Fenton Missouri.
Huh? Where is Fenton?
Fenton is right outside St. Louis on I-44. At one time, only hoosiers lived in Fenton. In the St. Louis area, that is what we call white trash. My cousin Shirley, whom I'm seeing tonight, lives in Valley Park. That is another town that used to consist of hoosiers. So I have two cousins who live in Indiana with their families, so they're hoosiers as well, altho' it doesn't have a negative meaning (except to Illinoisans who live along the border), and their mother, who lives in Valley Park, and laughingly refers to herself as a hoosier.
Yesterday, I drove to Jefferson City, where I visited with my friend Cliff. It rained all the way and as I drove through the Lake of the Ozarks area I got snarled in traffic. Last year I whizzed through there, but then the weather was nice and everyone was out on the lake. This year it sucked and everyone was driving in their cars.
Cliff and I go way back. We were IBM CE's together in the Mattel Office Products Division. After 4.5 years, I had a friend in the Field Engineering Division who got me over there where I fixed large systems, yannnow, like the water cooled mainframes and their peripherals. Within a year, I was making twice what I made working for the Mattel Office Products Division.
A few years later, Cliff was able to get over to FE as well. We did less work and made more money. As the typewriter business declined, service divisions were consolidated and some of my old co-workers made it up to the top of the line equipment, but most of them only made it up to the midrange or small processors and the associated equipment. Many wound up in point of sale machines and ATM's.
Cliff eventually wound up as a Systems Engineer (a job I always wanted), but, unfortunately, shortly thereafter they started downsizing and he got resource actioned out the door. I guess I should feel lucky that I never became an SE. Also, at this time he went in for back surgery to correct a congenital defect in his spine. Messed him up. He's not as bad off as I am (he can walk without braces and crutches) but he still has problems.
But I digress.
Nope. I managed to create my own job and build myself a little empire. When I came back from my accident, I could no longer teach hardware, so I wound up coordinating systems support for the systems we used to teach our hardware classes on. The people who were supporting us were buttheads and they would always tell us what they wouldn't do (which is what we usually wanted them to do) instead of what they would do. Opportunity knocking. I taught myself MVS and I took over the support they were supposed to provide. We cut ourselves loose from them which really pissed them off as that put them over headcount and they had to lay off two programmers. I pointed out to them that had they been willing to do their job that wouldn't have happened. Pissed 'em off even more.
So I went over to Cliff's yesterday afternoon. Cliff used to be a registered Libertarian. When I got to his house, he was watching MSNBC. WTF? MSNBC? He claims he is still a libertarian. Small L, just like me. Then he dropped another bombshell on me. He voted for Jug Hussein Ears! WTF????? He said that his wife's family (who I guess are Dimocrats) persuaded him to vote for JHE. Now he's feeling buyer's remorse. I wound up staying for dinner. I was too bummed about one of my conservative/libertarian friends voting for JHE to post about it last night.
I'm gonna spend the next three days here seeing family and friends.
Posted by denny at July 22, 2009 04:00 PMDenny.....
A good friend bummed you out by voting for the Messiah? Guess how I felt with a daughter who was one of his Colorado Obamaniacs & a delegate.
Now she is too busy with local issues to pay any attention to the Obama train wreck.......But I post to her at least twice a week with the facts about whatever his latest F--kup happens to be. She still don`t get it. Kinda reminds me of TDHO at times.
Posted by: dudley1 on July 22, 2009 06:20 PMThe SEs did take it in the shorts back then. That was probably around the time when one of the IBM execs declared that IBM was not in the software business. I was a sysprog in a small shop and IBM decided to assign an onsite SE to us for some reason. The guy was nearing retirement and did not know what to do with himself, so I let him maintain the tech library and put all of the updates into the binders.
He was RAed not too long after he was assigned to us.
Hate to remind you that some conservatives voted for Carter because Ford stumbled down on an airplane ladder. It can happen to the best of us. Did I ever vote for an arrogant commie? Nearly did once...till someone compared Trudeau to JFK. Couln't vote for the opponent. I went to the poll to cancel my vote.
Posted by: Claudia on July 22, 2009 07:33 PMOkay, I have to defend Cliff. As you well know, Cliff's his own man, and isn't likely to follow the whim of anyone else. He pretty much controls the remote on our tv, so if he's watching MSNBC, it's because he wants to. He remains a capital "L" Libertarian, as well as a lower case "l" libertarian, but after eight years of the Bush fiasco, couldn't stomach the idea of electing another Republican. It was nice to see you last evening. Edit away.
Posted by: Donnell (Mrs. Cliff) on July 23, 2009 01:36 AMJust so I understand, the best economy the world had ever seen, the terrorists and their ilk kept at bay, and rogue nuclear countries not "flaunting" their goals to threaten the free world with their nukes a fiasco huh? Well if that's the case, I'd take it well over what the hell is going on now. And as you know, the libertarian part believes in pacifism (the reason Neal Boortz is somewhat not enamored with them as much as he used to be). So I say if you can't recognize a real "fiasco" you shouldn't be voting anyway.
Ray, are you my mother? I swear you stole the words right out of my brain. Thanks.
And I thought I left a similiar comment yesterday, Denny, from my mobile but i guess it didn't make it. Meant to tell you, ha, now you know how it feels. A real et tu, brute moment. but I doubt I would have had the stomach for dinner. You are a class act that way, though.
Happy travels!
Posted by: SuperGurl on July 23, 2009 08:23 AMDonnell - Holy crap! I didn't even know that you knew about my site. Don't worry. I only edit troll comments. Cliff and I are almost exactly alike in our political beliefs. I differ with the Libertarians on open borders and foreign policy. I do believe in low taxes and smaller gummint. So does Cliff which is why I was floored when he told me he voted for JHE and surprised that he was watching MSNBC, the JHE network.
It was nice seeing both of you again. Thanks for dinner. Good health to both of you. Hope to see you next year.
Posted by: Denny on July 23, 2009 09:27 AMCliffs spokesperson.....
The Bush Presidency was a fiasco?? For what it is worth, Bush is a registered Republican who ran as a Republican & convinced the conservative base to vote for him ....then he tried to be a Democrat. I think most all of we conservatives were more then a little dismayed with his domestic agenda & adoption of Democratic spending policies but Fiasco? Not hardly!
Incidently, just where do you place the Messiah at this point & just how much do you miss the Bush fiasco now!
Denny said your family convinced him to vote for JugEars ........What did you people do for the 8 years of Bush`s Presidency? Sit in a circle sticking pins in a Bush doll & watching MSNBC? Did you happen to miss 9/11 ,the war on terror & the Iraqi & Afghanistan war`s.? How about the fact there were no more terrorist attacks in this country? I suggest you read the Religion of Peace scoreboard for terrorist attacks worldwide to gain an appreciation of reality.
If my wifes family ever was foolish enough as to try to convince me to vote for a communist rat bastard like Obama ....I would toss them out on their asses in the driveway. followed by their hats & coats. Fiasco Indeed!
Posted by: dudley1 on July 23, 2009 09:31 AMDenny...
Sorry for my rant but anything which seems to denigrate a real American & elevate a Rat Bastard Commie causes my patriotism to boil over.
Posted by: dudley1 on July 23, 2009 09:34 AMBe nice. Donnell and Cliff are friends.
Of course, the 8 years were a fiasco. MSNBC and the rest of the LSM have been screaming that ever since two months after 9/11. If that's where you get your news, you'll believe in the fiasco. Incidently, Cliff asked me if I watched Fox and I told him hardly ever. I hardly ever watch any TV news. I get most of my news from the Atlanta Urinal and Constipation (a liberal rag that is moving to the center to try to increase circulation) and exercise my bullshit filter. I get the rest of my news from the internet.
Posted by: Denny on July 23, 2009 10:16 AM