of sharing a ‘civil union’, then more power to them.

Initiative to the Legislature 502(Washington Marijuana Legalization and Regulation). Slightly different than an Initiative to the People, the State Legislature could have adopted this as law earlier in the year, OR it could have modified it and let the people vote on it. Since, in the end, most members of the Legislature are soulless creatures who don’t want to get in trouble for doing the WRONG thing, they did nothing, which now means The People get to vote on. Well, of course, putting on my libertarian hat, I’m behind this. My only reservation against legalizing marijuana has always been ‘how do you track/punish people who are driving under the influence’? The proposed measure would make it illegal to operate a motor vehicle with more than 5 nanograms of THC/ml of blood in their system. I’m not sure how that compares to a .08% BAC, but…it’s a start.

Legislatively Referred Constitutional Amendment SJR 8221(Washington State Debt Amendment). A proposed state amendment that would change the cap on state debt over the next three years from 9% to 8%. That sounds good. BUT, it also recalculates and redefines the term General State Revenue to include Education Fund Money, which means that while the percentage of debt is going down, the total amount would go up…voting no on this one. Nice sneaky try though.

Legislatively Referred Constitutional Amendment SJR 8223(Washington Public University Investments Amendment). Currently, there are very limited places that the State is allowed to invest its money…most notably, stocks and bonds of individuals, associations, companies or corporations. This amendment would remove that limitation for University of Washington and Washington State University. Most realistically, they could say ‘We are researching in this area, and so it would be smart to buy stock in companies that work in that area, since our research break through will cause said stock value to increase.

Good call…not seeing how this can go bad baring a total collapse of the stock market. Gulp. I’ll still vote for it…gotta roll them dice sometimes.

Advisory Vote 1 and 2.  I almost don't want to talk about them...they make me mad.  Essentially, the State Legislature made some decisions and votes to cut some tax breaks, and delay the expiration of funding for the pollution liability insurance agency.  Poopy.  Both of these decisions have already been made, and basically, this is a non-binding advisory vote to see how much the pissed people off by making these decisions.  I'm highly curious how much money it costs to add these 'advisory votes' to the ballot.  How's about you get off your asses and visit with your constituents to figure out how they feel about the job you are doing.

Statewide Offices

Governor: The choices are former Congressman Jay Inslee(D) and Attorney General Rob McKenna(R).  Inslee is an 8-term Congressman with 1 failed attempt at running for Governor in 1996.  There isn't a whole lot you can say bad about Congressman Inslee, but there isn't a lot of stand-out good either.  He's one of those guys who made a living off of voting the party line, and not screwing up(although, to give him props, he did break from the party in November of 2011 and voted FOR the Balanced Budget Amendment.  Rob McKenna has done a fairly fine job as Attorney General, and really the only thing the Democrats can throw at him in the commercials is 'Rob McKenna...he's a Republican.'  I voted for McKenna, because to me Inslee represents the ineffectual archetype that has given us the most un-approved of Congress in DECADES. 

Senate: This one is tough, because the greedy government contractor side of me acknowledges that putting Maria Cantwell in for a 3rd term gives me the best chance of long-term financial support at work.  However, she is a Real Democrat.  She supported Obamacare, and will DIE to protect social security and all manners of Government spending. 

Michael Baumgartner, her opponenant, is an up-and-coming Tea Party Republican.  He frequently speaks about bringing our troops home, and has proposed a 1 cent per gallon gas tax to provide funding for support for returning troops. It's easy for me to vote for him, and I did, but I really don't think he has a chance in Hades of winning. 

Other State Offices:Yeah, the truth is, Washington is doing pretty good, so if an imcumbent was running for 'Insurance Commisioner' or State Auditor...I voted for them.  The only 'other' candidate I had an opinion on was Clint Didier, running for Public Lands Commisioner.  He opened for Ron Paul here in Richland, and seems like a good guy.