Black tie affair

21 percent of men will never wear a tuxedo at an occasion other than a wedding.

---When was the last time you wore a suit or a tie?---

Sick of the damn race card.....

Grey's Anatomy" star Isaiah Washington said racism was a factor in his firing from the hit ABC series after he twice used an anti-gay slur.

Washington, who initially used the epithet during an onset clash with a co-star, told Newsweek magazine that "someone heard the booming voice of a black man and got really scared and that was the beginning of the end for me."

He tried to make amends by expressing remorse and volunteering to enter a counseling program to understand how the confrontation got out of hand, he told Newsweek.

"My mistake was believing that I would get the support from my network and all of my cast mates across the board. My mistake was believing I could correct a wrong with honesty and sincerity," he said in the interview posted online Thursday.

"My mistake was thinking black people get second chances. I was wrong on all fronts," he said.

His unwillingness to act like a submissive black at work was part of the problem, Washington said.

"Well, it didn't help me on the set that I was a black man who wasn't a mush-mouth Negro walking around with his head in his hands all the time. I didn't speak like I'd just left the plantation and that can be a problem for people sometime," he said.

"I had a person in human resources tell me after this thing played out that `some people' were afraid of me around the studio. I asked her why, because I'm a 6-foot-1, black man with dark skin and who doesn't go around saying `Yessah, massa sir' and `No sir, massa' to everyone?

"It's nuts when your presence alone can just scare people, and that made me a prime candidate to take the heat in a dysfunctional family," he said.

ABC declined comment Thursday. In its one public statement regarding Washington, issued in January, the network said his actions were "unacceptable."

Washington, who used the slur against co-star T.R. Knight during a confrontation with Patrick Dempsey, repeated the word backstage at the Golden Globes in January in denying the first incident. A public apology to Knight and others followed.

---It seems like the "race card" is being used more and more in todays time and I for one am sick and tired of seeing it used. Do you think it gets used too much in todays society? I just stumbled across this story this AM while checking out the news....---

Trip Postponed

---For those of you that care, I just wanted to let you know that my trip to Chicago has been postponed until late August or September for financial reasons. Maybe by then you guys will have freed up schedules and we can ALL get together!---

Bigfoot search continues, is he real or not???

The Associated Press

MANISTIQUE, Mich. Jun 27, 2007 (AP)

Researchers will visit the Upper Peninsula next month to search for evidence of the legendary creature known as "Bigfoot" or "Sasquatch."

The expedition will focus on eastern Marquette County, said Matthew Moneymaker of the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization.

We'll be looking for evidence supporting a presence. ... We hope to meet local people who might have seen a Sasquatch or heard of someone else who had an encounter," Moneymaker told the Daily Press of Escanaba.

The legend of Bigfoot dates back centuries. But skeptics have challenged accounts of sightings, and practical jokers have staged hoaxes that have included grainy film footage of people dressed in costumes.

But Moneymaker said members of his organization have either glimpsed Bigfoot or gotten close enough to hear the creature in all but three of 30 expeditions in the United States and Canada.

The late Grover Krantz, a Washington State University professor who specialized in cryptozoology, the study of creatures that have not been proven to exist, believed Bigfoot was a "gigantopithecus," a branch of primitive man believed to have existed 3 million years ago.

(This version CLARIFIES that Krantz is dead and that he was a professor, not a medical doctor.

Double Handed up date (almost a week late)

As some of you already know every year my dad and I participate in a sail boat race. This years race was last week, and I thought I would share some of the details.

Well for a third year out of the last eight “Logical Order” my dad’s sail boat did not complete the Double handed race course. This year a lack of wind and the prospect of only lack luster wind later that Thursday night can be most attributed to our lack of sticktoattivness. How ever I must admit that unlike those few who did finish (twelve hours later), that at this point in my life I have no desire to pull an all-nighter in the name of getting from point a to b…especially when finished I have to immediately turn around and race home to prepare for my sons birthday party the very next day.

For the last eight years my dad and I have competed in this LMSS sponsored race.

For me the race is a welcome opportunity to get a little one on one time with my dad.

Although the both of us have plenty of sailing experience, neither one is serious about racing. So for us this is just a fun race. However like most people both of us enter with every intention of winning.

Our quitting streak began two years ago when my step mom took my place while my wife was in labor with our son. They did not complete the course that year due to sail problems. Their sail maker reportedly said to a fellow racer after the race, “wow they really ripped the shit out of that sail”. The next year my dad and I made it slightly north of Milwaukee only to be confronted with little to no wind for 4 hours followed by way to much wind out of the wrong direction. That wind event was actually one of the more memorable I have seen on Lake Michigan. When the squall approached us out of the north the skies were clear the sun was setting over Milwaukee and we were drifting along with the current under a full spread of limp sail. On the radio other boaters told of its approach and we could see its presence on the surface of the water. It was a dark black line and it literally sped towards us. On one side of the line the waters were calm blue and shinny, and the other was deep blue almost black and the water was a matt finish with no sheen or reflection at all. The first puff to cross our bow registered well over 40 mph, and then sustained it self at around 30pmh. The wind speed while sudden and dramatic (our boat was healed over more than 35 degrees and we struggled for a few minutes to reduce our sail area) was in fact not the reason we pulled out. Direction and destination were larger factors of the equation that lead us to pull out. To finish that race we would have had to tack continuously for several more hours into the night then enter the harbor under sail in the dark, raft off the other race boats for a few hours only to turn around at first light and run home for my son’s birthday party. No thanks we chose instead to ride the rollers home for the next six hours.

Last Thursday we tried once again however this time we only made it as far as the Oak Creek power station far short of Milwaukee. The race has begins in Winthrop Harbor IL, and finishes inPort Washington WI (approximately 53 miles from A to B). The gun for our class (gold) went off at 9am during a thunderstorm with rain, lighting, and 2o mph winds from the north east. For us start actually went well all considered and we were completively placed in the middle of our class which was comprised of 6 other boats of similar characteristic. So from 8am on through 5pm we tacked up wind covered a distance of over 45 miles, however we really only completed 17 miles of the race course. At 4 pm approximately 2.5 miles due east of the oak creek power plant (36 miles south of Port Washington) all wind ceased and we began to float in circles. The weather forecast called for light variable winds to continue out of the north and east and were not in our favor. With ideal conditions we would have made our destination in an additional 6 hours, however with predicted conditions our time into port was unknown, and likely to be 12 or better (the remaining boats all crossed after 5am the next morning). So once again with a birthday party looming we pulled the plug and made for Racine and had a warm meal in port, it was actually a good time. Again I am thankful to have spent time with my dad, and next year I think I will use my head and schedule my childes party before the race.

Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most.

Mark Twain

Haha....

This lady was at the gas station pumping gas and smoking a cigarette when her arm caught fire.

When the police arrived they shot her for waving a firearm.

Discrimination or not?

---Is this discrimination or is this just teaching a certain type of people that may not know how to live right a way to live better amongst themselves?---

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) -- Australia's leader has announced plans to ban pornography and alcohol for Aborigines in some areas, and to tighten control over their welfare benefits to fight what he called a child sex abuse crisis among them.

Prime Minister John Howard was responding to an officially commissioned report last week saying child abuse was rampant in indigenous communities in the Northern Territory, fueled by alcohol abuse, unemployment, poverty and other factors causing a breakdown in civil society.

"This is a national emergency," Howard told Parliament Thursday. "We're dealing with a group of young Australians for whom the concept of childhood innocence has never been present."

Some Aboriginal leaders immediately slammed the plan as paternalistic, saying they had not been consulted about it and that they objected to restricting how indigenous people can spend welfare benefits.

Others applaud the plan's requirement that at least half of area Aborigines' welfare checks be spent on food and other necessities -- a measure aimed to cut spending on gambling and alcohol. They want similar conditions placed on payments in a trial in neighboring Queensland state.

Family welfare payments would also be linked to children's school attendance.

However, some warn that such a system -- applied only to Aborigines -- could breach federal discrimination laws.

The only completely consistent people are the dead.

Aldous Huxley

What a shitty attitude

Year: A period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments.

Ambrose Bierce

Happy Fathers Day

---I just wanna wish my Offmen brothers a Happy Fathers Day....what ya got on tap?---

Coming Soon....

---Hey brothers.....

I will be in town July 8th thru the 12th. I hope I can see ALL of you. Lets get a peek at those calenders now and keep a night or two open for me, ok? As time grows closer, we can all figure something out. Maybe we can get together at someones place? Just an idea....

Throw something out there guys, lemme know what you think????---

Crazy Cyclists

LONDON, England (Reuters) -- Hundreds of naked cyclists, some sporting strategically-placed body paint, toured the streets of London and other cities around the world Saturday to protest oil dependency and the car culture.

Traffic came to a standstill and onlookers gaped or took photographs as the bare cyclists streamed past London's landmarks, blowing whistles and waving flags saying "Rights for Bikes".

Cyclists in Paris, France; Madrid, Spain; and Vancouver, British Columbia, among other cities, joined in what was the fourth annual world naked bike ride.

More modest cyclists wore shorts, bikinis or strips of tape.

Funny one....

How many Republicans does it take to change a light bulb?

Three. One to change the bulb, one to call the media and publicize it, and one to blame the electric bill on the Democrats.

Sold!

A few of you have been asking, so hear is the rub. We closed on our old property yesterday morning, and closed on our new property in the afternoon. Our old house was on the market for all of 8 days, we had over 18 showings and multiple offers. The entire experience was very fast paced and beat all our expectations. We had quite a bit of help from a number of family and friends (IE, renovations and baby sitting), so to those of you who might be lurking here on the OMI blog... Thanks!

Einstein was way smart!

Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That's relativity. Albert Einstein

Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can.

i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg.

The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde

Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are,

the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit

pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a

pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef,

but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling

was ipmorantt!

Quote

Middle age is when your broad mind and narrow waist begin to change places.
- E. Joseph Crossman

---I couldnt agree with this more.---

random thoughts

“Federal officers can freely stop vehicles for inspection at these checkpoints without any required level of suspicion or justification. That is the law. Most of these checkpoints have separate areas reserved nearby where a vehicle can then be nearly stripped under what is called "secondary inspection". The referral of a vehicle to "secondary inspection" needs only to be "selective" and does not require any "reasonable suspicion".
“It is best if you do not annoy, abuse, alarm, alert, tease, torment, or disturb a Border Patrol Agent at any of these checkpoints.
“Border Patrol Agents cannot and will not take your drivers license away from you. (The federal agent working at a legal Port of Entry can take your driver's license or almost any other documentation away from you.)
“The Border Patrol Agent will engage you in "consensual conversation". "Consensual conversation" is not interrogation. Consensual conversation is ... conversation.
"Good morning, how are you, that's a nice gun you have in your pocket", are all simply one side of a consensual conversation, but in polite society they do require that you make some verbal response.
“While the Agent is having this consensual conversation with you you are -- essentially -- detained. You and your vehicle cannot leave. It is very important that you do not attempt to leave.
“Leaving the Agent without his permission will almost certainly be met with what is called in the vernacular of the profession a "Dynamic Apprehension". We civilians might call it ….. a chase and a tackle.
“The problem with a Dynamic Apprehension is that one or more of you will fall to the ground and or bounce off of various hard objects like walls, cars, the sidewalk or rocks and bushes if perpetrated in more suburban areas.
“This fall almost certainly will be with you -- the illegal / the uncooperative -- on the bottom and with the usually larger more athletically inclined Agent on top. If somehow you wind up on top then things can get very energetic and the mysteries of your life may be found in your autopsy report.”
from an unofficial us borderpatrol web site http://www.usborderpatrol.com look under being detained.

i have to drive through one of these checkpoints to get from my house (IN THE U.S.A.) to the next large town, i.e. tucson.

back to the good old days, dj irene

Too many to drink?

An old friend sent this joke to me and I thought more than a few of you might enjoy it.

A man and his wife are awakened, at 3 o'clock in the morning by a
loud pounding on the door. The man gets up and goes to the door where
a drunken stranger, standing in the pouring rain, is asking for a push.
"Not a chance," says the husband, "it is 3 o'clock in the morning!" He
slams the door and returns to bed.
"Who was that?" asked his wife.
"Just some drunk guy asking for a push," he answers.
"Did you help him?" She asks.
"No, I did not, it is 3 o'clock in the morning and it is pouring out
there!"
"Well, you have a short memory," says his wife. "Can't you remember, about
three months ago when we broke down, and those two guys helped us?
I think you should help him, and you should be ashamed of yourself!"
The man does as he is told, gets dressed, and goes out into the pounding
rain. He calls out into the dark, "Hello, are you still there?"
"Yes" comes back the answer.
"Do you still need a push?" calls out the husband.
"Yes, please!" comes the reply from the dark.
"Where are you?" asks the husband.
"Over here, on the swing!", replies the drunk.

What do you think?

In 2003, 17-year-old Genarlow Wilson was an honors student, standout athlete and homecoming king preparing for his SATs with an eye toward college. But that all changed after a New Year's Eve party involving alcohol, marijuana and sex.

Wilson, now 21, is serving 10 years without the possibility of parole after a jury found him guilty of aggravated child molestation for having consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old girl that night. He was charged with rape for being one of several male party goers to have sex with a 17-year-old girl, but was acquitted.

Wilson's sentence has been widely criticized, even by members of the jury that convicted him and the author of the 1995 law that put him behind bars.

"The law was designed to protect kids against really, really bad people doing very bad things," said the sponsor, former state Rep. Matt Towery, a Republican. "It was never intended to put kids in jail for oral sex."

On Wednesday, Wilson's legal team will again try to free their client as a Monroe County Court hears a claim that Wilson's constitutional rights are being violated.

The lawyers will argue that his legal counsel during his 2005 trial was ineffective. Among other things, his lawyer did not subpoena the 15-year-old to testify. The petition also argues that the sentence was grossly disproportionate

---Do you think the law went too far in this case?---

random thoughts

"If we're going to have borders and we're going to allow capital to move freely between borders, and we're going to allow products to move freely between borders, but we're going to keep labor chained to the country of origin, then what we're doing is inherently . . . redistributing wealth dramatically from labor to capital. So . . . if you're going to chain [down] labor, you've got to chain [down] the rest. You can't have capitalists running around the globe, making money, making billions of dollars, but labor can't go where they can get the highest wage? That's insane. That's socialism for the rich and it's the market for everybody else." -- Tim Wise

cheeseburger in paradise, jimmy buffet

Vonnegut quote

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.
- Kurt Vonnegut

---So in other words, I shouldnt pretend to be a crabby wanna be old timer anymore, I should just be one.---

Quote

I think it is good that books still exist, but they do make me sleepy.

- Frank Zappa

---I agree with the freaky Frank on this one, books do make me sleepy, Id rather listen to some music or watch a good old time movie.---

The damn Dems go at it!

MANCHESTER, N.H.--About 45 minutes into last night's Democratic presidential candidates' debate, Sen. Hillary Clinton, standing between her two top rivals, leaned back, smiled, and watched as they duked it out over healthcare proposals.

The back and forth between Sen. Barack Obama and former Sen. John Edwards at center stage on the campus of St. Anselm College wasn't the most riveting exchange in an evening dominated by discussion of the Iraq war, but politically the moment was perhaps the most telling.

As Clinton's lead in national presidential preference polls of Democratic voters continues to widen, Obama and Edwards have sharpened their rhetoric, while the Clinton campaign strategy to keep her above the fray as the presumptive nominee played out almost seamlessly last night. (Clinton insisted that the differences among Democrats are minor, that it's only with the Republicans that disagreements run deep.)

---Did anyone catch any of the debate last night?---

Story Time

Here's a little history for you boys. Some of you know parts, some of you won't give a shit. But since I had to spend a few hours with Mongo's gas, I figured I'd share.
Several years ago another one of us managed to convince a girl to be his wife, in celebration of the nuptuals a couple of his friends gave him a box full of bike parts and a very stylish old frame.
Several years later another friend became a budding bicycle mechanic, so the two of them decided to get together over several beers and re-assemble the bike.
The only thing missing was the front fork (I just so happened to have a spare), and the hardware to put the rear fender on (I was too lazy to dig out something to jury rig it).

So here it is, after a great many years. This sexy beast rides again.

I'm particularly fond of the white walls, and the gas tank. Frank absolutly refused to let me take a picture of him actually on the bike. but you can use your imagination. His daughter seemed excited about the idea that she would be able to take a ride with Daddy.

Just checking in.....

---How is everyone doing?

Im good, thanks. The weather is definitely starting to look a lot like summer here, its getting warmer and warmer, even though it has rained from time to time. Hows things going on your end guys?

Sorry Im pressed for time this morning, gotta run, lemme know whats up!---