Vacation Highlights Part 1

Well, here I sit, atop a mountain overlooking Charlotte Amalie harbour, on a sunny, warm December ---- hell, I don't even know - or care - what day it is. I guess that signifies I'm truly on vacation.

It's been interesting to say the least and I (thankfully) have six more days left. Unfortuntely, unlike work time, this vacation will go by like Flash Gordon on crank. Alas, the mystery of time. Speaking of time, things here move in comotose speed, which is totally foreign to me. In Atlanta, I never stop. Here, you aren't expected to do anything. I realized yesterday (my second day on the beach) that soon I would need to occupy my time with something or just resign myself to becoming sloth-like. This is actually a struggle as one should not practice laziness as it is a very, very difficult addiction to reverse. That being said, I've been known not to practice what I preach.

Has anyone read "The Life of Pi"? I ask this because it is the first book I've been able to read in two years. Baby Bro suggested it, but after page 26, I think this could be a tear jerker. I wish Dave Barry would crank out another one.

Speaking of tear jerkers, I've had the opportunity to see some of the wedding photos. Thankfully, the photographer knew enough about female pride that she took few photos of yours truly. I honestly had NO fucking idea how fat I really got when I quit smoking. As my bud, Party, would say, "Man, she's got more chins than a Chinese phonebook." To make matters worse, the dress I wore was a deep purple, which makes me look like a nuclear sized Concord grape. I can honestly say, I can appreciate both sides of the good and evil of getting sick and desperately depressed. While I was sick, I thought, "This can get no worse". Now, I see the point of suffering - whoo, sounds way too Catholic, but that's the only way to rationalize. Sad it took two months and 40 pounds for me to see this. Losing weight is simply calories in vs. calories out. Duh - as our mantra this week seems to be, "Here's your sign".

TV says HotLanta isn't that hot today. Mid 40s and storms. Today the weather here looks ominous - partly cloudy and in the 80s.

I've promised myself not to do anything technological while on this trip and since blogging qualifies, I've already screwed the pooch. I'll figure out how to upload photos later so everyone freezing their asses off can know I'm thinking about them.

Speaking of Death...

Here's a very interesting perspective on dying from an editorial from the AJC today...

A good life should end easily

By JACK REEVES
Published on: 12/16/05

Marvin died within seconds after the injection. Our veterinarian softly uttered, "There's no charge." My wife, Nancy, cradled our cat as I drove home. He was old, had a terminal illness, and suffered. Once a humane society kitten, we buried him with tears and honor. A stone and daffodils mark his grave.

The life of convicted killer Stanley "Tookie" Williams' ended Tuesday from injections of sodium pentothal, pancuronium bromide, and potassium chloride.

Pentothal induced unconsciousness within 30 seconds. Pancuronium bromide, a muscle relaxant, stopped breathing within a minute. Potassium chloride instantly stopped his heart. It was totally painless.

Nancy died of stage four cancer on Nov. 27. She was 66. Amid bodily anguish and horrid consciousness she pleaded twice: "I wish someone would give me a shot and I could go to sleep."

The hospice nurse came two days before. During her initial visit, she discussed with Nancy her living will, in which Nancy directed that "the application of life-sustaining procedures to [her] body , including nourishment and hydration, be withheld or withdrawn and that [she] be permitted to die."

For Nancy, there was no "shot" — only liquid morphine sulfate. Day and night I put measured doses under her tongue. Twice, though, she suddenly arose in bed, eyes wide staring at me, and screamed.

I'm haunted: What horror slouched through her soul?

She went through the stages of death for three days. Her temperature elevated, then she became colder as blood was being preserved by her failing organs. There is a death rattle: a gurgling sound produced by air passing through mucus in the lungs and air passages. Her breathing became difficult as her courageous heartbeat accelerated.

Some 48 hours after the hospice nurse was satisfied that all was in (legal) order, my beloved Nancy succumbed.

A friend and I were with her to the end. We had nothing to sufficiently palliate our suffering either.

Marvin's death occurred in seconds. Williams' occupied two unconscious minutes. We have mercy on pets and those who cruelly murder. But not for the Nancys.

The love of my life was past president of the Licensed Professional Counselors Association of Georgia, Counselor of the Year in 2005, and elected to the board of directors of the new LPCA Foundation. She was an extraordinary, good person.

I could not help her die without pain and terror. Nancy, even with morphine, experienced the private hell of her death — for days. I know. She screamed its horror to me.

"I wish someone would give me a shot and I could go to sleep."

Why can't we?


This truly epitomizes my opinion about allowing people to end their lives the way they want to go. Fuck you fundamentalist, sadistic, right-winged neo-Christians who think it's a sin to end your own life. This is the whole reason God gave us free will, dipshit. Or, did you skip that part of CCD?

You Didn't Say, "I'm Sorry"

What a load of crap. Schwarzenegger rejected Tookie William's clemency appeal because he didn't say, "I'm sorry". Fuck you, Arnie. If I didn't do something yet you were going to stick a deadly needle in my arm, what makes you think I'd sell out either? And before you say, "how do you know he didn't kill those folks", I'd ask you to look at the national headlines last week of that poor slop, Robert Clark, who spent 24 years in the STATE pen of Georgia for a crime he didn't commit. Hell, these rednecks were going to fry his ass as well if it weren't for the technology that he some how was able to acquire.

Speaking of sorry, death, and shear stupidity, how lame is it that Bush came out yesterday and compared his invasion of Iraq with the "struggles of the American founding fathers"? I'd just like to punch him in the mouth. That asshole doesn't even know his history, so I'd like to clarify a couple of points for him. First, the American founding fathers INVADED this country to run like scared, chicken-shit losers from those formidable, nasty, renegade Englishmen. Second, they butchered all the natives that were here so they could steal their land. Third, the founding fathers started their own fucking war because they wanted to be set loose from the English government. Slight difference to what we see today in Iraq. Today, Bush wanted oil and the overabundant rise in Neo-Conservative Christianity in a predominately Muslim nation. He lied to go to war (and those desendents of those founding fathers fell for it). The Iraqis - although shit upon by Saddam, still had a more peaceful existance than they can ever have now. Apples and oranges, dipshit.

And to say that Iraqis have lost 30,000 citizens since the Bush invasion - "give or take a few???" A few what? Are we counting pennies here or what?

Oh, and now I read that Bush says many other nations need a regime change before there is peace in the world. I say we start with the good ol' US of A.

That's a Bitch, Rich

Richard Pryor passed away today. The world is now without one genius comedian.

Rest in peace.

Georgia's Backward Ass Retards

I don't mean to offend backward ass retards, but just in one day's AJC you can find these little tidbits of awe from some of our local village idiots...

This morning, a 7-year-old boy was run down by a MARTA bus. Apparently, Junior was weaving his bike in and out of traffic when the bus hit him. Now, this wouldn't seem all that stupid except that the boy's father and uncle were on the bus and after they watched the kid get hit, they proceeded to beat the shit out of the bus driver. OK, let me get this straight, these two morons watch their son/nephew play chicken with a 4-ton MARTA bus and then proceed to beat the driver up??? Why the hell did they let the kid play in traffic in the first place? Some folks should just be neutered before they can re-populate the world with little morons.

Another brilliant move - Our illustrious governor has decided he would step in and help the Georgia Board of Regents select a new Chancellor. There were three candidates before this morning, one guy was the interim director, the other was a Chancellor from another State education system, and the third guy is an former energy company CEO with no educational experience at all. Guess who dipshit picked. I'll give you a hint: Sonny is a Republican. Yup, he selected the CEO. I guess he thinks education should be run like a business. What a heap of crap.

There is a big stink going around as to what people should call a fucking Christmas tree. Apparently, it isn't very PC to call it a Christmas tree since not everyone celebrates Christmas. A mayor in a very redneck town outside the City was not re-elected Tuesday because the tree he had put up at his City Hall was called "The Grand Tree", not a Christmas tree and the Bible-thumpers came right out of the woodwork and ran right to the polls. Dumb shit. Look, people. Jews don't have a tree, Muslims don't have a tree, and I'm pretty damn sure the Kwanza folks don't have one, either. Only the commercially-driven, usually Capitalist, Christians have a goddamn tree. It's a Christmas tree. I would think the Jews would have a problem if we told them they should rename the Menora the "Holiday Candlestick".

Speaking of trees and retards, don't ever send your roommate out alone to buy your tree. While I was in Borders yesterday, I tell Roomie, "Go over to Lowe's and see if you can find a little $30 five-footer". He comes back 20 minutes later with a fucking NINE footer. Hello, we only have 8-foot ceilings. Looks like the goddamn Grizwald family Christmas tree. It's so big, we can't see the TV from the couch and it hasn't even fully relaxed yet. Once it does, the branches are going to burst through the window. Roomie says that the tree actually costs 90 bucks, but they were mistagged so he got a great deal. Again, the Grizwald's ain't got nothing on us this year.

Oh, and there is fucking ice coming out of the sky. What's up with that? I put up with all this crap in Georgia because we're not supposed to get ice. What a rip.

G-O-D Put him Here?

Here's an interesting insider opinion of where things really stand with regard to the Iraqi situation. Check out Seymour Hersh's (NY Mag) take. Beware, it's a little frightening.

http://www.newyorker.com/printables/fact/051205fa_fact

Notes from a Treehugger

These came from a friend who works in the Environmental/Sanitation department on campus:


Recycling one aluminum can saves enough energy to run a TV for 2 hours.

Recycling all of the paper used in the Sunday edition of the New York Times would save 75,000 trees per year.

Throwing away an aluminum can wastes as much energy as pouring out a soda can half-filled with gasoline.

The energy saved from recycling a glass bottle will light a 100-watt bulb for four hours.

Replacing one incandescent lamp (light bulb) with a fluorescent one, saves 500 tons of coal.

Americans comprise about five percent of the world's population, and produce 27% of the world's garbage.



We must be so proud.