This morning I played a game of online baseball on the PS3 and it lasted for 18 innings. I was losing to the Angels 3-0 in the 8th inning, but my Dodgers put up 3 runs to tie it. From there it stayed tied until the 18th inning. Brad Penny came in for relief and pitched almost an entire game. In the bottom of the 18th Jeff Kent came up and knocked one over the wall to win the game. Very satisfying feeling! You can check the box score here.

On the way home we were driving on the freeway, and traffic was moving really well. Then the guy in front of me started to brake and put on his turn signal. Then at the last minute he swerved to avoid some debris in our lane, leaving me ZERO time to get out of the way. If you see something in the road a long ways out, don’t swerve at the last minute. He could have stopped completely! But no, I got to hit some remnants of a bumper or something and get nice big scratches on the front of the new car. Ugh. Now I’ve got to take it in to the body shop for something small and pay my $250 deductible. Turd.

In better news, the baby’s room is moving along. Everything is painted and I put up new blinds. Our stroller is on the way from Target that we bought with gift cards from Grandpa. We still need to pick out baby furniture, but Stacie has seen some that she likes. She went yesterday with a friend and registered for a bunch of stuff at Babies R Us. You can visit our baby’s registry here!

I post about blog trends, and then I go into hibernation.

I’d like to point out that Curt and John are back from the dead. Maybe I should start a “Blarg Zombies” section for the people that come back from the dead quite often. Curt has a different link, so update your bookmarks and RSS readers.

Sometimes when I leave for work the local school bus is picking up children, and sometimes they have the red lights flashing and the stop signs extended. Like a good citizen I approach said school bus, and when I near the yellow bus, I apply my brakes and wait. Usually this is uneventful, but today there was an idiot behind me. As I started to slow, the moron behind me started to peek around me to see what I was doing. I figured he would see the school bus, and realize why I was stopping.

Nope.

As I came to a full stop, he proceeded to go around me, and drive right by the big school bus with flashing lights and red stop sign. And on top of that, he looked at me like I was the idiot! Using my powers of generalization, the two men in the extremely beat up and old Nissan looked highly illegal, without a clue how American traffic laws work. Flippin’ idiots.

And I breathe deeply, and feel refreshed. Right now I mean, not then. I carried that around all day anxiously awaiting to dump it on the Blarg. Now I feel better.

I came up with a title for the book after almost 7 months of working on it. I can’t believe it has been that long. It will be called Terra Nova, or some variation of that if there is already a popular book with that title. I didn’t hit my daily word goal the night I came up with the title, but the satisfaction of knowing the title of my book was well worth it. The original project name had been “New Earth,” so Terra Nova is a much cooler translation of the boring English.

And my brain dump is now over.

We got into Cedar City today around 3:30 PST. We hurried our way past Las Vegas and beat the Friday afternoon traffic by getting out of town around 7 am this morning. We’ve done the drive to Vegas before, which is quite boring. Right past Vegas though it starts to get a little interesting. We drove on I15 through the Virgin River Gorge. We found a spot to pull over and took some pictures of the beautiful colored mountains. Some Panda and Golden Spoon in St. George, and then another hour to our destination in Cedar City. Our friends Angie and Rob moved here about a year ago, so we plan on visiting with them tomorrow.

I’m taking pictures, but I didn’t bring the cable to put them on the laptop. And I don’t have any decent picture software to use, and no mouse…and bleh, I’ll wait until I get home.

This is a recurring short story that I can write in spurts. There is no real beginning or end, but will simply chronicle the mishaps of a pizza delivery man. It is most certainly inspired by my time as a pizza delivery truck driver, but as you will see, the similarities stop there.

    A couple of shady looking characters walked into Mancini’s Pizza in Santa Monica. The elderly lady, and what appeared to be her granddaughter, were obviously up to no good. They approached the counter. The owner, Mr. Biagio Mancini, waitied warily behind the register. He’d seen their kind before, and at the tender age of 74, he was suspicious of everyone.
    “Excuse me sir,” the old woman asked in a frail voice, “But could you change our dollar for quarters?”
    At least five times a day this happened. The parking outside, save for two spots reserved for Mancini’s Pizza, were all metered. People like these two sorry beggars were the bane of Biagio Mancini’s existence.
    “What? I’m so so sorry. You think this is a bank, no? Down the street, you go the bank.” Mr. Mancini’s aged voice had practiced this line countless times.
    “Oh, no sir, we just needed change for the meter and wondered-”
    “Yes, yes, you and everybody else. No change! You go now!”
    “But just four quarters sir…”
    Mancini’s Italian accent grew thicker with his anger. In a whisper the woman could barely hear he said “Get out of my store.”
    “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
    Mancini reached for the long metal pole used to reach deep into the pizza oven. Using both hands he held the pole like a warrior headed to battle.
    In a slightly louder voice he said again, “Get out of my store.”
    The woman looked downright confused and began to back away from the crazed grey haired man.
    “Get out of my store,” Mancini said, now slightly louder than the average speaking voice.
    “What a sad old man-”
    “Get out of my store!” he said, now at yelling volume. He muttered Italian curse words of the foulest nature under his breathe.
    The old lady and her granddaughter hastened their pace and left the store without quarters.

continue reading…

This is the last chapter before the finale. There are two chapters left to be written, but I will have to write both at the same time, just as you will need to read them both at the same time. I apologize if it takes an extra day or two for them to be completed.

It looks like I’m well on my way to a 10k word story, so I consider that an accomplishment. Technically a monkey and a keyboard could make a 10k word story, but hopefully mine has had slightly more coherency. Then again I’ve never read a monkey’s story, so I shouldn’t jump to conclusions, but I digress. Enjoy.

Yesterday on our day off we tried to see The Price is Right. A group from school had fixed to go, but we ran into problems. People backed out and there was terrible traffic. Long story short, we didn’t get in. It was still an interesting experience though.

The people on the show that look super excited to be there are real. The crowd was yelling and screaming while they waited in line…3 hours before the taping! Some of these crazy people showed up at 7 am for a 1:30 pm taping. Sorry Bob, but I don’t like you that much.

After finding out we couldn’t get in, we walked around at The Grove for a bit. It was pretty cool for being crowded by a huge metropolis all around. I really don’t like downtown areas at all.

Oh well.

It’s almost election time here in California, and it was a lot of fun posting about and researching the propositions last time. I think Andrew started it last time, but I jumped on the bandwagon.

I’ll start by posting about the propositions, and if I have time, we’ll get to the people. Most of my information will be coming from the LA Times Proposition Summaries, the State Voter Guide, Tom McClintock’s Positions, and a letter the teacher’s union sent me.

To let you know where I stand (in case you’re thick as a brick and can’t tell), I’m very conservative. I’m technically a Republican, but I’m a conservative first and foremost (yes, there’s a difference). When it comes to propositions I will vote against them 99% of the time if they have ANYTHING to do with bonds and government bureacracy.

So I don’t have to explain it again, bonds are what bankrupted the state under Gray Davis. Instead of the state coming up with a budget they can live with, politicians like to put bonds on the ballot and run up our debt. The government should live within it’s means. It’s idiotic to pay for fundamental infrastructure with debt. Something that important to us as a state should be part of our yearly budget. Bonds also should only be used for projects that will still be around when it’s done being paid off. Nobody takes out a 30 year loan to buy a cell phone. You take out loans like that for a house that will still be around and useful in 30 years. Most proposition bonds though will be spent on day to day stuff that should be handled in a budget.

As for government bureacracy, most propositions do nothing more than make government bigger and more bloated. As a conservative, smaller government is something very important to me (see, there is a difference between Republicans and conservatives) . With these two key pieces of info to look for, on to the propositions!

Prop 1A – Transportation Funding Protection

My Summary: Taxes on gasoline are easily used for non-transportation projects. Under this proposition it would make borrowing money from this fund for non-transportation uses much more difficult.

My Opinion: I think taxes should have a specific purpose, and it makes sense that gas taxes should go to pay for transportation expenses. I don’t want some Senator with a pet project borrowing this money for something else I might not agree with. This prop probably won’t change much, but let’s use gas taxes to make the crowded roads better.

Bottom Line: Use gas taxes for the roads!

I am voting YES on Prop 1A.

Prop 1B – Highway Safety, Traffic Reduction, Air Quality, and Port Security Bond Act of 2006

My Summary: Roads are clogged, people don’t think the air is clean enough, and our ports need better security. This prop would sell almost $20 billion dollars in bonds to pay for stuff like better roads, upgrade school busses so they don’t stink, and make the ports safer.

My Opinion: I bet you can already guess my opinion because they used a four letter word….BOND! These bonds would end up costing the state another $20 billion dollars in interest ($40 billion total). This is why government is so ineffective. Instead of forcing state officials to make difficult choices about where money should go, tax payers just throw bond money at them, and then they don’t have to decide.

Bottom Line: Bonds are the devil.

I am voting NO on Prop 1B.

Prop 1C - Housing and Emergency Shelter Trust Fund Act of 2006

My Summary: I’ll cheat and give you the LA Times summary: "The measure would authorize $2.9 billion in bonds to build urban parks, provide low-interest loans and grants for affordable housing, farm-worker housing and homeless shelters."

My Opinion: I was getting nauseous reading this one. Not only are they bonds, but they’re for urban parks and farm worker housing. What the crap?! Who is wasting their time in Sacramento trying to find ways to spur farm worker housing? Stop screwing with the economy you (insert bad words here).

Bottom Line: Not only are bonds the devil, but also whichever moron wrote this prop.

I am voting NO on Prop 1C.

Prop 1D – Kindergarten – University Public Education Facilities Bond Act of 2006

My Summary: Bonds of $10 billion dollars would be sold to pay for various school related projects. Interest would cost another $10 billion dollars.

My Opinion: More bonds! Schools have waaaay too much money already. We pay for lunch for kids, we have millions of dollars earmarked for poor kids, and guess what? Our schools still suck. I don’t care if I had a bazillion dollars for my classroom, it wouldn’t matter. The students who receive no support at home, their parents are losers, or they don’t care about learning English…it won’t matter for them. It’s not about money! Stop throwing money at the education problem, it’s just making it worse.

Bottom Line: More money = less responsibility.

I am voting NO on Prop 1D.

Prop 1E - Disaster Preparedness and Flood Prevention Bond Act of 2006

My Summary: It sells $4 billion in bonds to help pay for levee improvements and flood control/prevention.

My Opinion: Tom McClintock said yes to this bond measure, so I really looked into it. While I’ll agree with him that it’s important to protect our water, it’s still ridiculous to pay for it with bonds. Some other stuff I read said there are 2,000 miles of levees to maintain, but this is only enough money for 25 miles.

Bottom Line: Again, if this is SO important, stop sending the morons next to my parents welfare checks and get on this important task of improving the levees.

I am voting NO on Prop 1E (Sorry Tom).

Sorry this post was so long, but I had to tackle all the "1" props or I’d never find the motivation again. I’m putting up a special 2006 California Election page to the right to keep track of all these posts. Bookmark it!

Thought I might send some traffic over to Niall and hope to expand some good discussion topics. He has a great post up with a lot of personal beliefs. Head on over there and see if anything resonates with you. You can post anonymously, just make sure you put a name.

Niall’s LiveJournal