And a quick “Happy Birthday” to Miep Gies, who turns 100 today.

And you ask, “Who the hell is Miep Gies?” You haven’t been to Anne Frankhuis lately, have you?

Miep Gies, along with Johannes Klieman, Victor Kugler, and Bep Voskuijl were the ‘helpers’ who aided the Frank and Van Pels families during their two years in the annex. Sixty-some years ago, Miep risked her own well-being to try to help eight people survive. It was Miep who gathered up Anne notebooks, saving them for Anne’s hoped return. In a way, what she and her co-horts did was basic. They aided friends. But they did it under the threat of death.

Miep lives in Amsterdam, and plans to celebrate her birthday with her son and three grandchildren.

You go, hero!

Woo Oregon

I planned to write something very clever and poignant to commemorate Oregon's 150th birthday, but I didn't.

So, Happy Birthday, Oregon

Friday the Thirteenth – Vendredi le Treizième

For some reason, Friday the 13th has a bad rap. Never mind my butt print on the front walk or the pick-up stuck in the driveway. Who cares, it’s Friday. Two days to waste in the snow!

Now if it were Monday the 13th, I could understand the terror.

Not very impressive, is it? From the picture, there is no reason to believe the truck shouldn't just drive off. That thing is as worthless in the snow as tits on a boar!

Blog Entry #100

Doesn't seem possible, does it? One hundred inane posts. And the world still turns.

Before I forget, happy birthday, Uncle Abe!

Totally unrelated, but there has been a rash of unfortunate incidences lately where people have called me a "smartass". I'm having a difficult time wrapping my brain around the whole set of occurances. I just don't get it. How can so many people be so wrong? It must be the education people are getting in public schools. It is shameful.

Holy Economics 101

Them that gots, got. Them that don’ts, get screwed. Again and again. Long and hard.

Let’s take a gander at a purely fictitious case. This is not ripped from the headlines. This is nothing more than a hypothetical situation.

Let’s pretend your name is Kenny Clueless and you are CEO of a really, really big bank. Let’s call it SuperBank of America. SB of A is one of those truly great banks that treat their depositors with the utmost respect and honor. Unless the depositor’s net worth is less than $10,000,000.00, in which case, said depositor is treated like worthless chattel and spat upon.

Kenny, because you are so gifted and brilliant, you are compensated to the tune of $20.4 million dollars annually. That figure includes salary, bonuses, stock options, prostitutes, cars, reimbursements, disbursements and nose candy. Holy Toledo, you are hot stuff.

Never mind that under your brilliant tutelage, your bank has gone from robust to insolvent. Never mind that if it were not for a generous cash gift from the dumbest and most incompetent president in the history of the United States, SB of A would be in bankruptcy court. Never mind that because of your morally questionable business practices the entire western world is teetering on collapse. (I’ve heard that Iceland is available on E-Bay for a stunningly low opening bid.) Don’t worry Kenny, we all still think you’re hot stuff. (Oh, and Holy Apocalypse, set the crack pipe down.)

Let’s take a closer look at your compensation. As I am sure that you work 24/7, I’ll just divvy up your pay by 8,760 (the number of hours in a year – except leap year, but let’s not get all bogged down with details.) Holy Major Shekels, you get paid a paltry sum of $2,328.77 per hour. Kenny, how do you make ends meet?

Now let’s look at Sally’s pay. Kenny, you know Sally. She’s a teller at one of SB of A’s many branches. Oh, maybe you don’t know her. There are a lot of Sally’s in your bank. You are so generous as to pay Sally the federal minimum wage. Doing some quick math, I discovered that you will have 'earned' the same compensation a little before 6AM on January 1st as Sally will earn in the entire year. Holy How In The Hell Do You Justify That!

I know. That is not a fair comparison. Because of your superior bank-managing skills and over-the-top employee empathy program, Sally will lose her job in mid-January, so the reality is that you will earn more money by 12:30AM on January 1st. But don’t worry Kenny, there are some really high quality shelters out there. Sally will be just fine. Her two young children may not make it, but Sally is still young. She can have more. Don't get your skirt all in a dither!

I won’t give the exact time and date that your income passed my annual pay. Suffice to say that if I find out you took all of New Year’s Day as a holiday, I’m going to be really pissed.

Reminds me of a bumper sticker I saw. “If you aren’t outraged, you aren’t paying attention.”

I had one of those horrible days at work.

I’m sure I am not the only one who had to roll up the shirtsleeves and dive into work today, but what can I say? I did it for the good of the company.

Ranking up there as one of the most dreaded tasks of my career, I had to drive into Portland with a couple of co-workers to taste pastries at the Petite Provence. Who knew there were more than 30 different kinds of French pastries! I see a sugar crash coming!

Brioches, Beignets, Croissants: devilishly good.

Now, I know what I want to be when I grow up. A Professional Pastry Taster!

Le télévision est retourné a l’Haute Valle de l’Hood River.

In a complicated turn of events, Richard and I have regained television reception in our humble hovel. It required begging our neighbors to allow us to place a satellite dish on their property, convincing some company out of some inhospitable land that we were real people and a large amount of plain, old-fashioned good luck. Oh, and cold, hard cash.

I came home from work Thursday to find a technician in our living room finishing the installation process. Richard was grinning from ear to ear. He looked like a child in a candy shop. The techy handed him the remote. I thought Richard was going to burst into tears. Then I looked closely at the remote. “Oh my god, look at all those buttons,” I gasped.

The techy laughed and went on to explain how truly simple it was to use our new remote, as he handed us the 457 page user’s guide. “Now what do you think you’re going to want to do the most with your new XPS International Satellite Micro-Technically Advanced Remote Digital System (or XPSISMTARDS, as we call it for short)?” he asked.

“Uhh, I was kind of hoping to watch TV.”

“Well, that is simple as pie. You just push this button (he pointed to the one marked ‘T>4.7¥’), key in the 26 digit network code for your installation, enter the language you wish to speak and determine the derivative of the square root of λ, and violà, you’re watching TV.”

I don’t think anyone noticed that my eyes glazed about halfway through his explanation.

“Now, be careful of this button that says ‘P4$$1<’,” he continued. “It has the unfortunate side effect of causing a pre-emptive strike against a small European nation if pressed on a Thursday. And this button, the one that is marked ‘Oo7oĦs’ has been known to disrupt the air-traffic control system at LaGuardia Airport, so you want to use it sparingly.”

“Now, if you want to use your six-room DVR or your M-Peg 2 sub-system of your XPS International Satellite Micro-Technically Advanced Remote Digital System (or XPSISMTARDS, as we call it for short), you need to divine the numerical value of your mother’s maiden name, using MacGregor’s theory of partial inductive science, and, placing your hand on a first-edition copy of Ayn Rand’s ‘The Fountainhead’, recite the Pancreatic Oath.”

I pulled Richard aside. “Do the friggin math. We don’t have six rooms in the house. What in hell are we going to do with a six-room DVR? Oh, and what the hell is a 'six-room DVR'?”

“Don’t worry. I'll explain it later and you can build an addition this summer.”

“Excuse me, gentlemen. If you don’t want to know how to get the full enjoyment out of your new XPS International Satellite Micro-Technically Advanced Remote Digital System (or XPSISMTARDS, as we call it for short), I can just end the instructions at this point,” the techy chided.

We both shuffled our feet and apologized. “We’re sorry, Mr. Technician, sir.”

“Continuing. This button, the unmarked button which is surrounded by dozens of other unmarked buttons, making it virtually impossible to differentiate any one button from its remote-mates, is critical if you want to have audio with your TV. If you don’t press it, or if you erroneously press any one of the seven buttons to its immediate left or right or up or down or in the shape of the cross of Saint Thomas, you will never have sound again as long as you and/or your TV live. I can’t stress this detail enough. It is irreversible.”

Of course, it is important to note that by this point of the instructional period, all cognitive functions of my brain had ground to an unceremonious halt. I was drooling. (It’s a household tradition.)

From there on out, it was pretty much “Blah, blah blah.”

So, our beloved old TV (Circa 1990) is wired to this amazing world that does damn near everything. I know how to turn the TV on and off (old school – at the TV). Richard has promised me he’ll show me how to change channels one night this week.