I copied a bunch from home last night and thought I’d throw a few up here so you could see what’s up at Casa de TMLS lately.
Here are the ones the wife had taken for Valentine’s Day:
Archive for February 13th, 2006
A few days I posted an entry about a really fat woman suing Southwest Airlines for discrimination because they asked her to buy two seats to acommodate her enormous self.
If you don’t think she’s as fat as I say, here’s her photo.
Now, today I stumbled upon the following article that discusses the verdict of a trial of a similar nature, except that this offended fat woman was black. Here’s the text for those of you that don’t use tabbed browsing:
CONCORD, N.H. — A jury on Friday said Southwest Airlines did not racially discriminate against a black woman when she was asked to buy a second seat on a plane because of her size.
The jury deliberated for a little over an hour before finding against Nadine Thompson, who sued Southwest in federal court. She claimed the airline’s “customer of size” policy was unfairly applied to her after she boarded a flight at Manchester Airport in 2003.
Joel Drake, a Southwest employee, testified earlier that Thompson accused him of being a “racist pig” when he tried to explain the company’s policy and swore at him. He said in 18 years with Southwest, he’d never encountered such horrible accusations and told his boss he couldn’t do his job anymore. He took six weeks off and requested a lower position.
Thompson testified that Drake was bullying her and she felt scared, so words were her only way to fight back. She said that no Southwest employees, including Drake, ever explained to her why she needed to buy a second seat.
“Even if you’re the only black person on a flight … you still can’t prove race,” Thompson said after the verdict. “If they don’t fix these problems with their policy, other people are going to come at them.”
Yawn.
My first problem with this case is that this woman screaming RACISM devalues every other case of racism that actually exists in this country. But she can’t see past the end of her supersized Jersey Mike’s Sub to realize that.
Secondly, there has to come a point where this “take no personal responsibility and sue and blame everyone else in the world for our problems” mentality has to end.
Where that will be, I don’t know. Maybe this case will help a little.
I don’t know what it is, but it seems that you can be the biggest dumbass in the free world and not only get but keep the job as second most powerful man in the United States. How is it possible that these buffoons like Quayle and Ford and Cheney got to where they ended up in politics?
Unless you live under a rock, you’ve heard the story out of Texas the Cheney’s office did it’s level damndest to cover up:
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas - A 78-year-old hunting companion of Vice President Dick Cheney was recovering in stable condition Monday after Cheney accidentally shot him during a weekend quail hunting trip, a hospital official said.
Harry Whittington “rested well last night,” said Peter Banko, hospital administrator at Christus Spohn Hospital Memorial. The hospital listed Whittington’s condition as “very stable,” he said.
Whittington, an Austin attorney, was flown to the hospital after Cheney accidentally shot him late Saturday afternoon at the Armstrong Ranch, hitting him with birdshot.
“It’s not critical. It’s not serious. It’s just stable at this time,” Banko said at a morning briefing. He said admitting Whittington to the trauma-intensive care unit was “a fairly common procedure” for a patient hit by a spray of the small pellets.
“I don’t know how much spray he has got,” Banko said. “My understanding from the physicians is that after you get peppered, sometimes they need to do exploratory surgeries if it gets lodged in a little deeper. Sometimes, it’s tweezers. I can’t really comment on how extensively he was sprayed.”
Banko said he did not know when Whittington would be released, but in the meantime he was being visited by family and friends.
The vice president visited Whittington and his wife before returning to Washington on Sunday. Cheney “was pleased to see that he’s doing fine and in good spirits,” said Cheney spokeswoman Lea Anne McBride.
Whittington sent word through a hospital official that he would not comment on the incident out of respect for Cheney.
Ranch owner Katharine Armstrong told The Associated Press that the accident occurred after Cheney, Whittington and another hunter got out of a car to shoot at a covey of quail.
She said Whittington went to retrieve a bird he shot. Cheney and the third hunter, whom she would not identify, walked to another spot and discovered a second covey of quail.
Whittington “came up from behind the vice president and the other hunter and didn’t signal them or indicate to them or announce himself,” said Armstrong, who was in the car.
“The vice president didn’t see him,” she said. “The covey flushed and the vice president picked out a bird and was following it and shot. And by god, Harry was in the line of fire and got peppered pretty good.”
Armstrong said the shotgun pellets broke the skin.
“It knocked him silly. But he was fine. He was talking. His eyes were open. It didn’t get in his eyes or anything like that,” she said.
Each of the hunters was wearing a bright orange vest at the time, Armstrong said.
The accident was not reported publicly by the vice president’s office for nearly 24 hours, and then only after it was reported by the Corpus Christi Caller-Times on its Web site Sunday.
McBride said the vice president’s office did not tell reporters about the accident Saturday because they were deferring to Armstrong to handle the announcement of what happened on her property.
Armstrong said everyone at the ranch was so “focused” on Whittington’s health Saturday that it wasn’t until Sunday she called the Caller-Times to report the accident. Her ranch is about 60 miles southwest of Corpus Christi.
Sally Whittington told The Dallas Morning News her father was being observed because of swelling from some of the welts on his neck. His face “looks like chicken pox, kind of,” she said.
Whittington has been a private practice attorney in Austin since 1950 and has long been active in Texas Republican politics. He’s been appointed to several state boards, including when then-Gov. George W. Bush named him to the Texas Funeral Service Commission.
Armstrong said Cheney is a longtime friend who comes to the ranch to hunt about once a year and is “a very safe sportsman.” She said Whittington is a regular, too, but she thought it was the first time the two men hunted together.
The 50,000-acre Armstrong ranch has been in the influential South Texas family since the turn of the last century. Katharine is the daughter of Tobin Armstrong, a politically connected rancher who has been a guest at the White House and spent 48 years as director of the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association. He died in October. Cheney was among the dignitaries who attended his funeral.
Cheney was legally hunting with a license he purchased in November, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department spokesman Steve Lightfoot said.
Associated Press writers Nedra Pickler in Washington and Paul J. Weber in Dallas contributed to this report.
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Now, there are several problems with this story, but here’s the main one. Since when did it become protocol to “announce your return” to your hunting party? Here’s what I figure happened:
Cheney, Whittington, a couple of guides and whomever are roaming thru thigh high grass trying to rustle up some quail. Whittington heads behind a tree to take a piss, but his 78 year old prostate’s giving him trouble, so it takes a good while to finish the job.
Then, he starts shuffling back up to the group, Cheney is all excited and inexperienced, hears a sound and turns around and fires. After all, a 78 year old trial lawyer looks a lot like a four pound quail flying out of the grass.
Jesus Christ, people. The Vice President didn’t just miss a dear and wound some redneck in the ass a mile away sitting in a tree stand. Shotguns are ineffective at 50-75 feet for hunting impossible to shoot by ameteurs from further than that, yet Cheney was close enough to a guy to pepper him in the face and neck and chest with a bunch of birdshot.
I figure Cheney was no further than 30 feet from the guy and shot him. And this is the guy who’s a step away from having access to “the button?”
When’s the next election again, and where do I sign up for a job where I get to do whatever I want, never work, and get in absolutely no trouble for shooting another citizen in the face at extremely close range?
I feel quite an awesome responsibility in making this 300th post. I’d like to be intelligent, profound, witty and political, but I’m not sure I can even fake being any of those things. So I will be content with being semi-reflective and boorish.
This was to be a big sports weekend on television and in person. Friday afternoon brought the almost for real return of Nextel Cup cars to the track in the form of practice for Saturday night’s Budweiser Shootout.
For those that don’t know, the Shootout is a non-points paying event similar to the Winston. To qualify for the event, a driver must have either won a pole in the last year or be a previous winner of the Shootout.
Although the guys don’t use their “official” Daytona cars, you get a good idea about what each of them has and how things are going to look. But more importantly, it’s CARS BACK ON THE TRACK!!! The 500 is only six freaking days away!!!
To celebrate, we decided to have steaks for dinner (surprise). But not before UnkTodd and Heather took urchin 1.0 to my eldest nephew’s basketball game. Anytime anyone takes any of the urchins anywhere is greatly appreciated by the wife and me.
We also watched some of the opening ceremonies. In a nutshell, I always think these things are a disappointment, especially considering that the face value on some tickets was over a grand.
That said, I enjoyed the lighting proper (although the final four torch bearers were a little anticlimactic) and I thought the spider people were cool too.
Anyway, dinner was good and the company was better (as always) and we got to bed at a reasonable hour since our weekend looked to be full from that point forward.
A note here: For about the four of the last five nights, I have been visited by an apparition…a ghost…or possibly a ninja in the form of Lauren, my 3.75 year old daughter.
The thing that’s odd here is that she can’t do ANYTHING quietly. And yet, in the silence of our collective slumber and in the dead of night, she can get out of bed and her room and not be detected by the monitor, open our door without us knowing and walk around the bed and climb up on the sideboard thingy and stand there, perfectly balanced, and stare at me without making a sound about three inches from my nose.
And when I do finally detect her, it takes all of the restraint in the world not to scare the shit out of all of us when expressing my surprise.
Anyway, I just thought you should know what we’re going through. She only did this twice last night under the guise of “I had a bad dweam” and “I’m firsty.”
Anyone got any suggestions on how to curb this? Seriously. As my friends often joke, I’ve got a cardiac condition and I shouldn’t be getting frightened like that.
Now, back to your regularly scheduled recap.
Saturday was to be the same as any other Saturday. 5am wakeup for a Sophia feeding, then a 6am-ish workout (turned out to be four miles at 6:35am), Lauren’s soccer gactice (game and practice), a trip to the Krogers for some $1.99 per pound pork loin, some turkey tenderloin (yum) and a little London Broil. We then spent the afternoon watching some olympic coverage, cars on the track again (sort of, at least until weather messed everything up), and finally a quiet family evening of our famous pork loin, a couple of cold beers and bed at around 10:30pm.
We are now officially old.
Sunday started with a sensible breakfast of OJ, some eggbeaters with cheese (yummy!) and some new and exciting (get this) SQUARE BAGELS!!
How do they do that, you might be asking yourself? Making a traditionally round thing very square and intriguing? I have no idea, but I had to buy them and I had to eat one asap. And do you know what?
They were freaking awesome. I ate two yesterday (one for breakfast with peanut butter) and one as a sandwich for lunch.
The morning was also spent watch the airing of the rain delayed ARCA race from Daytona. I have concluded that, for whatever reason, these people are incapable of driving more than 10 laps without wrecking.
Ever.
Then it was Front Row qualifying day (and basically time trials for everyone else). Jeff Burton and Jeff Gordon won those guaranteed spots but both had some trouble in post-qualifying inspections, and the final details have yet to be released but I expect to hear about penalties and related info accordingly.
UnkTodd helped me with hanging a key holding cabinet thingy in the kitchen which was tougher than it sounds because the fucking screw holes in the back were uneven and it took me about half an hour to do something that, had I simply eyeballed it, would have taken about 3 minutes.
But the highlight of the weekend, without question, was our family’s first outing to a professional sporting event as a foursome: a Gwinnett Gladiators game!
There was a special deal where you got four tickets in the lower level (not behind the goal either) plus two hats, two programs, and a coupon for a box of chicken from Kroger along with a two litre bottle of chek cola. (Do you like how I spelled litre all European like)? That’s a deal in anyone’s book, so we did it.
And it was AWESOME!!
Both of the girls were great. I even let some woman I’d never met hold urchin 2.0 for about 15 or 20 minutes. I know this sounds absurd, but I think a lot of folks do stuff like that with their second child.
Here’s a picture of the nice lady holding my baby:
We spent as much on concessions as tickets. Considering the $7 beers that the wife and I had two each of, that wasn’t hard to do at all.
A sidenote on $7 beers here. I’m not bitching at all about the cost. Charging $7 for a 24 ounce beer is like charging (stay with me here) $3.50 for a 12-ounce beer. Hell, you can’t even get that price at Outback Steaks, let alone somewhere really fancy. And the bottom line about concessions is that if you don’t want to buy them you don’t have to buy them, so bitching about the prices is extra pointless.
Here are some pictures from the day:
Lauren expressing some general excitement, possibly after the Zamboni laps or a puck toss.
I know this was after what turned out to be the game winning goal:
And this is three of the four of us (the old lady was taking the picture):
Oh, and to prove that I didn’t make up anything, here’s the box score. Notice the attendance. This was the perfect sporting event with both bigger and smaller children. The arena was very nice and clean, the place only seats about ten thousand full, and from door to door leaving was almost 15 minutes.
Can you say season tickets?
DATE - 02/12/06 Trenton ( 3) AT Gwinnett ( 4) SCORE BY PERIODSTrenton 1 2 0–3Gwinnett 0 1 3–4 I was going to post the rest of the box score here, but it screwed up the formatting, so Ihad to say forget it.
Here’s a picture of the Gladiators coach immediately after the win:
Then it was home, urchin 1.0 to bed (followed by ninja visits at 11:34pm,which was 31 minutes after I fell asleep) and again at around 12:30 or for“bad dweams” and a full pullup. Well, that about covers my weekend. Since it’s my 300th post, I figuredI should writesome sort of haiku: 300 entries.Talk about wasting some time.That’s a lot of words. Happy race season everybody!! In just two days and a wakeup, we’llbe watching racing full on. Here’s the schedule for the week: Thursday: Nextel Cup Twin 150 mile qualifying racesFriday: Craftsman truck race at nightSaturday: Busch Series raceSunday: Daytona 500 (Insert Dukes of Hazzard rebel yell here).
What say you?