Over Chinese New Year, I (and my family) went up North to Wenzhou to spend a week with relatives.
There, we did the typical orgy of food, food, and more food in these large lavish mega-meals, and drank and drank and drank… hard, hard, hard (and expensive) alcohol.
“White Wine”
One of the drinks wasn’t all that expensive.
I mean, I am drinking the really good, and the really expensive stuff. But here, I found a reasonable drink that wasn’t expensive at all.
And when I mean expensive, I am talking about 10,000 RMB a bottle, this one was only a mere 100 RMB.
And It tasted all right, so I liked it.
I stuff I drank was good.
Smooth to drink. Not too hard on the gullet, and the next day you feel totally normal.
So, when we went back home to Zhuhai, I went to a local “mom and pop” grocery store and found the bottle. Bought it.
Later on the week, I drank some.
Yuck!
*Spit all over the monitor*
Gosh! It was like drinking gravel. Horrible stuff.
Ta Ma Da Guo Shi!
(Fucking Dog Shit)
But I paid for it, and so I drank it all.
*sigh*
…
A few weeks later, I was talking to my Chief Engineer about this event. And he wanted to see a picture of the stuff, so my wife took a wechat and they conversed…. and sure as shit. The stuff was fake.
Now…
The bottle and everything seemingly was identical to the real stuff that I drank in Wenzhou.
But one character was slightly changed. A minor change. I didn’t notice.
In Chinese, one line in a character can make a HUGE difference in meaning.
That one “cheat” really pissed me off.
But there’s many others….
In total forty-seven suspects have been arrested over a sham Moutai and Wuliangye baijiu scam, Thirty staff members from local bars and hotels were also involved. Said Shanghai police. The hotel and bar workers collected empty baijiu bottles from their customers and passed them on to the other gang members who refilled them with cheap, inferior liquor. If the baijiu the gang had sold had been genuine it is estimated it would have been worth over sixty million yuan or eight point five million U.S. Dollars.
The police in Songjiang district said the investigation started in may, after solving a related case also involving fake baijiu. The fakes in the initial case came from the same source and the packaging resembled genuine bottles. Police confirmed that the fake baijiu was produced in Shanghai, and the lead suspect in the case had even opened a shop to sell the bogus spirit. The suspects were caught in locations throughout Shanghai between August and October. The police found two thousand three hundred full bottles of bogus baijiu as well as eight hundred empty bottles. Eight of the suspects have been arrested for allegedly infringing registered brands, nine more are under detention and thirty others have been bailed.
I’ll tell you what!
I’ll never drink that gravel ever again. it’s horrible stuff.
Poison really.
Check the characters before buying the poison.
Today…
Pineapple Brown Sugar Ham
This is one of my favorite ways to prepare a spiral ham. It is SO delicious!
Ingredients
- 1 pre-cooked spiral ham, bone-in or boneless, either will work
- 3 1/2 cups brown sugar, divided use
- 1/2 cup honey
- 1 (20 ounce) can pineapple tidbits, undrained*
Instructions
- Cover the bottom of a large slow cooker with 2 cups brown sugar.
- Place ham on top of the brown sugar, opening the slices slightly with your fingers.
- Evenly pour the honey over the ham.
- Add the pineapple around the sides (with the juice) and some on top.
- Top with the remaining 1 1/2 cups brown sugar, making sure it is evenly distributed over the entire top of the ham.
- Cover and cook on LOW for 3 1/2 to 4 hours.
Notes
* I chop these up a little more if they are large.
Gun owners who have defensively shot someone; what happened and what was the aftermath of the situation?
I once woke up to the sound of my apartment door being forced open and was greeted by two gang-bangers, each about twice my size and with that crazed look of someone high on something or another. Thankfully, my loaded Beretta was on my nightstand, because there was no way I’d ever fight these two off.
I wish I could say that I dispatched them with a single shot as in some of the other answers, but in the emotion of the moment, I did what I was taught and just kept pulling the trigger until the threat stopped. I fired 15 shots, and I later found out that 8 hit their target and the thug closest to me died right at the foot of my bed.
I don’t recall specifically aiming at him, but it seemed that one of my strays managed to catch his accomplice in the back of the shoulder – he had the good sense to run.
The fellow that was killed had a long criminal history that included gang activity, assault of a police officer and sexual assault charges. He carried a bag with a roll of duct tape and about four feet of chain, and on his person he had a switchblade, some meth and a .22 revolver in his pants that he thankfully didn’t get the chance to use.
The fellow that ran was later tracked down in a local hospital, arrested and released on bail. He hasn’t been seen since, so far as I know. He was linked to the crime because the machete he dropped inside my door had his fingerprints and blood on it.
The thing most don’t realize is that the shooting was just the beginning of a special kind of hell that had my life upside down for a long time.
My apartment went from being my home to being a crime scene, and it took me weeks to get back in. As you might imagine, it was a mess, and to top it all off, my landlord evicted me, keeping my security deposit to help pay for some of the damage to my apartment. At that stage of my life, I didn’t have a lot of money, so day to day life became really difficult…on top of everything else, I had to find a second job to deal with the extra expenses.
Even though these were some really bad dudes, I felt that detectives were somehow searching for a reason to charge me with some sort of crime, and their investigation seemed to drag on for several months before I was finally cleared of all wrongdoing. I was called in for questioning at least five times, repeating my story over and over again. The day I was exonerated, I left the state and haven’t looked back.
The family of the deceased hired an attorney and tried to sue me in civil court for the wrongful death of their relative. They had no chance, but it did add up to more attorney fees, more depositions, more living in limbo not knowing what would come next.
Overall, it was the worst time of my life. On top of all the other expenses, my attorney took every cent of my savings I had put away (which wasn’t much!).
Intellectually, I know I killed a seriously bad guy, but he was just a faceless stranger to me. Taking a human life is a hard thing to live with, and I was in therapy for quite a while to deal with it. For years, I suffered with insomnia, and when I could sleep, I’d often wake up covered in sweat and screaming for help.
Add to this the fear that comes with living through an event like this. I lived in constant fear that either that second thug would hunt me down, or someone else in their gang would. Clearly, I wasn’t that hard to find…for a while, one of the deceased’s family members were sending me photos of his two-year old little girl with captions like “you made her an orphan”.
I can imagine no greater nightmare, except the one that would have resulted if I hadn’t been able to defend myself that night.
EDIT: Just wanted to clarify that I’m a woman, and I was a single twenty-something girl when this happened. Even though it was a long time ago, I still feel uncomfortable sharing too many details, but when I answered anonymously, I realized people wouldn’t have the complete picture.
EDIT2:
Never expected my story to be so widely shared…wanted to clarify a few small things I read in some of the comments.
First, I didn’t mean to disparage the police and I’m sorry if my story comes off that way…I have a few relatives in law enforcement, and I generally have nothing but respect for cops. I’ve never really had any encounters with the police beyond getting a traffic ticket, so it was a shock to be called in on five separate occasions for questioning. I guess it also bothered me that at a time when I was struggling to make ends meet, every questioning meant I had to pay my lawyer a little more…I had so many better uses for the $500 each of these appearances ended up costing me, and it was frustrating that I couldn’t get any answers out of the police – even simple things like “am I in any trouble?”.
The city where this occurred was also not the most efficient in terms of administration and a lot of my issues were more with the bureaucracy rather than the individual detectives. More than once, my lawyer would try to get various police reports and other data we were entitled to, and it would usually take multiple requests before we’d even get a response out of them. This definitely made it seem that they were dragging their heels and not being forthcoming with me – and of course, there was the issue that every time they didn’t respond, the meter on my attorney ticked up again. All this together definitely made me feel more like a suspect than a victim.
Next, I noticed a batch of comments by an outspoken individual that seems to think my story is fiction. Fine – I don’t really care what this person or anyone else thinks, and for those of you that need to cling to the belief things like this don’t happen, be my guest.
I’m totally thankful for most of the kind words otherwise, and grateful to those that stood up to the naysayer on my behalf. Perhaps chivalry isn’t dead afterall… 🙂
I freely admit that I leave out a good many details about the shooting – that’s intentional, as there’s only so much I can share comfortably. There are plenty of other details that I’ll probably never be able to discuss, even anonymously. Maybe someday I’ll meet my Lancelot and be able to open up to him, but even that’s doubtful.
Understand I don’t share my story for pity, but mainly because it’s therapeutic for me. It’s been several years and to this day, one of my remaining issues is that I can’t talk about it in detail face to face with anyone – not even my parents and those that would be completely understanding and supportive. In therapy, I used to have to write out my thoughts and feelings to share them with the therapist because there are certain things I just can’t verbalize…I see it in my head in vivid detail, but my mouth opens and words just don’t come out. That’s the degree of trauma that’s involved.
Instead, I write anonymously in the hope that sharing my story eventually eases the scars…if others get anything out of hearing it, great.
Last point I wanted to share is that I’m in a much better place today than before. I live in a low-crime, gun-friendly state now, and most of my money issues are behind me…in a way, the shooting caused me to bury myself in my career, and the reward for that is that I’m enjoying a comfortable life now.
One other thing that helped me was immersing myself in physical activity. I run 30 miles a week, I’ve taken a lot of self-defense and martial arts training, and my shooting skills have improved tremendously from my regular range time. I’m still single except for a pair of Bullmastiffs that are my constant companions and the loves of my life, and when I think back to my nightmare, I believe I’ve come further than I thought possible.
Was Donald Trump a more likeable person in his younger years?
I met him several times in his late 30s and early 40s. He was “not” likable then.
I was an Eastern Air Lines pilot who mostly flew the Eastern Shuttle between Washington and New York. Over the years, that service carried just about everyone famous you could name.
No matter how “big” they were, with only two exceptions, they all came on board just like regular people, took their seats, asked nothing of us, said little (other than niceties), and then left.
One of those exceptions was Trump, who swooped into the cabin as if everyone who laid eyes on him would relish the rest of their lives being able to say they saw him in person.
There were lots of eye rolls because probably half the people on any given flight were well-off New Yorkers who knew all about him.
He wanted to know where to sit as if there was some special seat for people as magnificent as him.
The flight attendants were always nice, but I wanted them to say, “Well, how about those two seats in the seventh row? Gerald Ford and Henry Kissinger sat there on the way up.” Or maybe, “How about that seat in the fifth row? Ronald Reagan sat in it two days ago. Or over there, fourth row, Robert Redford sat there this morning. None of them made a show of it, you pompous jerk. Just sit down, shut up, and keep your feet off the seat.”
But his schtick worked for him because a good con man can always dupe a huge percentage of people.
It’s been deeply disheartening to learn that about 40% of my fellow citizens are so gullible. Or just stupid.
If his rabid supporters met Trump in any regular context—like if he were a new hire at their company or a new neighbor—they would hate him. They would laugh him right out of the room and cheer when he left.
He’s a good con man.
My coworker treats me indifferently but speaks highly and good about me to others, what does it mean?
This could have been me nearly 50 years ago! LOL I worked with a woman who, although she wasn’t my boss or supervisor knew everything there was to know about our department. She was bossy and demanding. And when she asked you to do something it always sounded like an order. My favorite days to work were her days off and on Tues morning when she didn’t start until noon.
I was in the break room 1 day along with 2 older women (my nemesis’ age) from the department across from ours. One of them said something about how much Peggy loved me.
I corrected them about their misunderstanding.
They both declared that I was completely mistaken. She ranted about how wonderful I was, what a hard worker, willing learn, willing to dust and clean and do the yucky stuff and good with the customers.
I was stunned. Then I began to pay attention to how Peggy spoke to other people. Our boss. Our boss’ boss. Her customers who absolutely adored her – she spoke to them all exactly as she spoke to me. Once I noticed that, our relationship completely changed. I loved working with and learning from her.
I took a job in another country, then married and moved to another. Came back with my husband and after nearly 10 years went back to work in the same department. Peggy was still there. I worked there for a couple of years and in that time, not a day went by that she didn’t say to me, “Dear, it’s so nice to have you back.”
I know my story is the exception and not the rule, but sometimes we can take offense were none was meant to be given.
What happened at a Christmas gathering or dinner that made you say, “You gotta be kidding me?”
My mother, husband, and I combined households many years ago, and we all lived together until her death. We would trade off hosting family holiday dinners with my aunt and uncle who live nearby. When this happened, which was many, many years ago, my cousin, his wife, and their child lived with my aunt and uncle, so we always celebrated holidays together.
One year at a holiday dinner at our house—Thanksgiving, I think—we also invited one of my best friends and his family: a wife, and three children, the youngest a baby, and the oldest a seven-year-old girl.
During dinner, my aunt asked the seven-year-old girl what she had been doing of late that she thought was fun. She was extremely enthusiastic about the Harry Potter series and the entire world in the books, and explained the newest book had been released recently, and she was reading it at night with her father.
She began to say something else when my cousin’s wife, an Evangelical Christian, cut her off.
She began lecturing her loudly and cruelly about the world of Harry Potter, the evils of witchcraft, and even told her she was a bad girl, with bad parents, for even opening one of the books. (My mom, husband, and I were all following the series, as well. We’d all read the newest volume she was talking about because, well, adults read a lot faster than a seven year old.) We were also giving her less than loving looks.
My aunt politely silenced her daughter-in-law and reminded her the question had been addressed to the little girl, then said, “We can discuss your feelings about Harry Potter another time, at home.”
She asked the girl to continue. Before she could get a full sentence out, my cousin’s wife again jumped in and began lecturing the child about what she was reading.
She also called out her parents, and began insulting their judgment and their parenting skills.
That time, my mother stopped her with a simple, “That’s enough. Someone else is speaking, and you are out of line.”
The seven year old was clearly growing distressed.
She was simply trying to explain why she liked Harry Potter, and an adult was being terrible to her.
We were all certain my cousin’s wife would finally be quiet, and encouraged the child to finish her thought. Again, an interruption from my cousin’s wife, followed by an “ouch! why did you kick me?” because my cousin had kicked her under the table when he saw she was going to open her mouth.
She spoke anyway, lecturing all of us, and then finished her comments by turning to the seven year old and saying, “And you are going to Hell.”
That, of course, tipped the scales, and my friend’s little girl began to cry.
My cousin’s wife got up to go get something from the room where the food was laid out, and I followed her. I’d grown angry at the second interruption, but had tried my best to hang on to a bit of calm because I was a hostess, too. I’d had it, though. I was beyond furious.
I followed her into the other room, and told her she wouldn’t say another word about it, or I’d have to tell her to leave—she was completely out of line with her comments, her lecturing, and especially with driving a young girl to tears. She looked at me for a moment, then said, “You don’t have the nerve, and your Mom won’t put up with it.” I said, “Go ahead and try me.”
If she said anything else at all that night, aside from which kind of pie she wanted, I don’t remember it at all.
The Sopranos – Tony Soprano extorts Ralph Cifaretto
A story
My dad was in a biker gang and my mom worked in bars my whole life. One day, my father stumbled into the bar that my mom was working in at the time. He and his Nomad brothers parked their bikes on the sidewalk in front of the establishment. My mother came out and told him if he didn’t move the bikes off the sidewalk, she would run them over with her car. They didn’t move them. She kept her word. My mother was a lot of things, but dishonest was not one of them. The bikes fell over like dominoes.
Instead of my father killing her, which was very much a possibility, he decided that he would date her instead. She became pregnant almost immediately. They got married when she was six months knocked-up and right around that time was when she found out that he was a heroin addict. Three months later, I came screaming into the world.
Soon after my birth, my father had a stroke. Against all odds, the paralyzed side of his body recovered and he had feeling in his left side again. To celebrate, he shot enough heroin and cocaine to have another stroke. This time it took out the whole left side of his body for good.
One day, he got high and made the decision that he was going to kill me. I was six months old and he put the knife up to my throat while I was in my crib. My mother stopped him and that was the day that we left for good. My mom’s next boyfriend molested me for three consecutive years. When I was eight, I finally got brave enough to speak up. We moved on, again. A different town. A new bar for my mom to work in. A new man. Rinse. Repeat.
I had my first drink at twelve and it was all downhill from there. It quickly went from pot and LSD to robbing my mother so I could buy drugs for all of my friends. I was arrested in ninth grade for selling pot in my school. After I made it through that, I was arrested again in eleventh grade – for selling pot in my school.
At 20 years old, I found crack cocaine. I was issued a settlement for $20,000 and proceeded to spend it all on crack in three months. You don’t really consider fiscal responsibility when you are smoking cocaine and baking soda. This cycle continued until I was 85 pounds, homeless, broke, and had nothing to offer anyone. Especially myself. I was broken and I didn’t want to live like this any longer. I was becoming my dad. I asked the universe or whatever for help.
With the help of god, I got sober. I still think it was a miracle. And speaking of my dad, I ended up forgiving him for his mistakes. I cared for him. I was the only one there for him in the last years of his life when he was bed ridden. I did everything that I could to make him feel loved and not judged until the day that he passed. I know that sounds crazy, but how could I expect anyone to forgive me if I couldn’t forgive him?
Today, I have been sober since 2006. I have an amazing husband and perfect children. I own a successful business which involves helping healthy people thrive. I am so grateful for who I am today – and it all happened because I decided to forgive. Forgive others. And forgive myself.
We DO recover!
Have you ever had to tell an employee that their attire was inappropriate?
Not me, but the manager at the bank I worked for. We had a customer who was the employee of a local surf shop. She would come in once or twice a week to do the shop’s banking. As you can imagine, she dressed in surfie girl clothing, which was quite appropriate for where she worked. She once asked me if I liked my job, was the pay good etc etc, and said she had always wanted to work in a bank. Long story short, she applied and got a job at our branch. On her first day, she came in dressed in the same attire as she wore to the surf shop….short little skirt, fairly skimpy top with bare midriff, and sandals. The manager had to tell her that it was not exactly appropriate for a bank, and to look around at the staff and wear something similar to everyone else, until her new uniform arrived (supplied free by the bank) The next day she was the model of decorum, and went on to be a great employee.
What happened at a Thanksgiving dinner that made you say, “You gotta be kidding me?”
I am from a longline of southern cooks. One of my first memories, is standing on a chair with a wooden spoon stirring cornbread batter. My husbands family does not share this skill. My mother in law is lovely and an amazing women. She is charming, beautiful, kind, extremely health conscious but a lousy cook. My husband swears , he and his siblings were raised on wheat germ and bean sprouts. Cooking was truly of no interest to my mother in law. She knows nothing about cooking above the very basics. The first Holidays after our marriage, I hosted the Thanksgiving meal. I was so excited because I love to cook. A few days before the big day, my mother in law called to say she would like to bring the Turkey. I assured her that wouldn’t be necessary but she insisted. I agreed. When I told my husband, he laughed and said that I better have a back up plan. His mother had good intentions but turkey was not in her Wheelhouse. Anxiety got the best of me. I put a Turkey in my outdoor smoker the night before on the pretense that it could be used for sandwiches the following week. Thanksgiving day, a hour and a half before the meal, my husbands family showed up with Turkey in tow. It was still in the wrapper and totally raw. My mother in law said she came a little early so the 20 lb Turkey would have time to roast. My husband was all grins. I thanked her kindly, praised her on the size of the Turkey and took it into the kitchen. A hour and a half later, I served a beautiful smoked Turkey to my guest. No one even picked up on the fact that the Turkey was smoked instead of roasted except MY mom. Thankfully she said nothing until we were alone. The sad thing is my daughter has the cooking skill of my mother in law. But thankfully, she also has her loving kind heart and that outweighs cooking any day!
Success
When have you cheaply or inexpensively fixed an item someone thought unrepairable?
It was around 2009 when our flat screen TV began to require several tries before it would turn on. You knew it was finally going to turn on when you heard the “ka-blink” sound. Finally, one day it would not turn on at all. My wife confidently said, “You can fix anything. Can you fix the TV?””. I expressed my skepticism as my electronic expertise and experience were very limited. But I also didn’t want to just give up despite my prejudice that modern TVs were not ” fixable”. My guess was that the power supply had failed so I began a Google search for how to replace the power supply on a Samsung TV. I found an article titled something to the effect of ” I don’t know much about electronics but this worked for me”. Seemed like a good place to start.
The article was excellent with a description and photos of the capacitors that can fail. If they are swollen or leaking, replace them. Removing the capacitors was the main technical challenge but the article described the entwined copper wire yarn that draws out the solder as you melt it. The real challenge was finding replacement capacitors. Only one store in metro Atlanta had them. Took two days to find the store. I needed 3 but bought several extras for a total of somthing like $8. The guy at the store said, “ Nobody fixes anything anymore.””
Installing was fairly straightforward soldering. Tried to be careful to not overheat anything. It helps your confidence when you consider the TV was dead and most people would have just tossed it. Anyway, the moment of truth came. Pressed the ” On” button on the remote and (after an anxious delay) ” ka-blink”!! I felt like Tom Hanks when he declared ” I have made fire! “. I basked in my wife’s admiration for the rest of the day. The TV still works and I still have the extra capacitors, just in case.
I wish I could cite and thank the person who took the time and effort to post the fix. It was excellent.
A Miracle
My sister fell from the 4th floor when I was 16 years old and fought for her life for two whole years.
When you fall from such a height, it’s most often not the impact that kills you.
It’s the fall.
Most people falling from such a height, faint before impact – and they fall on their back.
Their spine breaks, ruptures, and is torn to shreds and most of them die or are paralyzed their entire lives.
But, my Didi, was awake through the fall.
She fell on her legs.
Later doctors told us that, that was the only reason she’d survived.
On impact, her right leg, which bore the maximum impact, was torn to bloody shreds.
Her right foot had an entire piece fall off from where it was attached.
When I saw her – the white sheet that covers patients was red with blood.
I saw bone where flesh was supposed to be.
When I saw the X ray for the first time, I couldn’t help but hopelessly cry.
Part of her hip bone was just bone dust.
Literally! Literally bone dust where bone should be.
This further complicated her surgery when she was admitted to the ICU.
Bone fragments could have ruptured her blood vessels – or so the doctors said.
Forget walking ever, doctors told us she had a ten percent chance of survival.
My Didi spent two years in the hospital and missed her board exams (12th) that year.
Next year, carried on a stretcher, she was ferried from the hospital in an ambulance and she sat for her 12th boards.
That year – she scored 92 in her boards with a 94 in Physics and Maths.
Her school awarded her an Exceptional Student award and gifted her a phone and a certificate for her achievements.
Today, she has two degrees to her name.
One in Physics and another in Hotel Management.
She’s preparing for a third degree – an MBA this year.
Today, she’s working for a subsidiary of Google in Hyderabad, all alone in a different city.
The limp is still visible, but barely.
Inspiration?
This word doesn’t even begin to explain what I feel when I look at her.
She’s a living, breathing miracle.
Literally — a living, breathing miracle.
Star Trek : TNG – Data : Computer, Begin Scan Phase
Have you ever chosen to dispute a traffic ticket in court? What was the outcome?
Yes, I won and the “arresting officers” were publicly reamed a new one by the judge; seems the judge would not accept “just following orders” as an excuse for the revenue trap they were staffing.
I was pulled over for running a stop sign on a street which I drove daily. I saw the police car at the intersection and drove right past them without even slowing down.
I freely admitted to the officers that I must have run the stop sign at the intersection in question BECAUSE there was no stop sign at that corner.
After signing my ticket, I drove passed them again – taking photos as I approached. It turned out there WAS a new stop sign at that corner – installed the day before on a post roughly 12 feet tall which cleverly concealed the stop sign behind a tree branch.
In order to see the sign one had to be just about even with it and looking up and to the right at about a 45 degree angle. My photos showed the approach from about 1 block away, 1/2 block, 1/4 block, and finally alongside of the sign – it was clear from my photos what the situation was. It was a nice touch that the City Police car was back in ambush position by the time I was taking photos AND one of the A-HOLE cops was looking directly at me in the third photo! The judge really loved that detail!
I arrived in Court; my case was called; I entered a plea of “Not Guilty” while simultaneously admitting I had passed the stop sign in question without even slowing down, let alone stopping.
This piqued the judge’s interest and he seemed amused when I asked if I could approach the bench to show him some photographs of the intersection and stop sign in question.
1st photo – Do you see a stop sign? – NO.
2nd photo – Do you see a stop sign? – NO.
3rd photo – What about now? – NO! What is your point?
Do you see the City Police car with that officer in it? (Me pointing to the City cop who is beginning to look worried). YES!
4th photo – Do you see a stop sign now? What up in that tree? Me: Yes, that’s the one!!
Gavel slams down – CASE DISMISSED!
The two cops get up to leave..
Judge: NOT SO FAST YOU TWO!
I stuck around to hear what was said – the judge was not kind and did not entertain any of the BS excuses they offered. He demanded a list of all citations written at that intersection and instructed the officers to clear every one of them, any fines already collected were to be refunded out of PD funds and then issued a summons for the commanding officer who ordered these two to stake out the intersection (I’ll bet that was interesting!) Further, that sign was to be lowered before the end of the day; the cops balked at that one saying they had no control over the Department of Public Works – the judge told them he did not care who lowered it, but it was to be lowered by the time he left for home that day – he would be checking!
It was.
What happened at a Christmas gathering or dinner that made you say, “You gotta be kidding me?”
My favorite family story.
I am an only child, and my parents were a challenge. They did not get easier, as they got older. My family (me, the husband and two sons) lived about 2 and a half hours away and would always go home for Christmas, usually bringing food, since there was no guarantee that there would be anything in the house to eat, and all restaurants are closed on Christmas (my parents survived on black coffee, white toast and McDonalds, and surprisingly, it had no effect on their longevity).
One year, my mother insisted that, instead of my cooking, we should all go to the Legion Hall to the ‘friends’ dinner, for the old, lonely and homeless.
Well, technically, we weren’t lonely, we were together. And they could have as much food as they wanted, since I was willing to bring it. But Mom wanted to go to this meal, and I wasn’t going to deny her what she wanted on Christmas day.
So, off we all go to the Legion. Mom sees someone she knows and sits down with them. My father follows, sitting down with her. She totally ignores the fact that there is no room for the rest of us to sit with her. Dad gives me a shrug, but doesn’t say anything (because, in my family, this is just Mom being Mom and we roll with it).
My family grabs a four top by the bar and we eat our meals rolling our eyes and shaking our heads.
There was an empty seat on the table by my Mom. A reporter for the local newspaper takes it and interviews her. The next day, she is on the front page of the local paper complete with photograph, announcing that the people that put on these meals for those who need them are “angels.”
Apparently, though it did not make it to the paper, (THANK GOD) she also told the reporter all about her daughter “the famous author” (I’ve written a bunch of books and she was really proud). But anyone who knew her knew that story already. She did not bother to mention that I was in the room with them at the time.
And that is how the entire town learned that I had abandoned my mother and made her eat alone at the Legion on Christmas.
More experiments in text to picture
Some of my work. A comic theme.
What was the strangest way an embezzler was caught?
Had a friend who decided to purchase a small gift shop in Western Washington to add to the several they already owned near Tacoma. This one was a bit farther away from their home, so they would have less of a day to day contact with the location. The former owner had recommended the retain the manager that worked for them for many years, and so they did. They were very happy with this decision, and for a couple of years this manager would not only run the store on a daily basis, but come in on vacations and days off and do the books, payroll, stock ordering etc.
Problem? This store, even though it was in a more rural location, less rent, lower pay all around, was still not as profitable as they thought it should be.
How did they uncover the problem? The manager had a grandbaby born in Seattle, and she decided to spend a couple of weeks with them to help out.
Old school cash registers would have what we would call a “z” tape that would total up transactions at the end of the day (and subtotals whenever you wanted one throughout the day) to tell you what sold, amount of cash, checks, charge cards, refunds, etc. In theory, every day one would take that tape and balance the amount of receipts against what was in the till.
Problem? My friend could not get the tape to balance against receipts by the method that had been used to balance as proscribed by the manager. There was too much money every day. It turns out here in Washington, we have a Sales tax of about 9.7%. The manager would use the PRE TAX amount on the Z tape to balance the daily amounts, and keep the tax amount.
So, for 3 years my friend owned the store, the manager had pocketed that amount of cash every day, and probably for many years back. They store was grossing about $600k a year at that time, so she pocketed about $54k a year cash as well as her salary.
And if you know about these kind of stories, often the owners do not want to have publicity in this kind of situation. So instead of having the sheriff charge in this case, they actually caught her taking items from the the store (a baby album!) and cited that as reason for termination. But then they showed her the rest of what she knew, and they ended up getting a partial restitution.
Lesson? If you have a manager of staff member that does not take time off, be suspicious.
AND: you have to make sure that IRS records are correct, or you are liable for the additional taxes.
Hope this answers the question,
Rick Olson
JFK Files
What led to the decline of the Ottoman Empire?
Money, money, money (always sunny, in a rich man’s world)
I was at a wedding this summer when I asked a friend of mine, who is a history professor specializing in 18th century Ottoman history, why he believed that the Ottomans would start suffering from major issues in the 19th century. (The word ‘decline’ is, for some reasons I’ll try to go into, not necessarily true for the 18th century).
He, of course in the traditional academic manner, said that careers could be made studying even a minor area of the subject and to be wary of teleological explanations, and the usual jazz.
So, I rephrased and asked him, “If you had a time machine to take you to the beginning of the 18th century, what would you have done differently, assuming you wanted the Ottomans to have survived?”
He thought for a while and answered, “If we have the technology for time travel, I’m going to assume that we would have the technology for bringing others with us as well.”
“Sure”.
“Then, I’d bring with me around fifty German and Swiss accountants to take charge of Ottoman finances.”
“Not Turkish ones?”
“Better safe than sorry.”
“So you would not have found a clever way of killing off the unruly Janissaries, like Peter the Great did with his unruly soldiers?”
“The Janissaries were not the problem. They were not necessarily bad soldiers. They were cheap soldiers and they suffered from low morale. And because they were paid so little, most of them ended up doing other jobs as well.”
So there’s the rub – the unruly Janissaries were not the problem. They were the symptom of the problem which was money.
Indeed, most of the other (quick and easy) explanations don’t really hold water or go to the heart of the matter: for example, technological lag. Hold on to your hats because I am about to blow your minds but the Ottomans, at no point in their history, had a significant technological handicap compared to their European neighbors. This was especially true for the 18th Century. First, speaking of military technologies:
- The Ottomans had the same military technologies as their European counterparts. The story of the Ottomans’ “massive (anachronistic) bombards” is just a story. Whether it be the caliber of the guns, their metallurgy or the mixture ratio for gunpowder, the Ottomans had no major differences with most of their European contemporaries.
- The military technology between 1600 and the Napoleonic Wars did not have major leaps that the Ottomans could be left behind in. Ottomans employed many European experts, not just in the 18th century, but throughout their entire history. (Orban and his famous guns, anyone?)
- Well into the 19th century, weaponry continued to be produced with traditional (i.e. artisanship) methods instead of mass production across Europe. Ottomans had begun their military defeats before the 1850s, so the proliferation of mass produced weapons (which they ended up buying in the 19th and early 20th centuries anyway) could not be a factor in their earlier defeats.
For the rest of their “technology”, we can give the example of Russia, which remained mostly agrarian until the second half of the 19th century. Further, even after the freeing of the serfs, their industrialization was slow, which led to major problems in the First World War. They also had a low literacy rate. Yet, along with England, they were the major Great Power for most of the 19th Century. One thing that Russia had was a large population (although China, with a large population, did not fare so well), but other than that, their main difference with the Ottomans was their centralized and bureaucratized state apparatus.
The “nationalism” of minorities itself was an issue tied to money. Again, contrary to the general narrative, the “millet” system was not a thing de jure until the 19th, and de facto until the middle of the 18th Century and was born of the economic issues of the Empire. How so? Tax farming under the ayans became a major source of revenue in the 18th Century. In this system, the government would auction the right to collect taxes for a lump sum in Istanbul. Important figures such as ministers, princesses, harem women, would buy such privileges. Then, since they did not want to (or could not) travel to the regions that produced their income, they would work with local notables, ayans (who could be Muslim or Christian), to collect their taxes. Well, in this tax farming system, the Rum patriarch in Istanbul, for example, was a “tax farmer in chief” and by delineating an important financial function to such groups, the Ottomans allowed for them to make power grabs elsewhere, such as increasing control over their Christian flock, which would culminate in the “millet” system, wherein the various religious heads became the final authority on the legal issues (or education) of their flock. The Hellenizing project under the new Greek state, its support by the patriarchate (albeit not immediately), and the inability of the central government to stop it, was one of the major reasons behind one of the aggressive and usually quite bellicose nationalisms that would develop among the Christian Ottomans.
Also, the change from a centralized to a subcontracted “sekban” (mercenary) system of military recruitment where the central government would send “banners” to the local officials and notables, who would collect and arm the peasants in the beginning of the 17th Century created a large number of armed men in Anatolia, leading to the “Celali Revolts“. This created a mass migration of the peasants to the cities and mountains all throughout Anatolia, called “Büyük Kaçgun” – (The Great Flight). So depopulated was the countryside that many lands would grow wild and not become cultivated again until they were resettled with Balkan, Crimean and Caucasian refugees fleeing ethnic cleansing two centuries later in the 1800s.
The Ottomans could collect so little tax in the 18th Century that with this new tax farming system, only 30% of all the taxes that were collected found their way into government coffers. But the local ayans, provincial notables, and tax farmers could usually not get enough money from their cut to be able to invest in major infrastructure projects or other developmental investments, contributing to the vicious cycle of decentralization.
This left the Ottomans with an underpaid and in many cases (of sekban units provided by the local notables) a poorly and haphazardly supplied army with chronically low morale.
Losing wars led to the further loss of taxable lands and as the Christian population slowly developed into openly hostile nations, the internal problems and external ones compounded.
In the 19th century, to pay for a large army and a navy, the Ottomans would bankrupt themselves, and until the construction of railways in the late 19th Century, would not be able to successfully (and even then to a very limited scope) industrialize, in spite of attempts in the 1830s. (Although the Ottoman artisans were surprisingly resilient in the face of imported, mass produced, European goods)
But it all started from a lack of funds. This, of course, should not mean that the country was poor per se. The early 18th Centry was a time of economic boom in the long peace until 1769. But even as the economy of the country developed, the finances of the state continued suffering.
So true
What happened at a Christmas gathering or dinner that made you say, “You gotta be kidding me?”
One year my husband’s brother and his family hoated the family Christmas party (we alternate between the brothers)… SIL is VERY cheap one Christmas though she totally proved it.
My daughter had driven 2 hours to get there and realized her cellphone was dying. So she plugged it into a charger out of the way of where people were. Twice she went to check the status only to find it unplugged and no progress of charging. One the third time she said something. MY sister in law explained it cost money to charge a phone so she was jept unplugging it. They are very financially secure so it was totally because she was cheap.
At first my daughter thought she was joking but she sas not…she was serious. So my daughter handed her a dollar. SIL took the money, put it in her pocket and walked off. While laughing my daughter told BIL what happened. He was mortified…handed my daughter a dollar (out of sight of SIL) and showed her where to charge her phone so SIL would leave it alone.
Why can’t some electric car enthusiasts accept that the inability for electric cars to fully recharge in 5 minutes is a deal breaker for some people since every gasoline car ever made can do that?
Let’s flip the script. Imagine we’d all been driving EV’s the last hundred years, you pay $5 to fully refuel at home overnight while you sleep and never leave home without a ‘full tank’. There is practically zero maintenance and the cars are very fast and reliable with instant torque, more storage space, brakes that last the life of the car, over the air feature updates etc. The motors and battery have 8 year warranty and are expected to last at least 500,000 miles.
Then somebody invents a gas car. It’s slow, noisy, needs lots of regular repairs and maintenance. It’s full of explosive and toxic fluids. It burns fuel and emits poisonous gases even when it’s not moving. Refueling it costs $100 and you have drive to a special refueling station, you can never do it at home. Everything needs to be repaired by a specialist in a remote workshop and adding new features after you bought it is not possible. But hey, that $100 refueling can be done in just 15 extra minutes on your drive to work!
Who would buy it?
What was a loophole that you found and exploited the hell out of?
When I was living in Tempe, I lived in the back of my apartment complex, and got my own little sheltered parking spot for my Toyota. Unfortunately, it was not an uncommon occurrence for people to park in my designated spot or block it with their cars. Being as polite as I could, I would go around and knock on doors to try and get that person to move their car. Oftentimes I would be late for class.
One day, I was looking through the tenant’s rights of Maricopa County, AZ, and I found a clause that stated that the tenant has the right to remove an illegally parked vehicle. The clause then defined “an illegally parked vehicle” to mean a car that is parked in such a way that it hinders the tenant from entering or exiting their designated parking space. The clause also defined that the owner of the illegally parked vehicle is responsible for fixing any damage caused by the removal of the vehicle. The clause never stated HOW the tenant might do that, however. The county legislators probably thought that 99.99% of people would call a towing company, but I had places to be and was honestly fed up with these illegal parkers, so I was part of that other 0.01% group.
I bought towing straps on my way home from class one day, and I didn’t even have to wait a full night. In my parking space that I was paying rent for was a black Tesla. I hooked it up to my Toyota diesel pickup and dragged it out of there, tires squealing. I left it in the middle of the street, and the next morning, the owner came out and stood perplexed at the new positioning of his car.
A few days later, there was a Prius parked in front of my truck. I had to get to class but couldn’t. So, I gently pushed the Prius out of the way with my bull-bar and left it in the middle of the street. The Prius sustained a minor dent in its passenger side, and that evening when I got back from college, there were several police officers on the scene. The owner of the Prius tried to charge me with a hit and run, but after I showed the officers the picture that I took of the Prius blocking my truck in, and the clause from the tenant’s rights document, and the lease proving that I was the rightful occupant of the parking spot, they determined that the Prius owner was at fault and was responsible for the damages.
My favorite instance of this was when somebody parked a total lemon in my spot and had leaked oil all over the concrete. The lease said that oil-leakers were strictly prohibited, so I had to do something special for this guy. I got a piece of metal wire and bet it over into a hook. Underneath the car, I reached up with my hook and pulled the hood release cable. Once I had the hood open, I located the fuse-box and took out the fuse that would allow the car to start. I then proceeded to yank the car out of my spot into the street, business as usual. The next morning, his car was still there, in the middle of the street, a decently sized puddle of oil underneath it. He was on his phone talking angrily, presumably with a towing company. I didn’t have to be anywhere that day, so I watched the chaos ensue through my window.
Several more times this happened, and eventually, word got around that my parking spot was not safe to park in front of. Everyone could tell if there was a newbie in town, because they would park in front of my spot, and subsequently get yanked. Thanks, Maricopa County!
Funny because it is true
When have you cheaply or inexpensively fixed an item someone thought unrepairable?
Around 2008 I was in the engineering lab working on the design of my latest project. The CEO came in and asked me it I could look at an NC lathe on the factory floor.
The controller went out on the 30 year old machine. There had been no replacements available for about 20 years. This machine made the “Secret Sauce” part of our flagship product. This machine had never given trouble before.
The manufacturer’s representative declared it a write off and told us it would be at least 3 months to get a replacement machine for $30,000. Plus shipping from Germany. While we could farm out making the part, the reason we made it ourselves is that in the Los Angeles area there was so much military work going on for serious money that it would have been months to get someone else to make the parts.
We would lose months of sales and 40–50 people were facing layoff. So while this was not in my job description I went out for a look.
I took the controller board out and set it on my bench and could not see anything obvious. So starting with the power input I started doing resistance tests on the rectifier diodes. Son of a gun. The third one I checked showed it was shorted. We did not carry the 1N4002 in lab stock. So I put in a 1N4007 which costs about 15 cents versus the 8 cents of the original part.
I put the controller back in and the machine fired right up. The machinist started saying words of what seemed like joy in his native Vietnamese.
I went back to my bench and carried in with my project. Dashing off an email to the CEO that the machine was working again. All in a day’s work. Saving about a ton of high grade steel from going to the junk yard and keeping the factory floor workers earning a pay check.
Little was said but at the Christmas party a couple months later the CEO hands me my Christmas bonus and whispers to me to not tell anyone about it. Instead of my usual $500 bonus was a check for $5,000.
The machine was still running fine when I moved back to Canada in 2010.
The Enterprise Crosses the Romulan Neutral Zone
Can Chinese people living outside of China clearly see that Xi Jinping is a dictator, as opposed to those who are still living in China who are brainwashed?
In the west…
- Jesus has long blonde hair and a six pack.
- China’s economy is collapsing as GDP growth is 5.20%, while the U.S. economy is booming with 2.50% growth
- In the west they believe Sri Lanka was debt trapped by China. Investigations revealed that the country had to repay loans to the west.
- In the U.S. they believe China is the main cause for global warming, they don’t realise that they’ve emitted more Co2 than any other country and their emissions per capita are almost twice as much when compared to China.
- In the west they believe they are leading the transition to zero emissions, but the reality is China is the biggest producer of solar, wind, and hydro power and has the largest fleet of EVs.
- In the U.S. they believe they are free and yet they incarcerate more of their own population than any other country and their children need to pass a metal detector when they enter school.
- In the west they believe the Belt and Road initiative is bad, but they believe the Marshall Plan was good despite they’re both the same thing except China’s is a much grander scale.
- In the U.S. they believe the Chinese force their companies to hand over technology, in reality it’s a deal signed by both sides.
- In the west they believe China is oppressing Tibetans, in reality they saved them from feudalism.
- In the west they think China has committed genocide in Xinjiang while Israel has the right to defend themselves.
- In the U.S. they believe they have democracy, in reality they’re just picking a millionaire to run their country. In the U.K., the choice is another Oxford graduate.
- In the US they believe TikTok is a national security concern despite everything is based in the west.
- In the west they believe they uphold human rights in reality they’ve been in multiple wars causing millions of death and even more displaced.
Really who is brainwashed?
What are the craziest objects that you’ve seen TSA workers remove from someone’s bag to be confiscated?
I had some small yellow cable ties for doing up the zips on my bag so that my larger non carry on bags can’t be opened when out of my sight. (Well… at least make it harder). These things would be something like 8 to 10cm’s long. Like I said, small as far as cable ties go.
Something like these ones. Only I had four.
This immigration (What the US calls a TSA Officer) woman is going through my bag because she suspects something is in the bag that I shouldn’t have. She can’t find what she’s looking for (I think I know what she’s looking for, however I let her try and find them. In one of the front pockets on my laptop bag she finds these small yellow cable ties.
TSA Woman:
“Arh ha… there they are.”
Me:
“What? Are you going to tell me you saw these four small plastic cable ties on the X-ray machine? Not likely love. Anyway, what’s wrong with wanting to secure my bags with these anyway?”
TSA Woman:
“You can’t have cable ties on a plane” she says louder so she gets the back up and support of the her colleagues on the other side of the bags counter.
I nodded, and replied:
“Yeesss you’re so right… I mean, how many people’s thumbs could I tie together with those massive cable ties on the plane. I reckon I could take out the entire first class row with those bad boys, if the passengers agreed to hold their thumbs together and still long enough.”
Her colleagues are now looking away and sniggering, some not knowing where to look.
“Hang on” I said… “I reckon I could tie up rows two and three with my laptop lead here, and not to mention my iPhone cable for charging.” As I took my laptop lead out of my bag and proudly held it above my head like I was declaring it for immediate confiscation. “If I could get all of the fourth row to stand up, and be patient for just a few minutes, with a bit of jostling, maybe even one more person from the fifth row, I could really do some damage with this” as I reached into my laptop bag and pulled out my iPhone lead.
Nothing, silence, a few sniggers… then…
TSA Woman:
“Well, you can’t have them on the plane, I’ll have to confiscate them.” She starts to walk to the bin and drop them in there.
Me:
I then said “Hang on bring them back here.” My thought was to just use them… you know, run them through on each other so they don’t get used by any of the TSA staff later as a reward for confiscating my four lonely little yellow cable ties, and because I wanted to make a big deal out of it. Hell… I’d come this far so why not.
However, I suddenly remembered how to use what I knew she was originally looking for. I pulled out a pair of scissors from my bag and took the cable ties from her and cut all four of the small yellow cable ties in an instant.
TSA Woman:
”That’s what I was looking for” and she quite literally snatched the scissors out of my hand whilst my fingers are still in the holes. (Not nice…. )
“Everyone knows you can’t takes scissors on a plane” she proudly boasts out louder than even the cable ties got a mention for early, because now she has to save face with her colleagues, whilst she practically does a basketball layout on the way to the bin and slam dunks those scissors into the bin. She looks around very proud of herself.
“Excuse me lady” her smile still beaming as she looks around and then at me. “Can you get them out of the bin now? (smile now completely wiped from her face.) I think you’ll find THOSE scissors are legal on flights. They’re medical scissors with the bend on the blades. Whilst I know it’s not common knowledge you can carry these on a plane, I expected you would know, however it appears you didn’t and I’d really like to get to the Qantas club lounge before my flight. So if you can get them out quickly it would be much appreciated.”
They sort of looked like these, without the black. At the time they were legal on flights. I don’t know the rules now.
TSA woman looks around in absolute dismay. I’m standing there with my hand out. I can’t wait to see her dive into the bin that would have be at least three feet tall. I so wish I was allowed to use my phone and video this right now, however, in this area of the airport, photography of any kind is banned. Video or still… not allowed.
TSA Women gets a supervisor, she isn’t having any of this. I’m at least three hours early for my flight, I’ve got heap of time spare, I don’t care and I can’t wait to see how this ends. The supervisor comes over to have a word to me. I am allowed to explain the situation first when the supervisor says “What seems to be the problem?”.
I explain the above to the supervisor without all of the “glee” the TSA Woman had shown, whilst being able to very successfully hold back my own thoughts of this woman being head first in the bin retrieving my scissors, with her feet up in the air. (Still makes me smile even now)
The supervisor turns to the TSA woman and asks her to “Retrieve the evidence please”. In absolute horror and dismay, the TSA woman goes to the bin, puts the bin on it’s side and empties the bin right there on the floor. (I so wanted to have my vision be fulfilled, however, I could see she was a bit smarter than that.) Of course a thin pair of metal scissors will go straight to the bottom of the bin. No exception on this day for that rule either. Everything coms out of the bin, and yep,… there was nothing else to get out, except my lonely scissors. Even my four lonely (now cut) cable ties came out near the start.
Her colleagues are sorting other people baggage, whilst sort of watching with sideways glances at what the TSA Woman was doing, and trying to hold back smiles. One other TSA employee looked at me, and she couldn’t stop the smile, I thought she was going to bust out laughing. She did well and held the laughter in.
The TSA Woman… The offending, basketball playing, self confident, “Look at me I have the power to confiscate scissors and four cable ties… TSA Woman, eventually finds the scissors, hands them to the supervisor like a nurse hands scissors and a scalpel in the movies to a surgeon. I have no idea what’s going to happen next, but this was kind of fun and i was all in now. It’s like I was watching someone else. I had no stress no concern, this was like a seen from a sitcom, only I had written it without the ending, after all, what was the worst they can do, take my scissors off me again? I had already had this woman go and retrieve my scissors from the bin, and had her colleagues witness it, I’m already a mile in front. You can have the four yellow cable ties and the scissors… I’m good at this point.
The TSA Supervisor (Oh… who is also a woman, sorry I missed that point earlier)) takes a half second look at the scissors as the scissors hit her hand. She turns to me and says “Happy travels Sir” and hands the scissors back to me with a smile.
When I turned my back, I couldn’t get the smile off my face, I nearly bust out laughing as I walked up to the Qantas lounge and waited for my flight.
Never saw her again.
Scott Ritter: Russia has DESTROYED the U.S. Military and Putin is Exposing the Truth
Good. Very good.
What has your manager asked you to do that you outright refused to do?
It was right after I gave my two weeks notice. My manager came to my desk on Monday morning and said, “Mike, coffee is now your duty until you leave.”
I smiled and kept doing my work.
The next day he calls me. “Mike, I thought I told you you’re in charge of coffee?”
“I am in charge of coffee, yes and I see that we need a fresh pot. Can you handle this for us since you seem to be an expert.”
He laughed and said, “We all know that already. You brew the pot of coffee, Mike, Not me. Come on.”
“Well, I am a little busy now and will get to it when I can,” I replied. I stayed at my desk for an hour an half working away! No care for him or the coffee.
Then he comes to my desk and says, “Mike, where is my coffee?”
I stood up, looked him straight in the eye and said, “Let’s go have a quick talk while I brew you a fresh cup of coffee.”
We got to the break room. I stood by the coffee machine and said. “Listen, I gave you my notice, but that doesn’t mean you need to make my life difficult and belittle me. I really do not appreciate your tone and remarks. I am reporting you to HR. I find it very offensive and it looks like retaliation.”
He stumbles in his shoes and starts to stutter, “Ah, Mike, I was just joking around and didn’t mean anything by it.”
I stayed quiet.
He kept going on and on. I walked out of the break room and headed to the elevator.
He was still talking and asked, “Mike, can we talk about it?”
I stopped and looked at him. I could see the entire floor looking from under their cubicle walls. “I don’t think we need to talk about it anymore, I will be right back.” By then I clicked and called the elevator. The door opens up, I jump in and the door closes.
I know what he was thinking – Oh, crap! He is going to HR.
I went to the vending machine on the same floor as HR and got myself a drink!
I waited a bit, chatting with some co-workers, then I went back up.
He did not even look at me.
I sat at my desk and the whole day he did not even cross in front of my desk, not even once – like a scared rabbit hiding in his hole.
I told everyone on my team about what I did and everyone was waiting to see how he would react or what he would do the next day.
The next morning I came in and dumped the coffee pot, brewed a new one. While walking to my desk, I stopped by his cube and said, “I just brewed a fresh pot of coffee.”
He jumps up from his seat and says, “Oh! Thanks, Mike, you didn’t have to!”
As soon as I sat down, my coworker that sat right next to me said, “What a Punk.”
“You said it, not me!” I replied
In the end, I felt good that I stood my ground and did not fall victim to his actions. He never came and asked me if I reported him to HR. He asked two of my team members and both said: “I am not sure!”
He wanted to make a joke and make me feel unwelcomed or belittled. In the end, he was a joke and was called a punk. Who knows what others thought of him?
”Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need” — Khalil Gibran
Acapulco Chicken Pizza
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- 3/4 pound fresh boneless, skinless chicken breasts, sliced
- 1 package Ortega Taco Seasoning Mix (regular) or 2 tablespoons homemade Taco Seasoning
- 3 tablespoons cayenne pepper
- 5 tablespoons Ortega Thick & Smooth Taco Sauce (medium)
- 2 (12 inch) flour tortillas
- 8 ounces Ortega Refried Beans
- 1/4 cup Ortega Thick & Smooth Taco Sauce (medium)
- 1/4 cup Monterey Jack cheese, grated
- 1/4 cup Cheddar cheese, grated
- 2 cups lettuce, shredded
- 2 avocados, seeded, peeled and mashed
- 1 tomato, diced
Instructions
- Add oil to a large heated skillet; stir in chicken, taco seasoning mix and cayenne pepper and cook until browned.
- Stir in first amount of taco sauce and remove from the heat.
- On a large plate, place flour tortillas; divide and spread with refried beans, being sure to cover the entire tortilla.
- Add the chicken mixture over the beans and sprinkle remaining taco sauce, grated Monterey Jack cheese and grated Cheddar cheese on top.
- Bake at 375 degrees F until the cheese is bubbly, about 10 minutes.
- Remove and cut into wedges.
- Serve with shredded lettuce, mashed avocados, and diced tomato.
Have you ever met a dangerous person and not known it at the time?
In the late 1970s, my mom was refurbishing a house in Mt. Helix, just outside of San Diego. There was a guy who pulled up in a truck from a carpet installation business and asked about the project, and whether they were going to be needing new carpets for the house. She thought something was a little off with him, so she said that they had not yet decided what they were going to do, and that they had a prospective buyer who wanted the original hardwood floors.
He kept trying to sell her on some carpeting for the stairs, etc. until her partner in the project, a contractor (who she was also having an affair with, but that is another story entirely) who was 6’ 4” and a Vietnam Vet came out to ask a question. The guy almost immediately stopped talking, handed her his card and left. She threw away the card and figured that was the end of it.
The next week, he called our house, and I answered the phone and he said he had been speaking with her about carpeting for the house and was she available? She wasn’t home, so I took a message which was just his name and number. I gave her the message and she thought it was weird, but did not connect it with the guy in the truck, because she hadn’t gotten his name the first time.
Then he called again, and my brother took a message and she realized who these messages were coming from, but she had not given him our phone number. At the time, you could go to the DMV, and ask for the registration info for a car by giving the license plate number and paying $3 for it. (After actress Rebecca Schaefer was murdered by a stalker who did this, they stopped that service, but that was a few years later). My mom called the police about this guy, and they later found out that this was how he got our number.
After that, we started getting frequent hang up calls at our house. She said she thought islt was this guy, and my dad said he didn’t think so, and she was worrying over nothing. But she stopped going out to the worksite and eventually just sold her half of the project to the contractor.
But soon afterward, she got a call from a police detective who wanted to ask some questions about the guy. Like do you know this guy, and from where, and why are there so many calls to your house from him, etc. Eventually, they even asked my brother and I what he had said when we answered the phone. All the information we had was his name and phone number.
About 5 years later, it was on the news that they had arrested the guy for serial murders. His story is all kinds of horrible, but he was thought to have brutally raped up to six women and murdered them, along with their children in some cases. How brutally? They called them the Throat Slash Murders, because he cut their throats so deeply that the spine was visible from the hole in the front of their throats.
He was convicted of three of the killings, and he is now on death row in California.
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