JAKE Rolls Over!!! Again!!

This past weekend Jake rolled 195,000 miles.

While I haven't done any background homework on Jake, I'm pretty positive that he still has the original engine that he was manufactured with.

He still looks good.

Here's to another 195,000 more miles.

Hollywood: Going Back To the Future

No one in Hollywood seems to have an original idea anymore. At least not in one of the big budget studios.

Remakes of original films have been going on for years. Some good. Most bad.

Well I've just read the most disturbing thing. This is actually being billed as a sequel. Still it's the principal of the matter.

TOP GUN II

*blank stares and open mouths*

TOP GUN II

I know. I can't believe it myself. WTF?

First off, the way the film is described and the realism approach are two different things.

Tom Cruise returns as a TOP GUN instructor. That's as far as the talk gets.

Now here's the real version.

After narrowly averting a crisis in the Gulf of India and successfully knocking commie pilots from the sky, Mav and Ice Man return to the carrier and a hero’s welcome.

Flash forward now 25 years since we last saw Mav and his lady “Charlie” embrace at the dinner on base. Their corner lot beach front house is on the auction block. They were the last of the holdouts…………the rest of the neighbourhood has become high end condos for the bourgeois that have had to sell their homes in the California budget crisis and downsize.

The poor little 356 Cabriolet is sitting on blocks in the driveway while a balding and slightly heavier Mav wrenches a Harley Panhead in the garage.


Charlie, now all leathery from the California sun and with puffy lips from too many botox injections, leans out the back door with her glass of Boon’s Strawberry Hill and yells for her man: “Hey Mav, take me to bed or lose me forever!”.


7 minutes later we see Mav zipping up his flight suit while heading out back to his Harley so he can go begin another day of flight instruction at the local flight academy for single engine certification. This is all that he is cleared for until the Navy budget can provide him with a much needed glaucoma surgery.

I know, not the happy pretty version you thought I was going for.

Blah! *@#! work today.................

Ya every have one of those days where you don't feel motivated at work?

Me too!!!

This is one of those weeks.

Oh I have plenty to do, I just don't really feel the urgency in completing the work. Makes me glad I'm one of the few around here that actually gets an hour for lunch.

To make things worse, it's actually sunny out and almost 70 degrees. The clincher on that is my window looks right out over the Puget Sound.

All I can think about is going home and putting another coat of black paint on the dining room table. I'm thinking about how much left over Halloween decorations that I have left over and not using that I need to take to my friend. He will be so thrilled. We're both Halloween babies, only he was actually born in Halloween and I got shafted arriving 3 days before. No matter. Halloween is still my Christmas.

I'm pre-occupied with getting all my loose materials and parts together in one spot so that I can continue with fabricating more Steampunk weapons. Ask and I will build. This is the first weapon that I made back in July. It was constructed using parts from the now defunct engine from the Paisley's Subaru. Don't worry, I put in a new engine.

Another thing on my mind is a story idea. I started this blog for two reasons: to vent and to learn to be a better writer.

I definitely deliver on the first. I don't see that my writing potential has increased.

I have started on a script idea for a short film. Sorry........that is a secret for now. All will be revealed in time.

Then I thought "I'll write some kind of short erotic story!" since apparently a lot of writers get a start doing some kind of erotic story or whatever. Only problem is that with as filthy and twisted as my mind is, I just don't have a beginning. All I hear is a drumstick tapping on a high hat cymbal and the a narrator stating "and then suddenly the maid walked in". How fucked up is that?

I had a dream last week. Very vivid. NO it wasn't an erotic dream! It was about cruise ships and the effect of having cruise ships calling port in a city and what all those dollars mean to an economy of the cities they call their home port.

Weird I know!!! I told you my mind was very ADD.

Anyway, I have a story idea on that topic.

Anyway. I don't feel motivated right now. I have too much other crap running around in my head like little kids with scissors and jacked up on Pixi-Stix.

I have to go. I have paperwork to process and coffee to get and the last rice krispy treat to nab.

The other side of the ADA story

You all know what I do, in a round about way, and why.

You know that I can't abide by people not giving consideration for those with disabilities.

Another thing that rears it's ugly little head periodically that I can't stand is someone with a disability that turns their situation into a pity party. Go seek some therapy!

We recently had a guest that (through no fault of his own) had a stateroom that had something go very wrong with it. I can't go into details, but I will say it was bad enough that he and his family had to be moved from the stateroom and into another. The problem is that they were in a wheelchair accessible room and the one that they were moved to wasn't accessible (very easily) to this guest.

Not that the crew didn't try to get him another accessible room, they just weren't available. They were all occupied by others that needed them.

This guest made a huge fuss about the ordeal through the entire voyage. Of course once back home he wrote a letter to our company telling of how inconvenienced he was and how the crew did nothing to make his sailing enjoyable and everything was horrible and that he just.......................and on and on and on and on. BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH.

The reply he received from our guest relations department included an apology and a future cruise credit and other forms of compensation. This apparently was not good enough.

Today we received an email from our guest berating us for the offensive offer and that nothing we do could make up for his horrible trip.

He wanted us to know that he will do everything in his power to spread the bad word about our company and how poorly we treat the disabled and that he will .................BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH.

The most interesting thing this guest did was leave a letter in the stateroom safe for the next guest to find with slanderous information about our company and that they will have just as bad a time as he did and that we are uncaring and unsympathetic towards the disabled.

How sad is that? When you have to stoop that low, you have a giant chip on your shoulders and your disability is just the tip of the iceberg. This is a classic example of a very angry person that is using his circumstance to have everyone feel sorry for him and take advantage of everyone and everything. When someone stands up to him, he uses his condition to bully people into feeling sorry for him in an attempt to get his own way and when it doesn't work he acts out in the manner that he has.

It makes it hard to want to help a person like this. And it's not just this individual with a physical disability. The same can be said with a mental disability or a substance abuse problem.

On a brighter side, the next guests in that room that found his letter had a wonderful time on our ship.

Catholic Shampoo

While shopping in a food store, two nuns happened to pass by

the beer cooler. One nun said to the other, "Wouldn't a nice cold

beer or two taste wonderful on a hot summer evening?"



The second nun answered, "Indeed it would sister, but I would not

feel comfortable buying beer as I am certain it would cause a scene at the checkout."

"I can handle that without a problem." she replied as she picked up a six-pack and headed for the checkout.

"The cashier had a surprised look on his face when the two nuns

arrived with a six-pack of beer. One of the nuns explained "We use beer for washing our hair, a shampoo of sort, if you will."



Without blinking an eye, the cashier reached under the counter,

pulled out a package of pretzel sticks and placed them in the bag

with the beer. He looked the nun straight in the eye, smiled and

said, "The curlers are on the house."

American travelers without compassion

I'm positive I have ranted about this before. If I have then you're going to hear it again. This is something that just hits me in the right spot.

Most Americans are insensitive to those with ADA (American Disabilities Act) needs. I hate all you fuckers that can't do the right thing.

Just a bit of a background about me. In my work position I ensure that those folks with legitimate disabilities, regardless how minor, have access to the accessible facilities that my company provides our guests. One of the ways we ensure this is that we have a form that must be completed and returned that lets us know that the guests in those rooms need them.

This week a guest called to inform us that they needed an accessible stateroom in order to travel on the particular trip they are scheduled for. After contacting the travel agents of the guests in the rooms without that form on file I was contacted by a particular agent that clearly has a problem with her morality compass and was never taught to do the right thing as a child.

When I asked her  if her guests needed the room that they were in she stated that "no they don't need it, but the wife had broken her hand and it would be easier for her to be in this room".

I asked her to please consider moving her guests to another room then since we have someone that needs this room because it's wheelchair accessible. She actually refused to move her guests.

Even after trying to appeal to her better nature and explain that this person is in a wheelchair full time and needs this room to travel she still said "no".

What a *twunt.

While I won't move her guests from the room at this time, I let the front office and housekeeping staff know that the guests currently scheduled for that room don't need it.

What is wrong with this woman that she can't do the right thing? At what point in her life did she decide that people with disabilities were lesser human beings? As someone that has a few family members that are disabled in one form or another this really got to me.

I think the ability to show any real compassion towards those with a disability is a problem that afflicts most Americans.

Yes you heard me. Americans are insensitive to others around them. They seem to have a sense of entitlement about them that is apparently a key to walk on others. It is the same affliction that makes it OK for Americans to travel to foreign countries and believe that those cultures will speak English and welcome them  with open arms. It is the same affliction that apparently provides American travelers with the belief that they will be able to have the same comfortable accomodations abroad that they would have at home and expect those comforts.

Yes I do realise that I am an American and that I'm basically painting a target on myself but I also believe that I am one of the exceptions and that there are other like me. That is after all why I do what I do. It's not a glamorous job and I make very little money for my efforts, but I believe in what I do and that is important to me.

I've rambled so back to my point.
The one singular thing that keeps me hung up on this issue is that even after telling her that if it was her guests that needed a wheelchair accessible room to travel, I would be making this search on their behalf. I even pushed it so far as to ask her "to do the correct and moral thing and let the room go to someone that needs it" and was still told "no".

I just hope that one day she will be become better acquainted with ADA laws in this country. I know that they are confusing, but they are there for a reason.




*note: twunt is my own amalgamated word combining twat and cunt. Feel free to incorporate it into your vocabulary.