Today’s story is about my childhood back in East Brady, Pennsylvania.
We had (well, they eventually became “my” dogs) two dogs, and they were both Siberian Husky’s. No one would walk them. They were real sled-dogs, and walking them on a leash was darn near impossible. And I got a lot of flack about it, as all the neighborhood kids saw me and made fun of me over it.
But in the winder, I would hitch up one of the dogs (both were too high powered, and impossible to manage) and have the dog pull me on the sled though the snow. It was an experience, but after a while I did it very rarely.
Generally, however, the sled rides were very short lived. I had piss poor driving control, and that was something was really needed when you are running dog sled. But , you know, I was just a kid. Maybe in fifth grade. So what did I know/
Never the less, it was a nice boyhood experience.
Memories.
Today…
What made your “jaw drop” during a job interview?
This interview took place at a company where I worked while hiring a new engineer for an IT-related job. While I wasn’t part of this interview panel, I did talk to multiple people who were part of the interview who corroborated the story. All names have been changed.
Our candidate was a Hasidic Jew, which I mention only because it becomes relevant to the story. He arrived at the train stop near our office in the afternoon. One of the guys from the devops department as a token of good will offered to pick him up and he accepted. He drove out and returned 20 minutes later, alone. When the candidate saw the car was a VW — a German car — he had refused to get in.
So the candidate took a cab and was shown to a conference room when he arrived. At our company, we usually do multiple rounds of interviews back-to-back. A candidate will typically meet with someone from HR, then two engineers, then a manager or director.
When the first engineer, Bill, came in he was surprised to see not one, but two men sitting waiting for him in the conference room; one younger and one elder, and from the resemblance, guessed to be father and son. He told the candidate, “I’m sorry, but you’re not allowed to bring anyone else with you during the interview.”
He responded, “It shouldn’t be a problem as, he won’t be interfering with the questions. This is my personal assistant; he will be taking care of my other needs”.
At this the elder gentleman, having not yet uttered a word, takes a bottle of water from one jacket pocket and a cup from the other, fills it up and places it in front of the interviewee, as if to demonstrate the point.
That’s a pretty ballsy move, showing up for someone else’s interview and reacting with such cool nonchalance when it’s suggested that you leave. That combined with the contrast of the goth-meets-Amish outfits juxtaposed against the modern office landscape of white walls and florescent lights. I like to imagine the water glass incident like a scene out of a Tarantino movie: highly stylized, and a bit over-the-top with an under-current of menace. I like to imagine “the assistant” maintained steady eye contact with Bill while slowly pouring the water as if to daring him to object further.
* the closest image I could find to what’s in my head
But I digress. Bill decided to roll with it and continue with the interview which otherwise proceeded normally.
So after the interview, Bill gets up, shakes the candidate’s hand and tells him “Lisa will be by in a few minutes to interview you next,” and turns to leave. The candidate stops him at the door
“Hold on, can I talk to you a second?”
“Sure, what’s up?”
“Just one small problem: I can’t talk to women.”
“Come again?”
“I can’t talk to women. I’m not allowed to talk to women.”
“Uhh… Well, that’s who we have coming in next. I don’t know what to tell you.”
“It’s okay, just let her know not to talk to me directly. Instead she should talk to my assistant and he will talk to me.”
“O…K…”
So Lisa came in and proceeded to conduct a very awkward and halting interview where she asked the older man questions, he repeated the same question to the candidate, the candidate gave his answer to the old man, and the old man repeated the answer back to Lisa. If she slipped up and addressed the candidate directly, he acted like he couldn’t hear her. After this went on for some time, she felt too insulted to continue and cut the interview short.
In retrospect, she never should have been asked to do that, but the request was so unexpected, I don’t think anyone knew how to react.
Bill came back in and let the candidate know this sort of behavior wasn’t going to work with our company and asked him, “How would you expect this to work in daily office life? There are women engineers and managers who work here. You need to be able to interact with them on a daily basis.”
The candidate responded, “I would just bring my assistant to work with me.”
“So every day you would have another person coming into the office, sitting by your desk, following you around to every meeting?”
“Precisely.”
“Yeah … that doesn’t work for us.”
And that was the end of that.
A drama in space
Written in response to: “Start or end your story with a breeze brushing against someone’s skin.“
Sasan Sedighi
“Are you okay, Elara?” John’s voice came through her comms.
“Yes, I am. Why?” she replied sharply as if John had questioned her ability to perform the spacewalk.
“Nothing; I just noticed your heartbeat is elevated.”
“My heartbeat?” she retorted.
“Don’t worry, Elara. I always feel tense before a spacewalk. It’s natural to feel nervous.”
“I’m neither tense nor nervous,” Elara retorted.
“I mean excited,” John altered his statement.
“Yes, I’m excited,” Elara responded, then tethered herself to the chamber, released the outer door lever, and pushed the door open. She instantly felt intimidated by the vast blackness sparkling with distant, tiny stars. From her viewpoint, she could see the space station’s habitation module, their living section, and part of the solar arrays that provided the electricity to sustain the station’s life support system. The station appeared small and fragile, a speck of dust against the immense emptiness of space.
With adrenaline coursing through her veins, she leaped outside. The sensation was overwhelming and immensely satisfying. She skillfully manipulated the controls of her Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU), activating its tiny jetpacks, and spun around until she faced the Earth. Although she had seen the planet from the station’s portholes, viewing it from outside the station, floating about 400 kilometers above sea level, was mesmerizing. “My God, it’s so beautiful,” she exclaimed involuntarily.
“It’s a breathtaking view, isn’t it?” John said over the comms.
“Yes, it is,” she replied, filled with awe.
“This view of Earth never gets old. I wish the industrialists who are actively destroying our planet for a little extra profit could come here and see it from this perspective—to understand how fragile our beautiful planet truly is. Earth is our home, the only place we can live. Yet, for personal gain, we are actively harming it,” John said while monitoring Elara’s movements.
Elara replied, “I see your point, John.”
Elara was on duty and had a job, so she reluctantly turned her gaze away from the mesmerizing swirl of the emerald green and deep blue marble-like globe, navigating toward the solar arrays using her MMU’s controls. With John’s help, she quickly located the damaged solar panels and began her meticulous assessment. Although the space station was orbiting the Earth at a staggering speed of 28000 kilometers per hour, Elara felt as though she was utterly stationary, suspended in the silent void of space as she focused on the damaged solar panels below her.
Three individual solar panels, each measuring one square meter, were severely damaged, likely due to a collision with high-velocity space debris—probably discarded technological junk from previous human space ventures. Two additional panels showed signs of partial damage caused by debris as small as grains of sand. Despite their tiny size, the incredible speed of these particles, combined with the motion of the space station, allowed them to pierce the solar panels with the force and precision of bullets smashing a car’s windshield. To evaluate the extent of the damage, she initially concentrated on the panels with less damage, carefully assessing whether they could be salvaged or if all the panels needed complete replacement.
The monotony was interrupted by a peculiar sensation that made her mind flurry. Soft as a whisper, a gentle, barely perceptible breeze lightly brushed against her right arm, causing a slight shiver. “Impossible,” she dismissed it as mere imagination. She was encased in a pressurized suit 400 kilometers above the Earth’s surface, with no atmosphere capable of generating a breeze. The thought that her suit sleeve might be punctured and losing air filled her with concern. To reassure herself, Elara glanced at the digital readout on her wrist to check the oxygen level and the suit’s pressure. The readings were regular, and her spacesuit’s integrity appeared intact. She once more dismissed it as mere imagination and returned to her job. But the sensation intensified as if she had held her arm before a spinning fan. Her breath became shallow, echoing loudly in her helmet. She quickly checked the readout on her wrist again, which showed nothing unusual. “Is this monitoring device faulty?” The thought crossed her mind, triggering a wave of panic. If her spacesuit were leaking, she could lose pressure and die in a few minutes, if not seconds.
Before she could say anything, John came on the comms and asked, “Is everything okay, Elara? I noticed your high blood pressure and heart racing dangerously fast.”
“I can’t breathe!” she nearly shrieked.
“Why’s that? I don’t see any pressure drop. Your suit’s pressure is stable.”
“The life signs monitoring device must be faulty. I feel a constant breeze against the skin of my right arm,” Elara said in a voice filled with panic.
“Abort! Abort the mission, Elara,” John shouted over the comms. Although his monitor didn’t indicate any issues, it was better to be safe than sorry, so he asked Elara to abort the mission.
Overwhelmed by panic, Elara pushed herself away from the solar arrays and attempted to return to the airlock. However, with her impaired concentration, she lost control of her Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU), which made her spin around violently, intensifying her panic. “I can’t do this!” she yelled desperately.
“Elara, calm down. You can do this. You’ve trained for situations like this,” John replied.
“I’m losing air. I’m going to die,” she said, her voice barely intelligible.
“Elara, if you’re losing air, it’s not that serious; otherwise, you would have already died.”
Elara’s sobbing was audible through the comms; she was experiencing a panic attack.
“You can do this, Elara.”
But Elara wasn’t in the right mental state to hear him; panic clouded her judgment.
“Lieutenant, take a deep breath and regain control. This is an order,” John said with authority, understanding that soldiers in shock would respond better to commands than rational conversation. Their intensive military training aimed to condition soldiers to follow orders.
“Yes, sir,” Elara replied weakly.
“Lieutenant, listen to me carefully. Take control of your MMU and return to the airlock ASAP. This is an order.”
“Yes, sir,” she said. After several failed attempts, she regained control of her Manned Maneuvering Unit and slowly but steadily moved toward the space station hall and the airlock. Seeing the hall grow bigger through her helmet’s visor boosted her confidence. “I’m getting closer,” she said joyfully.
“Keep going, Lieutenant, you can make it,” John said authoritatively.
Elara involuntarily laughed as her hand touched the airlock handle. It was a great relief; she was saved.
“Lieutenant, slowly push the lever down and open the airlock’s outer door.”
“Yes, sir,” she said, pushing the lever down.
Standing in the airlock chamber boosted her confidence. She wasn’t going to die alone in Earth orbit. The hiss of air filling the room was the sweetest music to her ears, reassuring her of her safe return. When the inner door of the airlock opened, John, the station commander; Martina, the Italian astronaut and biologist; and Sergey, the Russian cosmonaut, were there to help her. Until then, the readout had shown no faults in her spacesuit. They quickly assisted her in removing the suit and carefully checked it. It appeared intact, but a pressure test would be needed later. Martina handed her a warm drink and said, “Please drink this; it will make you feel better.”
“Thank you,” Elara said, happily sucking the warm drink—hot chocolate—from the container’s nozzle.
When they helped her remove her undergarment, Martina discovered a spider in the right sleeve of her dress. “Where did this spider come from?” she asked.
“This is a space spider,” Sergey teased.
Martina quickly grabbed the spider and transferred it into a sealed glass container. “On the previous mission, the crew researched spiders’ ability to produce silk webs in zero gravity. This one likely escaped from their container.”
“So, all this drama is caused by this ugly spider?” Elara asked.
“It appears so,” John responded.
“It felt like a breeze brushing against my arm,” Elara said.
“The station should be bug-free, so you didn’t expect a spider to be in your suit, which is why your brain interpreted the sensation of the crawling spider on your skin as a breeze—like a breeze brushing against your skin,” Martina explained.
Original Ranch Cheeseburgers
Here’s the recipe from Hidden Valley’s site.
Yield: 4 cheeseburgers
Ingredients
Cheeseburgers
- 1 (1 ounce) envelope Hidden Valley Seasoning & Salad Dressing Mix
- 1 pound ground beef
- 1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
- 4 hamburger buns
Caramelized Onions
- 1/4 cup olive oil for frying onions
- 6 cup thinly sliced onions (approximately 3 pounds)
- 6 garlic cloves
- 3 tablespoons fresh thyme or 1 tablespoon dried thyme
- 1 bay leaf
- Salt and pepper
Instructions
Cheeseburgers
- Combine seasoning and salad dressing mix with beef and cheese.
- Shape into 4 patties; cook thoroughly, until meat is no longer pink in the center.
- Toast buns before serving, if desired.
Caramelized Onions
- Heat olive oil and add onions, garlic, thyme and bay leaf.
- Cook, stirring occasionally, until most of the moisture has evaporated and the mixture is very soft, almost smooth, and caramelized. This takes about 45 minutes.
- Discard the bay leaf and season with salt and pepper.
Attribution
hiddenvalleyranch.com
Prehistoric Mystery: What Killed the Giant Insects?
Has someone’s voice ever made you so nervous that it felt you were struck by lightning?
There’s a retirement community where I live that’s very upscale (think $8k a month in regime fees plus the cost of buying your apt/cottage condo).
I visited it with a group and we were escorted by the Executive Director whose voice was a dead ringer for Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Syrupy. Singsong. Supercilious.
The facility was terrific. Lovely dining rooms. Well-equipped exercise spaces, manicured grounds.
The group was encouraged to ask questions. The first question was, “Do I need a car living here?” Nurse Ratched replied, “We have vans that will take you to shopping, entertainment centers, local events. Many people bring their cars here initially, but then they realize, they don’t need a car. ” This was benign—clearly, the facility provided transportation. But oh, that voice. Cloying.
The questions continued and Nurse Ratched’s answer was the same: You won’t need to worry about that here. We take care of meals. Laundry and house cleaning. Condo maintenance. Health and wellness.
And the voice—saccharine on steroids.
Then a woman asked, “Can I bring my dog?” Nurse Ratchet sweetly responded, “Yes, but you’ll see, you don’t need a dog here.”
OMG. Hotel California. You can check out any time you like/But you can never leave.
Made me REAL nervous.
The Job Market is F**ked … Nobody’s Hiring in 2025
The USA today.
Why do 40% still support Trump? What exactly is their motivation?
I watch Fox News for an hour or so everyday.
Then I go to other news sources, Forbes, CNBC, BBC, all different sources.
What Fox, OANN, NewsMax is telling them is much different than what is really going on.
Even in the Dominion lawsuit Fox admitted they aren’t news. They are entertainment. Nobody should be taking any of what the say seriously. Then entered into multi billion dollar settlements.
So if you are steadily getting the wrong info it is very easy to support Trump.
1. The other country pays the tariffs. They have been ripping us off. That’s completely false but they believe it.
2. They schools are forcing sex change operations on students. They believe that too. The schools can’t even afford school supplies. No way could they pay for surgeries. We know that. Trump supporters don’t.
3. The Democrats are coming for your guns. That one always works with them.
4. Trickle down will give you more money. That’s a complete lie.
Its just endless BS. All meant to keep them in a constant state of fear, hate and turmoil.
If I was believing all that BS I would vote for Trump too. They are certain that the US as we know it is falling apart and disappearing.
Were under invasion! They’re eating the pets! Men are in your daughters bathroom! The illegals are raping our women! China is flooding us with fentanyl. Just constant fear mongering.
Ironically the biggest deficits we ever had were under Trump. Bush cause the 2008 financial crisis. Under Reagan interests were crazy. Bush number 1 had a hell of a recession going going on. We had more illegals here than ever under those guys.
The budget was voted on today. Huge deficit spending. Estimated at $5 trillion dollars. They will lose both houses in the midterm then blame all those deficits on the Democrats.
So? Misinformation has completely ruined them.
What does it feel like to grow up wealthy?
Great.
My family was one of the wealthiest families in my country, Syria.
I grew up better than the president’s son, we were living in 35+ million dollars house. Had a fleet of 20+ luxurious cars including porsche (which is rare in Syria), ferraries, mercedes,bmws, Hummer and other cars.
While I was in school, if I didnt feel like going the teachers would come to teach me at home.
When we go for vacations we dont reach the airport, we go right ahead to the airplane.
When we want to eat out, we go to a country we like and stay there for 2 days.
There is a lot to cover over here but nothing matters now, you know why?
Because after the war has started we lost every single dollar we had.
My family started their own medium-sized retail business in some of the third world countries and I became a refugee in some European country.
Life is not great but I learned tons and tons of life lessons, and you know what? I like it better this way.
I have the opportunity to start over and over again, hoping one day to regain my family wealth.
Edit:
- No, I am not one of the Al-Assad’s family.
- No, my family didnt work for the Syrian government.
- No, we are not in the army.
- We lost all our money because we were against the Assad’s regime NOT because we were with them.
- Our money wasnt HARAM by any mean my father worked hard enough and he earned it.
Eternity and an Empty Box
Written in response to: “Set your story during — or just before — a storm.“
H.D. Mauser
It’s 6 a.m. now. The storm has passed and the pre-dawn darkness looms heavily upon the wet earth. I bless a shred of fortune for the whispering hum of my ‘44 Toyota, and the stale electricity lingering in its battery. Just a collector’s item these days, one I nearly sold a year ago because of the questionable legality of driving it on the V-line dominated highways. The data on its dusty screen offers me 60 miles of travel. Just enough to reach my destination.
The road is desolate, and my mind absently travels to the desperate ploy that rendered me this earth-encumbered box in my passenger seat.
“Mr. President! Mr. President, a word please! Morton Thompson, United Press.”
Secret service shouldering me aside as I attempt to attract the president’s attention.
“I know about March 3rd! I know you’re planning to flee and the airbase you’re fleeing from.”
The president and his entire retinue freezing. A black suited bodyguard grabbing me from behind and putting a hand over my mouth, dragging me into an empty room and closing the windowless door. The president’s face fracturing with stunned panic.
“How do you know? Who told you this?”
My head nodding to the roll of papers stuffed into my pants pocket.
“This article is scheduled to automatically release to the American public tomorrow morning. Go ahead – read it. When the country learns of what you’re planning, every person with a firearm is going to head to that airbase. And when they can’t get on the shuttle, they’re going to make sure it’s destroyed. I can prevent this information from releasing. All I’m asking for is a seat.”
The memory haunts my heart. That my last act in the capacity of a profession I once thought meaningful was one of blackmail unsettles me. And this, to cast my lot in with the men and women I was prepared to cast to the dogs as traitors to humankind. But then I remember the void, and my fear unseats my guilt. I have tried, in these past two weeks, to stare into the dark abyss that must be death, and reconcile my mind to the thought of non-existence. I have stared into the interminable blackness, the unadulterated silence, the endless absence of consciousness. I have imagined eternities upon eternities unfolding and the very blanket of time beginning to tear, and through it all, the complete darkness of consciousness that is death. The idea is nauseating, and my mind rejects it like an upset stomach does food. And so I flee, at any cost or disgrace, from the darkness that pervades our atmosphere and speaks of the true darkness on its heels.
When I reach the gates of the remote airbase, my old vehicle whirring with exertion, I flash the badge they issued me and drive past the soldiers manning the gate. I park and trudge into a small command center a half mile from the launchpad. My two-feet-by-one-foot-by-one-foot trunk weighs heavily in my arms. Some eighty individuals linger inside, holding hushed conversations or staring silently at the floor. I see the president looking pointedly away from me. A woman near the door points me to a small bay where an electric buggy is idling, hitched to a cart laden with boxes identical to mine. I pile mine on top. I spend the next hour sitting in a plastic chair, wondering what I ought to do, say, and think in my last hour on earth, and reaching no conclusion.
The time has finally come. The immense rocket boosters and attached passenger shuttle is ready for takeoff, and we are ushered outside and towards the boarding tower by the engineers who, inexplicably, are willing to remain behind to guide our transport away from earth. 8 a.m., and the sun is well above the horizon. I wish the storm had not abated before my last view of the sky. Had it not, I could almost believe that this blackened atmosphere and ashen sky are the gloom of thunderclouds. Perhaps the rain would ameliorate the acrid taste of the charred air. We are climbing the tower and beginning to board. I weep for the ashes in my lungs – all that is left of D.C., Philadelphia, New York, and Los Angeles; of Orlando, and Cape Canaveral, and Huntsville. I weep for the millions of terrified unfortunates cast instantaneously into the abyss of death. I wish the rainclouds would return. Instead, the unfading cloud of detonated cities hangs poisonous and rainless upon the air. Where this cloud lingers, death will follow. It is smothering the sun and chilling the earth. They say it will bring the demise of all crops, and that remaining mankind will starve to death in a year.
We blast skyward towards the interstellar transport that is to take us to a new earth. We reach the transport and successfully transfer over from our shuttle. I find my seat and avoid looking out the window, down towards the smoking earth. Our ship begins its final journey, and I rise from my seat to join the queue waiting for the minuscule restroom. As I do, a stack of gray containers buckled to the wall catches my eye at the back of the passenger hold. I exit the line and walk to the homogeneous assembly of boxes. I scan the printed numbers until I find number seventy-two. What idiot brings a box of dirt into outer space? Yet I know why I did. This box contains earth, rain, and a seed of life. That seed is the offspring of an organism that lived with purpose, a purpose fulfilled in this seed. It is an organism that lived its mortal life with purpose and that will die without pain. Yet why do I pine for eternity while squandering the mortal life I have? Why is the seed of eternity planted in the heart of a mortal man?
Hurtling towards the newborn Terra Nova colony where my new life will begin, I wonder whether the sting of death will be duller in this new world. I wonder whether the future of non-existence, just as inevitable in the new world as the old, will ever reconcile with the irrational certainty in my heart that my consciousness must persist beyond death; that the being of my inner self must surely be eternal.
Shorpy
What was the best business deal ever made?
It is November 1980 and IBM is twice as large as every other computer company in the world combined.
They are making an agreement with an upstart, Microsoft, a company with 40 staff, to create an operating system (OS), the software that a computer runs off. This OS would later be called IBM PC-DOS.
But the young CEO of Microsoft, Bill Gates, sees something that IBM doesn’t. He pushes for the agreement to allow Microsoft to license the OS to other manufacturers, and IBM agree.
Microsoft come up with a really original name for this OS – they call it MS-DOS.
And the rest is history…
Microsoft ends up supplying the OS to over 1.4bn PC’s and counting because of the deal Gates had struck.
Many say this was the best business deal ever.
But there was a problem. Microsoft didn’t even own the OS!
Microsoft only managed to purchase a non-exclusive agreement for the OS in December 1980 for a reported US$25k from Seattle Computer Products.
But in July 1981, Microsoft finally purchased the full rights to the OS for US$50k, a month before it started getting shipped out onto PCs.
This was the best business deal ever made…
Prehistoric Planet: What Earth Looked Like 600 to 66 Million Years Ago
I love this time in history.
As a cashier, what was your ‘you have got to be freaking kidding me’ moment with a customer?
I used to work at a burger chain store for about two years.
I was assigned to the till on this particular shift and it was my favourite spot to be; I got to stay in the one spot, take orders, and put the little red stickers on the burger skewers in between customers.
This is how the interaction went:
Customer: “Hi, I’d like to order X burger, please.”
Me: “No worries, would you like to add chips and a drink?”
Customer: “Yes please – but please remove the tomato, I’m allergic.”
Me: “No worries, I’ll go ahead and remove the relish then, too.”
Customer: “No, keep the relish on!”
Me: “…But you just said you were allergic to tomatoes.”
Customer: “I am, but I want the relish on there!”
Me: “The relish has tomato in it. If you’re allergic to tomato, I have to remove the relish, too.”
Customer: “No, I want the relish!”
Me: “…”
In the end, I removed the relish from the burger and added the allergy tag to the food receipt. We took food allergies very seriously at this place, and I didn’t want to risk any legal repercussions or a near-death scenario because someone was too stupid to realize that the tomato relish has literal chunks of tomato in it despite being told so.
When she got her burger, she removed the top and gave me the nastiest glare when she had seen that I had removed the relish. She then got up, brought her burger to the condiment stand, and covered her burger in tomato sauce.
If you don’t like tomato on your burger, just fucking say so. Don’t lie about an allergy because it ruins it for people who have real allergies, it slows down the kitchen because an allergy tag on the receipt means that everything gets replaced with fresh gloves and utensils to ensure no cross contamination, and it opens up the business to legal repercussions if we listened to you and your dumb ass.
How did you say goodbye to someone you can’t imagine living without?
It wasn’t someone but someones.
It was the end of my junior year at a small west coast private school I’d been attending since seventh grade. My mother and I weren’t getting along, mostly because she never let me do anything, from go out with my friends to watch TV shows she didn’t like. My stepfather rarely talked to me except to say I was doing something wrong. Thing were so contentious at home, my mother said—finally, after decades of me asking—that I could go live with my father on the opposite coast.
The downside of course was that I would leave my cozy school right before my senior year, leaving all the friends and teachers I’d gotten close to and couldn’t imagine being without. I had the hardest time making up my mind. Not until a blowout argument with my stepfather in which he equated my screaming and crying and door-slamming to child abuse perpetrated on my 3-year-old half-sister did I reach a conclusion. That was it, I was out of there.
I didn’t tell my classmates I was leaving. I only told my English teacher, who actually implored me to stay.
I did the, “Bye, see you next year,” to everyone else and packed an extra-heavy bag for my usual, but this time unusual, trip to visit my dad for the summer (these trips had been going on since I was 5).
Once on the east coast I cried, so scared to start at a new school as a senior. Even though there were no fights with my dad and stepmother, I still wasn’t sure I’d made the right decision. To say goodbye to my friends and favorite English teacher, I wrote long heartfelt letters and asked them to keep me up to date on what was happening at my old school.
Only my best friend wrote back. She wrote me several times, and then just faded out.
I said goodbye by letting go. Yes, the new school was intimidating and huge, but I managed to make a few friends. The important thing is that when I came home from school, my home life was loving and supportive. And it stayed that way.
What’s the luckiest thing to happen to you professionally?
In 1973 I graduated from high school and decided I should probably go to college.
There was a community college in my community (duh), and I went there on registration day to sign up for classes. In those days we had wood burning computers. The lines for registration were two hours long. If you got to the “computer guy” at the front of the line and your classes were filled up, you were screwed and had to go to the end of the line to fill out a new course card.
So, being the intrepid person I was, I filled out two course cards to present to the registrar. The first card was for a major in electrical engineering. ( I liked flashing lights.) The second card was for a major in police science, because I liked flashing lights.
My friend, Dan, and I stood in line for two hours behind some very pretty girls who could have cared less had we burst into flames. On second thought, they probably would have preferred that we did burst into flames. At least then they would have been warm and entertained. It was not the last time I would disappoint a female.
Anyway, we finally got to the front of the line. I handed the registrar my electrical engineering course card. He punched in the course numbers. (In those days they “punched” computers. Not so common today.) He then looked up at me and smiled, and said, “Sorry. These courses are full. You have to go to the end of the line and try again.”
I said, “Not so.” I handed him my backup police science course card, and to his dismay, after doing more punching, I got in. He scowled.
Four years later I graduated from the police academy, and 33 years after that I retired. Quite a bit happened in between. But none of it would have happened without being rejected for those electrical engineering courses. That was the luckiest day of my career.
Just how much in aircraft and tanks can Russia afford to buy and maintain? Some countries can barely afford 20 Su35s yet Russia pumps them out like they are corollas. How?
Russia’s war machine is running hot and holding on.
Here’s what’s really going on: Russia’s churning out tanks and fighter jets while other countries struggle to make them. It’s not some miracle though. They’re all old habits and old tools.
Russia wasn’t forging its military from the ground up. That setup was Soviet—they inherited a massive setup that was designed to do everything at home. No need of relying on any other countries. For decades they’ve been making their own planes, tanks and weapons. It’s why you don’t have a factory popping out a Su-35 jet. They do it one step at a time because that’s what people who’ve been doing it forever do.
And where are the tanks? A bunch of them aren’t brand new either. They’re old Soviet tanks that were pulled out of storage, fixed up with newer parts, better engines and new guns and new sensors. You’d be putting a high tech face on an old car. And it saves time and money.
With a big military budget and selling weapons to other countries they pay for it. They’re able to keep costs lower since most of the work is done inside Russia. Things are getting harder because of sanctions that have cut supply.
In 2025 it’s real pressure now. Gear is being burned through in Ukraine’s war. But Russia’s factories are busy and the system is tired, running hot and stretched thin.
Why do some people criticize China’s GDP growth as not being holistic development, and what metrics should be used to evaluate true progress?
They criticise Chinas GDP, because of jealousy, and because they are dumb enough to believe their politicians and media, with out ever looking at facts, all you need do is look ath Chinas progress and what they are doing, even the IMF, has confirmed that Chinas economy passed the U.S. economy in 2016 in PPP, that’s 9 years ago, So the “ SOME PEOPLE “ are definitely wrong,
just in case some of you don’t know what I’m talking about?
here are some photos,
I took this photo as a screenshot of the Enterprise was COMMING out of the TV screen around the building, how they did that was amazing enough for me to keep a photo of it,
There’s a hell of a lot more, but this is why, It’s all GDP building, as well as being the world’s factories,
Why doesn’t the loading soldier need to extract the large case after each cannon firing in the US Army’s M1 Abrams main battle tank?
You’ve seen the images in old war movies — a big cannon firing, smoke everywhere and they pulled out something hot and big shell casing. The M1 Abrams doesn’t do that. It’s smarter. Faster. For real it was combat.
This is how it goes.
The casing — the part that holds the explosive for the Abrams’ main gun — isn’t metal when the loader gets a round to the gun. The gun is made from a special material which burns up when the gun fires.
And when the cannon blasts, the round shoots out and most of the case vanishes in the fire. It doesn’t get lost but it just burns away.
What’s left? The end of the shell is a small metal cap. That’s it.
The tank’s ready for that and that little metal piece just kicks out the back of the gun from a system within it.
He doesn’t waste his time pulling a heavy smoking shell from the loader. And already he’s loading the next round.
Quick. Clean. No slowdown.
Seconds matter — battles are what the Abrams was built for. A life with no time for clutter. A mistake doesn’t have time. There was no reason to change the way it worked — just fire, reload, fire again.
This tank keeps moving forward when everything’s falling apart.
“Sir Whiskerton and the Haunted Haystack Hoedown”
Gather ‘round, dear readers, and prepare for the most ludicrous supernatural spectacle ever to hit the farm—three blind mice in sunglasses are convinced a haystack is haunted by a flatulent ghost sheep! Fasten your imaginary dance belts as we dive into this Phantom of the Opera meets Taco Tuesday disaster.
Act 1: The Birth of the “Natural Symphony Orchestra”
On a night so dark even the owls were squinting (as all good ghost stories begin), Sir Whiskerton was measuring a pumpkin’s roundness with his whiskers when—
“¡MÚSICA NATURAL!”
Three mice in tiny sunglasses burst from the haystack in a flamenco frenzy.
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Tito Tango, their self-proclaimed leader, dramatically waved an invisible bullfighter’s cape. “That rhythm! That syncopation! It can only be the ghost of a Spanish sheep keeping time!”
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Paco Cha-Cha, the hopeless romantic, dropped to one knee before a sheep pellet. “Oh, such perfect roundness! Marry me!”
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Carlos Conga, the wildcard, strummed a pitchfork like a guitar, belting out a death-metal rendition of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star for their “gassy departed friend.”
(Visual gag: Paco’s plastic rose gets stuck in the sheep dung, which Porkchop mistakes for a rare truffle and immediately swallows.)
Act 2: The Ghostbuster vs. the Grumpy Witness
As Whiskerton investigates, Echo the sheep—whose wool is now tangled from sheer frustration—snaps:
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“You’re blaming GHOSTS for your bad digestion?!” She kicks Carlos’ sombrero clean off his tail.
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“¡FANTASMA FUNKY!” The mice instantly interpret the hat’s landing as a drum solo and break into robot dancing.
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Rufus howls at the moon: “WOOF! Ghost at 3 o’clock! …Wait, that’s just my tail.”
(Translator’s note: “Funky Ghost” keeps the street-dance absurdity, while Rufus chasing his tail is a universal pet comedy classic.)
Act 3: The Supernatural Dancefloor Apocalypse
The mice’s “Ghost Sheep Memorial Dance Party” spirals into madness:
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Jazzpurr accompanies sheep droppings on bongos, composing The Dung Beetle Concerto.
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Bessie the Tie-Dye Cow splatters glow paint on the haystack: “Behold! The psychedelic aura of the spirit sheep!”
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Porkchop sells “Ectoplasm VIP Tickets”—only for the crowd to realize the “ghostly moans” are just the Farmer’s indigestion.
When dawn reveals the “ghost” was just a leaky tractor tire—
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Echo: “I told you—oh forget it.” (She walks off but deliberately lets one rip.)
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The Mice: “MAESTRO! Teach us the ancient art of phantom flatulence!”
Post-Credit Scene
The trio launches a “Natural Sounds World Tour” at the Disneyland of Debris. Posters read: “Admission: 1 corn kernel. Free entry if you fart on beat.”
Iconic Lines
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“That’s not a ghost—that’s a Van Gogh fart painting!” —Bessie, abstract art critic
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“Canine radar never lies… unless it’s my own butt.” —Rufus, career low point
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“In Spain, we call this molecular gastronomy gas.” —Tito, Michelin-star fraud
Moral of the Story
Not every mystery needs a soundtrack—especially when the answer is just bad beans.
(THE END)
Cultural Easter Eggs
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“Funky Ghost” = wordplay on “funk music” + supernatural silliness.
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“Phantom Flatulence School” mocks kung fu movie tropes.
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Tractor tire twist references rural China’s love for repurposing tires as flower planters.
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Corn kernel tickets parody overpriced music festivals.
(Mic drop. Haystack collapses.)
Pizza Burgers
Ingredients
- 1 pound ground beef
- 1/2 pound Italian sausage
- 1/4 cup diced green onion
- 1/4 cup diced green bell pepper
- 1 cup diced tomato
- 1 small can sliced olives, drained
- 4 hamburger buns
- Butter
- 4 slices cheese
- 1 cup pizza sauce
- Grated Parmesan cheese
Instructions
- Mix ground beef and sausage together and from into 4 patties.
- Fry in a preheated skillet until done.
- Meanwhile, dice vegetables and toss together with olives.
- Butter buns and toast under broiler.
- Place buns on individual dinner plates open face.
- Place cooked patties overlapping both halves of buns.
- Place one slice of cheese on each patty.
- Pour 1/4 cup of pizza sauce over each.
- Serve vegetables and Parmesan cheese distributed over top.
While the US and China are locked in a trade war, Brazil is actively stealing America’s soybean export market share in China. What should President Trump do to stop Brazil from stealing and protect American farmers from losing their foreign market?
How ignorant of Americans to always look at it like this. Here’s how it went.
- Trump put tariffs on China that China considered unfair.
- China switched suppliers and now get soybeans from Brazil instead of the US.
From China accelerates shift to Brazilian soybeans, as US agricultural exports plunge amid tariffs, April 28 2025:
Since January, the US has repeatedly imposed tariffs on Chinese goods, deliberately sparking a new round of trade disputes. In response, China swiftly implemented countermeasures.
…
“Whether for soybeans, pork, or beef, China can find ample substitutes from other agricultural exporters such as Brazil, Argentina, and Australia, whose trade policies are more open than those of the US,” Li noted
The US started this war; the US can end it. Will China go back to buying from the US if tariffs are removed? That would be unfair to their new suppliers. If Americans don’t like the result of tariffs, they’ll have to deal with their own government on the matter. Trump has no power and no authority and no right to interfere with Brazil and China’s trade agreements. What he does have is the power, authority, and OBLIGATION to remove the tariffs from all the countries. Americans have the power to make Trump do it.
While the US and China are locked in a trade war, Brazil is actively stealing America’s soybean export market share in China. What should President Trump do to stop Brazil from stealing and protect American farmers from losing their foreign market?