A New Face

I've been a bad blogger of late, and for that I am deeply apologetic. I could blame pretty much anything; work, family obligations, etc.... but the truth is I just couldn't get with it. Lost my interest.

I think I know why this has happened. The obligation to blog just took over. It was all about the post, and not about the writing. Of course some would argue that it was never about the writing based on what I was putting up here, but that is an argument for a different time.

It all hit me today on the train home. This thing that I've done here for three years isn't about my obligation to post or even to entertain my readers. This thing is about what I'm thinking, what happens in my life and what makes life worth living. So I'm not going to feel guilty about not posting. Hell, I take back that apology!

Anyway today I had kind of a cool experience.

I've been riding the Chicago North....check that, Metra - they called it the Chicago Northwestern when my dad rode it - for years. One of the things that has not changed is that in this automated world we still have conductors on our trains. Not only do we have conductors, but the guys we have are lifers. Conducting is their career, and every day the same familiar face is there to say hello and take our tickets.

Today we had a new conductor on the train. To non-commuters this probably doesn't seem like a big deal. Guy comes into the car and announces "Tickets!" and then leaves. Perhaps we have a quick chat with him at the stop while he opens the door, but our relationship isn't really all that deep.

None-the-less these guys, and yes they're almost all men, become a daily part of our lives and we all develop a certain familiarity with each other. I remember back when my dad rode the train to between Chicago and Arlington Heights, that I was always so impressed with the conductors. They wore neat, clean uniforms, had good haircuts and went about their duties in the most professional of manners. It is no different today. In a world where male fashion generally starts with an announcement of some sort of team or brand loyalty, the Metra conductors are an important link to the past when men were men, and working an 8 hour shift was honorable duty.

And so these men have our respect and to some degree our friendship. Today, when we had a new conductor it was a moment for pause. Although he was a new guy, he obviously was from conductor central casting. Clean cut, sharply pressed white short sleeve shirt, blue pants and conductor's hat. He took our tickets quickly, unobtrusively and allowed us to continue with whatever we were doing with a minimum of disruption. When we got to our stop, he opened the door, reminded us to "watch our step" and wished us all a good night. We returned the sentiment.

As I sat there a thought hit me. I'm middle age. In 20 years, hopefully less, I'll be retiring and my years on Metra will come to an end. Hopefully, if all goes well, I may just have met the conductor that will caution me to watch my step, and instead of wishing me goodnight will say, "enjoy the rest of your life". He'll board the train, close the door and the cycle will continue.

I should probably get to know his name, don't you think?

Caption This

"Yes, let me try to explain thees one more time Meeess Nancy"

"You have theese two wires. One ees red and one ees green. Eeet ees very, very important to press at thee same time"

"At the same time Mr. Assad? Or do you mean one first and the other second"

"No Meees Nancy. Same time! You must press SAME TIME!"

"And should I have my unseasonable falling leaf scarf over my head, or fashionably draped over my shoulders, Mr Assad?"

"Who do I look like to you Mees Nancy?! I am not that Karl Lagerfeld man! I am Bakshir! Optomitrist and (alleged) murderer of Amir Taheri! You must press theee buttons Meees Nancy! Press them hard....at theee same time!"

"And tell me again what happens when I press the buttons...I seem to have forgotten"

"Ahhh, sacre bleau! You press theee buttons when you get close to Booosh. Then we will have regime change"

"Oh they're magic buttons then! Ooooh I so like magic buttons. They remind my of my coed days in the all girl dorm. Why there was this lovely young lass - talk about a magic button - who joined our floor when I was a senior. She was very impressionable, and I sort of took her under my...."

"Enough! I can't take anymore of thees. Just poosh thee buttons Mees Nancy!"

"She was blonde, and eager to learn....."

"Ahhhh why can we not find a man to do theees work?! Does anyone have John Kerry's cell number!"

"An Extra Visible Inch on My Pe***s"

How many times have you heard those words spoken in a product endorsement? Well ok, a lot, but that is just because you're spending too much time listening to under billing sports radio stations.

Check out this link to Amazon. Pretty good yucks.

Friday Morning Wine Blogging?

My intentions were good, and that is all that matters these days, right? I mean how many times do we hear people saying things like, "well yes, he robbed the bank, but he did it to feed his family", or "I wanted to help 42M people who don't have insurance with my healthcare plan, so the fact that it was a disaster means little in view of my glorious intentions"?

Or something like that.

The point is, I was going to fire up the wine blog last night and return to that practice previously popular here of Thursday Night Wine Blogging. And the fact is, I did pretty well; nice bottle of wine, Riedel glass, and over the course of two hours our so, I drank the whole thing.

So what went wrong? I was so busy doing some other stuff I didn't have time to write my impressions down. Lucky for you folks, my taste memory is nothing short of legendary and so this morning I shall fill you in on last night's enjoyment.

Bottom Line: Saint Gregory Pinot Noir 2005 is a heck of a good value.

The story behind this little baby is that some dude out in Mendecino inherited vineyards that his grandfather planted almost one hundred years ago. The dude, who's name is Greg Graziano, has now established 4 labels under which he produces 30 - 40 wines. How he does so with any consistent quality is beyond me, and I hold out the possibilty that the rest of his production is a complete nightmare. As for St. Gregs Pinot, I'm totally there.

The bottle cost me around $18 bucks. I'll admit going in that, despite the back label's claims of a "traditional burgundian winemaking method", I thought this was going to be another Cali fruit bomb as most of that state's production in this price range seems to be. As it turns out this really wasn't the case. Oh, I'll admit the wine was a bit more explosive than one might find produced in France, but the truth is that it demonstrated nice fruit, solid earthiness typical of European approaches and a subtle oaking that made the whole thing come together nicely in the mouth.

This is not a sophisticated wine for aging in the seller, nor is it richly textured. At $18 bucks though, it is a solid choice that can be paired with any hearty meal.

Global Warming = China Syndrome

Oh no! Look at the cute little bears! Why they're in trouble...their home is...it's....it's......


MEEEEELLLLLLTTTTTTIIIIINNNNNGGG!!!

And all because you prefer to motor your way through life, belching carbon, smog and God knows what else into our precious ecosystem! Bad person! Very bad, bad person!

But wait what is THIS.

Well, apparently it's a friggin' lie folks, fed to the fawning media by that bloated wonder Al "The Goreacle" Gore. Read the story. I don't want to spoil anything for you, but it turns out that ice tends to melt in August, and that polar bears can swim. My guess is they'd find Al's bloated carcass pretty tasty too, which would do nature more net good than his ridiculous crusade.

I can't say that any one thing convinced me that the global warming "crisis" was a load of crap, because it was really the sum total of all the goofiness that surrounds the crusade. It's the campaign for government dollars to finance studies, the call by poor countries (read dirty polluters) to put economic constraints on rich countries, and of course, the enforced group think around the global warming elite.

But how did I decide that Global Warming was this decade's China Syndrome? It was when this song, this awful, awful song won an Oscar award. Can anyone listen to this nightmare of a tune and tell me what Oscar winning song in the history of the Oscars was worse? Of course not, because a worse song simply does not exist.

I mean really look at these lyrics:

And as a child
I danced like it was 1999
My dreams were wild
The promise of this new world
Would be mine
Now I am throwing off the carelessness of youth
To listen to an inconvenient truth

"As a child I danced like it was 1999?" What the hell does that mean! "Now I'm throwing off the carelessness of youth to listen to an inconvenient truth"? This is the stuff of Oscar winning songs? My bet is that the only person who listens to this song is Al Gore while he preens in the mirror and says all those comforting words that the shrink gave to him to get over "The Loss".

Oh this song has it all preachy lyrics, hopelessly ridiculous rhymes, and of course the natural presumption that if one doesn't agree then one is either stupid, asleep or evil. Most likely all three.

What this world needs is not another folk singer, croaking out a song about environmental science that she can't possibly begin to understand, nor do we need a bloated ex-veep with too much time on his hands. Nope what we need is a good cold snap so that these folks can go back to worrying about THIS.

Damascus Nancy

There she is, in all her glory! The new leader of the Democratic party! One day she is demanding U.S. surrender, and the next she is sucking up to a terror state.

Well played! Well played Damascus Nancy!

A query. Why the falling leaf motif? Is this some sort of signal to her terror masters, or was she just to cheap to get something more seasonal, say tulips or robins - I suppose the Easter Bunny wouldn't go down very well over there. Because it's one thing to sell out your country, but to do so in such poor style, well frankly I think we deserve better.

Then again, communists never were much on fashion were they?

The Asked Her To Leave?

Boy, things sure have changed since I was in college! Why back then, if a woman was found naked, masturbating on the living room couch our reaction was to do two things immediately:

1. Find as many $1 bills as possible
2. Get her more beer!

From the article:

"While fraternity members were eating in the dining room, a woman entered the house's living room, took off her clothes and started masturbating, said LSA junior Dan Nye, the president of the Washtenaw Avenue fraternity.......Fraternity members asked the woman to leave the house, but she refused and continued masturbating for about half an hour, Nye said...... Fraternity members said they will throw out two couches in the living room because of the incident, Nye said."

To top it all off, they're going to throw out the couches! What, exactly, is wrong with these guys? Is it possible that of all the things that go on in a fraternity, of all the debauchery those couches have seen this incident of a naked woman masturbating on a couch is what crossed the line for these boys? All I can say, is I'm glad I went to college when I did, because we tended to view these sorts of things in an entirely different way.