Forget about Ebola going global, worry instead about “Stupid”, cause its pandemic
It has been awhile since I regaled youall with stories of the stupid.
And given the general state of the world, the stalled ‘recovery’ and the Olympic ineptitude by our elected ‘leaders’, I thought everyone could do with some light humor.
About three weeks ago I stopped by the grocery store. As I parked I noticed a line of 5 cars parked in the “No Parking, Fire Zone.” What ijist I thought as I pulled in. As I got out of my car this goomer in an fancy new SUV flung the driver’s door open….and this ratted out old pickup truck sheered it off.
Bang!
Scretch….
See the door skittering away….
See the driver jump out of his SUV screaming to high heaven.
See the old black guy in the ratted out pickup truck look concerned.
I pulled out my cellphone and called 911, they all know me in the call center, and I explained what I had personally witnessed. I strolled on by and did my shopping. As I was checking out a nice young peace goonette walked up to me and asked if I had witnessed the ‘accident’.
She waited for me to finish checking out and on the way out I asked the girl behind the service desk to call the manager to the front.
Once we were outside I related what I had seen, that the pickup was creeping along when Mr. SUV flung his door open and there was no way anyone could have missed hitting the door. Mr. SUV cursed me out, the black guy looked like he wanted to have my baby and Ms. Goonette could barely contain her smile.
The manager arrived as I was completing my tale of woe and I asked him if he could burn a DVD from all the security cameras for Ms. Goonette. The manager agreed.
Then Ms. Goonette started handing out tickets like candy to all the people parked in the “No Parking, Fire Zone”.
Mr. SUV started screaming. Ms. Goonette asked him was he illegally parked or not.
Mr. SUV replied, with common vulgarity, but the basic gist was No you female dog I was only gonna pick up a copulating Red Box DVD.
In Kentucky if you stay for more then 30 seconds after you let a passenger out you are parked.
The black guy kept thanking me, and I managed to calm him down. We looked over his ratted out pickup truck and I couldn’t see any marks. But he pointed to a small scrap on the painted bumper and said, “Yep, that’s all he did.”
Moral, don’t be an ijit and park in the “No Parking, Fire Zone.” And if you do, don’t open you door without checking traffic.
I hate ijit SUV drivers!
Today (Sunday 2014.08.10) we had to visit some friends. They have a new flat screen TV and are having trouble programming it. Given that I have a nice case of the flu, I asked my wife to drive. There are two ways to get to our friends. One way is about 15 miles longer, but is nice and high and avoids several creeks. Given we had a deluge last night, 2” of rain in less then an hour, I was somewhat concerned about the low road next to the creeks, but my wife is a sane driver and told me if there was water across the road she would turn around. So I snapped the safety belt and promptly went to sleep with my iPod playing tunes in my ears.
I was awakened by my wife’s cursing. Normally she is calm, restrained and civil. But she was working to make a sailor blush. That is my gig. I struggled to wakefulness and there was a church van, off the road, in the over flowing creek, and the van was full of kids.
OK, I have the flu, I really only wanted to sleep until the flu passes…but some things will wake me up faster then caffeine. A buss load of kids in a van that is teetering on the edge of a creek that is out of its banks is one of them.
I suspect cellphones cover 99.9% of the local area. But there are dead zones. And this was about as dead as it gets. I pull out my 2M ham HT and try several local repeaters.
Nothing.
Nada.
Oh Holy Shi, er crap.
I am 62 with a bad knee and arm/elbow. My wife is 58 with an even worse knee. I keep a wide array of ‘stuff’ in my trunk. And I am wracking my brain to come up with a workable solution. The truth was that even if my brain had been unfogged with the flu I don’t carry the stuff for white water rescue.
I do know enough to be confident that jumping into a raging stream would be an exceptional stupid thing to do. Heck I think even when I was 16 I would have known better…
About the time I am sliding into deep despair, I really didn’t want to see a van load of kids get swept away, a couple of farm trucks come screaming up. Each truck has 4 big ol’ teenagers in the back and even before the trucks get stopped the teens have jumped out.
One scrawny kid that I initially thought was a guy but realized was a gal, tied a rope to her self and shouted at her brother to belay her. I had gotten out of our car by now and suggested they belay (wrap) the rope around the smooth pipe bumper. I explain about controlled friction. I may be down with the flu, but I have participated in several rescue operations where a rock climber’s enthusiasm exceeded their ability. And I know how difficult it is to belay someone without a friction point.
The girl jumps in the water up stream and manages to reach the van. She climbs over the driver and ties the rope to the passenger side doorpost. Another guy uses the rope to pull himself to the van and he has another rope.
They tie each kid off and bring them over one by one.
They bring the driver out last.
At first I thought he had been injured, but realized he was drunk.
I wanted to have an impromptu necktie party but my wife got me to shut up.
Under the best of circumstances I dislike drunks, but a drunk driving a van load of children really pushes my anger buttons.
We, pickup trucks and our car, transported the kids to the church and explained what had transpired. The driver insisted that being drunk hadn’t caused the accident, it was just one of those things.
I almost insisted the cops be called but realized that street justice might be more appropriate.
God I hate drunks!!!!
While on the way home from attempting to program the LCD TV, it has a factory defect, our cellphone rang. A friend wanted our help in removing a damaged tree branch that was hanging over his pool. My wife explained that I wouldn’t be much use (what’s new with that?), but agreed to come over for moral support.
We had a terrific storm go through early this morning and I slept through the entire thing. I would claim it was the rest of the righteous, but in fact it was the sleep of the drugged.
We arrive and damn, that isn’t a branch, that is about the top third of the tree that is bent over the pool. I suggest he contact a tree service, that this is slightly beyond a do it yourself project, but our friend insists “it will be easy…what can go wrong?”
So I grab a nice chair and sit there watching the fun. He has called 5 of his dearest and closest (and somewhat brain damaged) friends. Now to be fair, if I wasn’t down for the count with the flu I would have been in the middle of the fun, but I got to watch some serious foolishness without participating.
I must get ill more often!
Our intrepid friend climbs up the tree and out onto the damaged section, hey you think my friends are any smarter then me, get real, and ties rope to it. Everyone (except me) grabs the rope, think tug of war, and pulls it taunt and he uses a pruning saw (at least I was able to talk him out of using the chainsaw) and starts cutting.
And then….
C-R-A-C-K
And
S*P*L*A*S*H
The top third of the tree is in the pool and everyone who held on to the rope is in the pool.
God I wish I’d had a camera! My wife was at the end furthest from the pool and managed to let go.
They were able to drag the “tree” out of the pool. It would have gone faster, except everyone kept breaking into hysterical laughter.
Once the tree was on solid land the chain saw made short work of it and it was hauled out front for the trash guys.
Everyone took their shoes off and our friend decided it was time for a cook out.
No excitement here, except of course for the Antelope steaks his brother sent from out west.
The rest of the evening we all sat around talking about “stupid” and how often it happens.
And then someone would start giggling and everyone would lose it.
About a month ago as I went to the grocery store I noticed a goomer driving one of those motorized shopping carts out of the parking lot. I stopped by the service desk and told the young lady there what I had seen. She called the manager and after I described the perps direction of travel I continued shopping.
As I was leaving the store the cops had the perp who was pushing the cart back to the store. The perp (Disadvantaged Minority Yoot) was bitching about cheap assed batteries. That he was gonna bring the damn cart back, but he just didn’t feel like carrying his groceries, (a 24 pack of beer), home.
He started shouting about police brutality, that he wasn’t stealing the damn cart only borrowing it. Then he decided he was “‘gonna sue all you GD honkies”.
Then he took a swing a cop.
A real moment of serious and complete “stupid”.
He got tazed and pepper sprayed for his efforts.
The cops trussed him up like he was a pig be taken to market and tossed him in the back of a cruiser.
God I love stupid.
Back in July I visited our pharmacy and saw this real sketchy looking girl (OK real scanking looking) waiting for her meds. The pharmacist appeared to be a tad nervous and kept sneaking looks at Ms. Scank. I was wondering what in the heck was going on when 4 cops rushed up and arrested her. She was trying to pass a “forged prescription.” The ‘script’ was a poor photocopy that someone had used white out on the original. We did much better forgeries in junior high with the hall-pass.
Ms. Scank went off and demanded drugs, as she was “jonesing’ (?spelling?) real bad.”
Three of the cops hauled her out and one stayed to take a report.
OK I know drugs make you stupid, but drugs must have done a lobotomy on Ms. Scank.
A long time ago in another life I actually worked for a living. We had just gotten a color photocopier at work. One of my coworkers decided to see if he could make a photocopy of a dollar bill. I advised against it, seeing how Uncle Sam has no sense of humor over counterfeit money. But this guy thought knew it all (which only pissed off those of us who really do know everything) and he completed his project. The result looked OK. But didn’t feel anything like real money. We went on break, such a tiring afternoon watching someone make fake money, and he decided to test his fake in the change machine.
I really didn’t think the machine would be fooled by such a “high quality” fake but…
Ka-Ching.
Out spooled the change.
At this point everyone got really quite. I asked (paraphrased) “What do you think will happen when the service guy finds your fake bill?”
While the rest of us weren’t really involved, we did know what was going on. We agreed that he should stay there and attempt to talk the service guy out of reporting it. Right before closing time our brain trust counterfeiter came back with his ‘dollar’ bill. The service guy had stuck him up for $50 to not report it and our coworker jumped at the chance.
He burned the fake and left for greener pastures a few weeks later.
But to think he risked serious jail time and immediate involuntary separation for a counterfeit dollar…How dumb can you get.
Silliness squared
First let me say I started out my adult life riding a motorcycle. First it was all I could afford, and secondly being dyslexic I was concerned about getting confused as to which lane I should be in.
In 2006 I slipped in a small puddle of water at work and fell. I damaged my right elbow, right knee and left shoulder. I receive semiannual injections of ground up chicken feathers in my damaged right knee. The orthopedist insists I need a handicapped permit, but I am holding off…yea like my knee is gonna magically get ‘well’ someday real soon now…
My wife was injured as we left the movie “War Games” back in 1981. Her left knee was damaged and she has had 3 surgeries and has a handicapped-parking permit.
And as I related back in <http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?439839-Terry-s-Stup...> I was sort of volunteered to help a cousin transport his motorcycle from Lexington to near Hazard.
PLAY Terry's Stupid Story
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?439839-Terry-s-Stup...
Was I stupid (or crazy)? Hell Yea.
Today we were on the way home from visiting my mother and I damn near wrecked.
A motorcycle screamed up beside us and ‘slid’ in front of me. Since we were stopping for a traffic light, and there was just enough space for us to safely stop I thought I was going to squish him like a bug.
And while the thought of squishing him wasn’t all that disturbing, the thought of the paper work was daunting…
I am a firm believer in assisting others with my ever so helpful (some might say snarky) comments. After regaining my breath from not crushing him I noticed my wife laughing.
Normally she is rather restrained and doesn’t think ijits are all that funny.
Gasping for air she said, “Terry LOOK at his license plate!”
So I took a closer look, I have been accused of having all the situational awareness of a sleeping 3 months old, and….
OH, WTF….
“He has a handicap license plate?”
“He has a handicap license plate!”
“He has a handicap license plate!?!?”
I mean what sort of handicapped ijit rides a motorcycle?
I ask this as someone who still has his motorcycle license and is somewhat less then fully mobile…..
But a handicapped license?
My wife laughed a few minutes later and suggested the state was now handing them out for those of “limited intellectual means”…
I had to agree, severe mental retardation is a handicap.
The goomer on the motorcycle was somewhat overweight. Like the rear shock absorbers were collapsed. So maybe it wasn’t insipient stupidity, perhaps it was morbid obesity…
Today, (2014.08.17) I visited the grocery store again. I don’t know what it is about grocery store that attracts so many of the terminally stupid….
After I parked and was strolling to the entrance a Disadvantaged Minority Youthette (AKA Chocolate Sister) [“ette” is the feminine diminutive in French, Cassette, Goonette, ijitette..]
screeched into a handicap parking space. Hum, no handicap license and when I walked around in front of her Volvo (Why is the ghetto trash can afford such nice vehicles?) there was no hangtag (AKA placard) visible…
My comment on “ghetto trash” is based completely on her behavior I witnessed in the store. Paraphrasing Forest Gump, “Trash is trash”…
Now it isn’t only DMY that illegally park in handicap spaces, in fact most of those I see pulling that stunt are as white as can be….
But I still disapprove. My wife’s left knee is really messed up and she frequently has to use her handicap tag. Many folks really have serious mobility issues and I get kind of torqued to see room temperature morons too f’n lazy to park where they should.
Of course that is nothing to my dislike of fool who park in firelanes. There is a special corner in hell for those jerks, and jerkettes.
I passed 6 cars parked in the firelane.
Oh well…
As I entered the store I heard this young lady (goonette in training) screaming at the pharmacist. She was demanding a refill and the pharmacist was trying to explain to her that she had no refills left. Her command of “Afro-English”, AKA gutter speak, was impressive.
I grabbed the few items we needed and was in the check out lane when I heard a nerve curdling scream….
As I exited the store I saw Miss Gutter Mouth lying in the road with both legs bent at impossible angles. I reentered the store and told the gal at the service desk she needed to call 911 and get the manager.
The manager came jogging up asking (paraphrased) “What’s wrong now?”
I explained that I hadn’t seen the accident, but the loudmouthed Ms. Gutter Mouth was in the roadway and looked to have been whacked by a car. The manager told me he would pull the relevant data and copy it to a DVD.
As I left for the second time several cop cars pulled up.
I strolled (I stroll a lot) over and looked at the scene.
My accident reconstruction follows:
Ms. Gutter Mouth was in a huff and, given her smart phone was a little further away, she was talking on the phone and not paying sufficient attention to her surroundings.
She stepped from between two illegally parked SUVs and….
Got clobbered. Oh how funny.
Stupid and rude ought to hurt. Really hurt bad.
I saw a cop I have dealt with before and explained that Ms. Gutter Mouth was illegally parked and pointed out her Volvo. He told me he will get around to having it toed (Stupid ought to hurt physically and fiscally. Yea I am EVIL!). One officer was trying to comfort Ms. Gutter Mouth, with minimal success and when he asked for some ID she (gutter mouth) went ‘nuts’.
Paraphrased, “I bet you are gonna arrest me ‘cause my driver’s license has been suspended. You F’n honkies are all the same.”…
Which was very interesting because both cops were rather dark, some might say black, but they were both a deep, dark brown.
One cop asked if I would be willing to make a statement about Ms. Gutter Mouth parking and I suggested the get a copy of the video that showed the Volvo pull in and her getting out. He agreed that would probably be better.
Lexington has asked for permission to increase the fines (and court fees) for those who park in fire zones. I joked with one of the cops (paraphrased” “Too bad you can’t let civilians use a camera to document illegal parking, write tickets and give us like 25% or so.” Cops have enough to do without having to deal with the multitude of ijits who think that rules don’t apply to them.
Anyway as I was leaving I saw the tow truck arrive and hook up her car for the trip to the impound lot.
God I love being such a bas, er, “child born out of wedlock”.
This reminds me of an incident of Olympic Stupidity.
Back in May of 2003 the university decided they no longer needed a dedicated ‘media department’. A cabal of interested parties wanted to take the money the university ‘wasted’ on my department and spend it elsewhere. Most of the department were fired mid August, but they had given us bad advice and I had taken 30 days vacation (All of June, and part of July) to avoid losing it when the clock ran out. Under the threat of a lawsuit they decided to let me have my 30 days so I didn’t get fired until the end of September (or the first of October, it has been 11 years and the paper work doesn’t make much sense.). So I technically still worked for the university come the last week of September. The chief engineer was retained, someone figured out you really needed a “custodian of record” for a couple of million dollars worth of equipment, and he had taken a couple of weeks vacation because you can only carry so much on the books and come the end of September he would lose the days.
So a University Peace Goon stopped by and asked if I could come to campus and meet with the President and others the next day. I told her that I could come, but they would have to either pay me or extend my vacation a day... She called someone and got word back there would be no problem.
So the next day at 8:00AM I was at the administration building. For the preceding 10 years the university had worked with the city and had a “Technology Day.” The general public and high school students were invited to a ‘really big show’. And my department had done 90% (or so) of the grunt work getting he syphilis center, oh sorry, Civic Center ready. And someone had belatedly realized, “Oh, we don’t have a media department anymore…”
And panic ensued.
Not your normal low-level employee panic, but steroidal panic from top-level administrators.
The “Technology Day” had turned into a big, big, event. Many venders, other state colleges, demonstrations, as I said, “A really big show”. And they had lost 90% of the work force. In years past we had started prepping in mid July.
And this year ‘we’ had done NOTHING!
Nada.
Zip.
Zero.
The gnashing of teeth, high level sweat, tears of frustration, the dawning realization they were totally and completely copulated.
I spent 6 hours (with a break for lunch on their dime in the prestigious University Club, they really have some of the best food around.) explaining what normally happened.
I got to use a dry/erase board to show the normal timeline, the work that had to be performed and demonstrated there wasn’t enough time even if people worked 24/7. They cringed when I passed around photocopies of the directive from the University’s Legal Counsel instructing me to erase ALL of the hard drives on ALL our computers. The assembled multitude of suits couldn’t understand why I had received such an extreme order.
I explained that since we produced ‘educational’ videos for elementary and middle schools, we used minors. Our records had photos, personal data, and once we were gone, there was no way of insuring those records wouldn’t fall into unauthorized hands. I explained we had also destroyed the bulk of the paperwork in the department.
I told them that some of the directives we received had been generated before the decision had been made to retain the chief engineer. They demanded to know why they were talking to me and not him. So I explained about his having vacation time he would lose if he didn’t take it. They weren’t happy, and I told them to please take that up with HR. I told them that he had requested an extension and HR told him “use them or lose them”.
I also explained about what I had learned of the ‘cabal’ and the plans to divert the money from our department to fund more deserving projects. I had the spreadsheet from the Graduate Student Research unit that did cost benefit analysis for the university that showed the university received $ for each dollar we cost. I explained about the many last minute video shoots we routinely performed and that no outside contractor would be able to do many last minute projects.
They were so less then thrilled but understood that we had been told that effective May 21 our only job related ‘duty’ was to find another job. That we had stopped every project in progress, either gave the partially completed project to clients or destroyed it.
They offered me my old job back and I explained that hiring me wouldn’t solve their problems. They had lost all the producers, who had all obtained better positions elsewhere, they needed the remote production crew, three had simply retired and the other two had landed jobs in related fields, and while I was a very competent engineer, two engineers really couldn’t keep the satellite and distance learning/outreach going much less to anything else. I told them I had a new job lined up in April that paid about 50% more and that if they offered me my position back I would gladly take, after all UEI unemployment insurance would only be about half of my regular salary, but come April I would be gone regardless. They weren’t happy and told me the committee (cabal) who had recommended the dissolution of my department had neglected to inform the administration exactly what all we did for the university.
They assured me the ‘cabal’ would be sadly surprised and the “Technology Day” was canceled. They gave me two ‘gift certificates’ for the University Club so my wife and I could have a nice lunch.
They canceled Technology Day and scaled back the cable outreach operation. And from September 2003 through December the university spent about twice our department’s annual budget. Several members of the Cabal left the university under odd circumstances and those who remained found themselves pariahs.
Oh how unsad.
Flash forward to March of 2004. One of the ringleaders had been shuffled around to a dead end position to await retirement. One Sunday afternoon she left her office and stepped out between to legally parked vehicles on a major, very busy, roadway and got clobbered.
Both legs had multiple breaks, her hip/pelvis was crushed, her back was broken, both arms were broke and she had severe facial lacerations.
OMG how funny.
It turned out she had a blood alcohol well above the legal limit.
I almost sent her a bouquet of dead flowers but my wife talked me out of it.
She has “kind of” recovered, but she still must use a walker. She was rather vain about her looks and it now looks like she had been hit by shrapnel from a land mine (or something).
Normally this would have been a tragedy. But in this case it was karma.
So that is about the stupidest person I ever knew.
Oh to top it off the university has strict rules on being drunk on the job and after she was released from the hospital she was ‘involuntarily separated’ [fired] for cause. No UEI benefits. No references. No career. God help me but I loved hearing of her misfortune.
She screwed an entire department, helped ruin several lives, cost her employer a boatload of money for piss poor results, ya’ gotta love such cleverness.
Of course our department supported the College of Ag’s video unit, and helped all the various sports video folks. They all had to pay through the nose for outside ‘expertise’.
“Expertise” that often only existed in the mind of the service provider.
The only person who survived the departmental nuking decided it was time to retire after a dry chemical fire extinguisher “popped its top,” which covered everything with a super fine coating of ‘dust’. All of the VCRs were ruined and all of the tape library is ruined. He decided it was a serious enough nightmare that he would be better off retiring.
Friday I was contacted by the dean of distance learning who wanted my opinion on some “technical issues.” OK I really have no love for my former workplace, and after my summer unfun I have no love for the academic side of things either. But the Dean of Distance Learning was a nice guy who had nothing to do with our mass firing, or the vindictive actions taken by the university. So Monday (2014.08.18) I met with the dean of distance learning and he wanted to know what it would take to get the defunct Ku uplink working, and if possible could it be done by next Wednesday…
After I recovered from uncontrolled laughter I had to explain why simply replacing the control terminals would be enough. With the loss of the uplink control system the high voltage was removed from the TWT (Traveling Wave Tube) and the waveguide pressurization turned off.
I tried to explain that a TWT can’t be left in a powered down state for any appreciable length of time without incurring serious damage. And the loss of air pressure would allow moisture to “wick” in, and moisture on the inside of the waveguide causes corrosion.
The entire system was overdue for major maintenance cycle. All the remote sensors require replacement, the motor/gear system need a rebuild, and many other minor and not so minor problems need to be addressed.
The Dean took it well and explained that the college of Engineering in a stroke of genius/insanity had decided a visiting professor could be used to rake in some much needed cash by offering his popular coursed to many other universities via satellite. For some reason it isn’t possible to offer this course to ~20 universities as a web streamed video.
And now they are gonna have to rent a Ku-uplink truck. Which ill be very pricey, and given the short lead time may be problematic as most Ku-uplink trucks are booked for the fall football season.
So they will probably have to refund tuition and deal with the PR nightmare of cancelled classes.
Oh ain’t that a shame….or not.
I love life, it is just soo freaky I can’t wait to see what the next odd thing I see….
Terry
It has been awhile since I regaled youall with stories of the stupid.
And given the general state of the world, the stalled ‘recovery’ and the Olympic ineptitude by our elected ‘leaders’, I thought everyone could do with some light humor.
About three weeks ago I stopped by the grocery store. As I parked I noticed a line of 5 cars parked in the “No Parking, Fire Zone.” What ijist I thought as I pulled in. As I got out of my car this goomer in an fancy new SUV flung the driver’s door open….and this ratted out old pickup truck sheered it off.
Bang!
Scretch….
See the door skittering away….
See the driver jump out of his SUV screaming to high heaven.
See the old black guy in the ratted out pickup truck look concerned.
I pulled out my cellphone and called 911, they all know me in the call center, and I explained what I had personally witnessed. I strolled on by and did my shopping. As I was checking out a nice young peace goonette walked up to me and asked if I had witnessed the ‘accident’.
She waited for me to finish checking out and on the way out I asked the girl behind the service desk to call the manager to the front.
Once we were outside I related what I had seen, that the pickup was creeping along when Mr. SUV flung his door open and there was no way anyone could have missed hitting the door. Mr. SUV cursed me out, the black guy looked like he wanted to have my baby and Ms. Goonette could barely contain her smile.
The manager arrived as I was completing my tale of woe and I asked him if he could burn a DVD from all the security cameras for Ms. Goonette. The manager agreed.
Then Ms. Goonette started handing out tickets like candy to all the people parked in the “No Parking, Fire Zone”.
Mr. SUV started screaming. Ms. Goonette asked him was he illegally parked or not.
Mr. SUV replied, with common vulgarity, but the basic gist was No you female dog I was only gonna pick up a copulating Red Box DVD.
In Kentucky if you stay for more then 30 seconds after you let a passenger out you are parked.
The black guy kept thanking me, and I managed to calm him down. We looked over his ratted out pickup truck and I couldn’t see any marks. But he pointed to a small scrap on the painted bumper and said, “Yep, that’s all he did.”
Moral, don’t be an ijit and park in the “No Parking, Fire Zone.” And if you do, don’t open you door without checking traffic.
I hate ijit SUV drivers!
Today (Sunday 2014.08.10) we had to visit some friends. They have a new flat screen TV and are having trouble programming it. Given that I have a nice case of the flu, I asked my wife to drive. There are two ways to get to our friends. One way is about 15 miles longer, but is nice and high and avoids several creeks. Given we had a deluge last night, 2” of rain in less then an hour, I was somewhat concerned about the low road next to the creeks, but my wife is a sane driver and told me if there was water across the road she would turn around. So I snapped the safety belt and promptly went to sleep with my iPod playing tunes in my ears.
I was awakened by my wife’s cursing. Normally she is calm, restrained and civil. But she was working to make a sailor blush. That is my gig. I struggled to wakefulness and there was a church van, off the road, in the over flowing creek, and the van was full of kids.
OK, I have the flu, I really only wanted to sleep until the flu passes…but some things will wake me up faster then caffeine. A buss load of kids in a van that is teetering on the edge of a creek that is out of its banks is one of them.
I suspect cellphones cover 99.9% of the local area. But there are dead zones. And this was about as dead as it gets. I pull out my 2M ham HT and try several local repeaters.
Nothing.
Nada.
Oh Holy Shi, er crap.
I am 62 with a bad knee and arm/elbow. My wife is 58 with an even worse knee. I keep a wide array of ‘stuff’ in my trunk. And I am wracking my brain to come up with a workable solution. The truth was that even if my brain had been unfogged with the flu I don’t carry the stuff for white water rescue.
I do know enough to be confident that jumping into a raging stream would be an exceptional stupid thing to do. Heck I think even when I was 16 I would have known better…
About the time I am sliding into deep despair, I really didn’t want to see a van load of kids get swept away, a couple of farm trucks come screaming up. Each truck has 4 big ol’ teenagers in the back and even before the trucks get stopped the teens have jumped out.
One scrawny kid that I initially thought was a guy but realized was a gal, tied a rope to her self and shouted at her brother to belay her. I had gotten out of our car by now and suggested they belay (wrap) the rope around the smooth pipe bumper. I explain about controlled friction. I may be down with the flu, but I have participated in several rescue operations where a rock climber’s enthusiasm exceeded their ability. And I know how difficult it is to belay someone without a friction point.
The girl jumps in the water up stream and manages to reach the van. She climbs over the driver and ties the rope to the passenger side doorpost. Another guy uses the rope to pull himself to the van and he has another rope.
They tie each kid off and bring them over one by one.
They bring the driver out last.
At first I thought he had been injured, but realized he was drunk.
I wanted to have an impromptu necktie party but my wife got me to shut up.
Under the best of circumstances I dislike drunks, but a drunk driving a van load of children really pushes my anger buttons.
We, pickup trucks and our car, transported the kids to the church and explained what had transpired. The driver insisted that being drunk hadn’t caused the accident, it was just one of those things.
I almost insisted the cops be called but realized that street justice might be more appropriate.
God I hate drunks!!!!
While on the way home from attempting to program the LCD TV, it has a factory defect, our cellphone rang. A friend wanted our help in removing a damaged tree branch that was hanging over his pool. My wife explained that I wouldn’t be much use (what’s new with that?), but agreed to come over for moral support.
We had a terrific storm go through early this morning and I slept through the entire thing. I would claim it was the rest of the righteous, but in fact it was the sleep of the drugged.
We arrive and damn, that isn’t a branch, that is about the top third of the tree that is bent over the pool. I suggest he contact a tree service, that this is slightly beyond a do it yourself project, but our friend insists “it will be easy…what can go wrong?”
So I grab a nice chair and sit there watching the fun. He has called 5 of his dearest and closest (and somewhat brain damaged) friends. Now to be fair, if I wasn’t down for the count with the flu I would have been in the middle of the fun, but I got to watch some serious foolishness without participating.
I must get ill more often!
Our intrepid friend climbs up the tree and out onto the damaged section, hey you think my friends are any smarter then me, get real, and ties rope to it. Everyone (except me) grabs the rope, think tug of war, and pulls it taunt and he uses a pruning saw (at least I was able to talk him out of using the chainsaw) and starts cutting.
And then….
C-R-A-C-K
And
S*P*L*A*S*H
The top third of the tree is in the pool and everyone who held on to the rope is in the pool.
God I wish I’d had a camera! My wife was at the end furthest from the pool and managed to let go.
They were able to drag the “tree” out of the pool. It would have gone faster, except everyone kept breaking into hysterical laughter.
Once the tree was on solid land the chain saw made short work of it and it was hauled out front for the trash guys.
Everyone took their shoes off and our friend decided it was time for a cook out.
No excitement here, except of course for the Antelope steaks his brother sent from out west.
The rest of the evening we all sat around talking about “stupid” and how often it happens.
And then someone would start giggling and everyone would lose it.
About a month ago as I went to the grocery store I noticed a goomer driving one of those motorized shopping carts out of the parking lot. I stopped by the service desk and told the young lady there what I had seen. She called the manager and after I described the perps direction of travel I continued shopping.
As I was leaving the store the cops had the perp who was pushing the cart back to the store. The perp (Disadvantaged Minority Yoot) was bitching about cheap assed batteries. That he was gonna bring the damn cart back, but he just didn’t feel like carrying his groceries, (a 24 pack of beer), home.
He started shouting about police brutality, that he wasn’t stealing the damn cart only borrowing it. Then he decided he was “‘gonna sue all you GD honkies”.
Then he took a swing a cop.
A real moment of serious and complete “stupid”.
He got tazed and pepper sprayed for his efforts.
The cops trussed him up like he was a pig be taken to market and tossed him in the back of a cruiser.
God I love stupid.
Back in July I visited our pharmacy and saw this real sketchy looking girl (OK real scanking looking) waiting for her meds. The pharmacist appeared to be a tad nervous and kept sneaking looks at Ms. Scank. I was wondering what in the heck was going on when 4 cops rushed up and arrested her. She was trying to pass a “forged prescription.” The ‘script’ was a poor photocopy that someone had used white out on the original. We did much better forgeries in junior high with the hall-pass.
Ms. Scank went off and demanded drugs, as she was “jonesing’ (?spelling?) real bad.”
Three of the cops hauled her out and one stayed to take a report.
OK I know drugs make you stupid, but drugs must have done a lobotomy on Ms. Scank.
A long time ago in another life I actually worked for a living. We had just gotten a color photocopier at work. One of my coworkers decided to see if he could make a photocopy of a dollar bill. I advised against it, seeing how Uncle Sam has no sense of humor over counterfeit money. But this guy thought knew it all (which only pissed off those of us who really do know everything) and he completed his project. The result looked OK. But didn’t feel anything like real money. We went on break, such a tiring afternoon watching someone make fake money, and he decided to test his fake in the change machine.
I really didn’t think the machine would be fooled by such a “high quality” fake but…
Ka-Ching.
Out spooled the change.
At this point everyone got really quite. I asked (paraphrased) “What do you think will happen when the service guy finds your fake bill?”
While the rest of us weren’t really involved, we did know what was going on. We agreed that he should stay there and attempt to talk the service guy out of reporting it. Right before closing time our brain trust counterfeiter came back with his ‘dollar’ bill. The service guy had stuck him up for $50 to not report it and our coworker jumped at the chance.
He burned the fake and left for greener pastures a few weeks later.
But to think he risked serious jail time and immediate involuntary separation for a counterfeit dollar…How dumb can you get.
Silliness squared
First let me say I started out my adult life riding a motorcycle. First it was all I could afford, and secondly being dyslexic I was concerned about getting confused as to which lane I should be in.
In 2006 I slipped in a small puddle of water at work and fell. I damaged my right elbow, right knee and left shoulder. I receive semiannual injections of ground up chicken feathers in my damaged right knee. The orthopedist insists I need a handicapped permit, but I am holding off…yea like my knee is gonna magically get ‘well’ someday real soon now…
My wife was injured as we left the movie “War Games” back in 1981. Her left knee was damaged and she has had 3 surgeries and has a handicapped-parking permit.
And as I related back in <http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?439839-Terry-s-Stup...> I was sort of volunteered to help a cousin transport his motorcycle from Lexington to near Hazard.
PLAY Terry's Stupid Story
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?439839-Terry-s-Stup...
Was I stupid (or crazy)? Hell Yea.
Today we were on the way home from visiting my mother and I damn near wrecked.
A motorcycle screamed up beside us and ‘slid’ in front of me. Since we were stopping for a traffic light, and there was just enough space for us to safely stop I thought I was going to squish him like a bug.
And while the thought of squishing him wasn’t all that disturbing, the thought of the paper work was daunting…
I am a firm believer in assisting others with my ever so helpful (some might say snarky) comments. After regaining my breath from not crushing him I noticed my wife laughing.
Normally she is rather restrained and doesn’t think ijits are all that funny.
Gasping for air she said, “Terry LOOK at his license plate!”
So I took a closer look, I have been accused of having all the situational awareness of a sleeping 3 months old, and….
OH, WTF….
“He has a handicap license plate?”
“He has a handicap license plate!”
“He has a handicap license plate!?!?”
I mean what sort of handicapped ijit rides a motorcycle?
I ask this as someone who still has his motorcycle license and is somewhat less then fully mobile…..
But a handicapped license?
My wife laughed a few minutes later and suggested the state was now handing them out for those of “limited intellectual means”…
I had to agree, severe mental retardation is a handicap.
The goomer on the motorcycle was somewhat overweight. Like the rear shock absorbers were collapsed. So maybe it wasn’t insipient stupidity, perhaps it was morbid obesity…
Today, (2014.08.17) I visited the grocery store again. I don’t know what it is about grocery store that attracts so many of the terminally stupid….
After I parked and was strolling to the entrance a Disadvantaged Minority Youthette (AKA Chocolate Sister) [“ette” is the feminine diminutive in French, Cassette, Goonette, ijitette..]
screeched into a handicap parking space. Hum, no handicap license and when I walked around in front of her Volvo (Why is the ghetto trash can afford such nice vehicles?) there was no hangtag (AKA placard) visible…
My comment on “ghetto trash” is based completely on her behavior I witnessed in the store. Paraphrasing Forest Gump, “Trash is trash”…
Now it isn’t only DMY that illegally park in handicap spaces, in fact most of those I see pulling that stunt are as white as can be….
But I still disapprove. My wife’s left knee is really messed up and she frequently has to use her handicap tag. Many folks really have serious mobility issues and I get kind of torqued to see room temperature morons too f’n lazy to park where they should.
Of course that is nothing to my dislike of fool who park in firelanes. There is a special corner in hell for those jerks, and jerkettes.
I passed 6 cars parked in the firelane.
Oh well…
As I entered the store I heard this young lady (goonette in training) screaming at the pharmacist. She was demanding a refill and the pharmacist was trying to explain to her that she had no refills left. Her command of “Afro-English”, AKA gutter speak, was impressive.
I grabbed the few items we needed and was in the check out lane when I heard a nerve curdling scream….
As I exited the store I saw Miss Gutter Mouth lying in the road with both legs bent at impossible angles. I reentered the store and told the gal at the service desk she needed to call 911 and get the manager.
The manager came jogging up asking (paraphrased) “What’s wrong now?”
I explained that I hadn’t seen the accident, but the loudmouthed Ms. Gutter Mouth was in the roadway and looked to have been whacked by a car. The manager told me he would pull the relevant data and copy it to a DVD.
As I left for the second time several cop cars pulled up.
I strolled (I stroll a lot) over and looked at the scene.
My accident reconstruction follows:
Ms. Gutter Mouth was in a huff and, given her smart phone was a little further away, she was talking on the phone and not paying sufficient attention to her surroundings.
She stepped from between two illegally parked SUVs and….
Got clobbered. Oh how funny.
Stupid and rude ought to hurt. Really hurt bad.
I saw a cop I have dealt with before and explained that Ms. Gutter Mouth was illegally parked and pointed out her Volvo. He told me he will get around to having it toed (Stupid ought to hurt physically and fiscally. Yea I am EVIL!). One officer was trying to comfort Ms. Gutter Mouth, with minimal success and when he asked for some ID she (gutter mouth) went ‘nuts’.
Paraphrased, “I bet you are gonna arrest me ‘cause my driver’s license has been suspended. You F’n honkies are all the same.”…
Which was very interesting because both cops were rather dark, some might say black, but they were both a deep, dark brown.
One cop asked if I would be willing to make a statement about Ms. Gutter Mouth parking and I suggested the get a copy of the video that showed the Volvo pull in and her getting out. He agreed that would probably be better.
Lexington has asked for permission to increase the fines (and court fees) for those who park in fire zones. I joked with one of the cops (paraphrased” “Too bad you can’t let civilians use a camera to document illegal parking, write tickets and give us like 25% or so.” Cops have enough to do without having to deal with the multitude of ijits who think that rules don’t apply to them.
Anyway as I was leaving I saw the tow truck arrive and hook up her car for the trip to the impound lot.
God I love being such a bas, er, “child born out of wedlock”.
This reminds me of an incident of Olympic Stupidity.
Back in May of 2003 the university decided they no longer needed a dedicated ‘media department’. A cabal of interested parties wanted to take the money the university ‘wasted’ on my department and spend it elsewhere. Most of the department were fired mid August, but they had given us bad advice and I had taken 30 days vacation (All of June, and part of July) to avoid losing it when the clock ran out. Under the threat of a lawsuit they decided to let me have my 30 days so I didn’t get fired until the end of September (or the first of October, it has been 11 years and the paper work doesn’t make much sense.). So I technically still worked for the university come the last week of September. The chief engineer was retained, someone figured out you really needed a “custodian of record” for a couple of million dollars worth of equipment, and he had taken a couple of weeks vacation because you can only carry so much on the books and come the end of September he would lose the days.
So a University Peace Goon stopped by and asked if I could come to campus and meet with the President and others the next day. I told her that I could come, but they would have to either pay me or extend my vacation a day... She called someone and got word back there would be no problem.
So the next day at 8:00AM I was at the administration building. For the preceding 10 years the university had worked with the city and had a “Technology Day.” The general public and high school students were invited to a ‘really big show’. And my department had done 90% (or so) of the grunt work getting he syphilis center, oh sorry, Civic Center ready. And someone had belatedly realized, “Oh, we don’t have a media department anymore…”
And panic ensued.
Not your normal low-level employee panic, but steroidal panic from top-level administrators.
The “Technology Day” had turned into a big, big, event. Many venders, other state colleges, demonstrations, as I said, “A really big show”. And they had lost 90% of the work force. In years past we had started prepping in mid July.
And this year ‘we’ had done NOTHING!
Nada.
Zip.
Zero.
The gnashing of teeth, high level sweat, tears of frustration, the dawning realization they were totally and completely copulated.
I spent 6 hours (with a break for lunch on their dime in the prestigious University Club, they really have some of the best food around.) explaining what normally happened.
I got to use a dry/erase board to show the normal timeline, the work that had to be performed and demonstrated there wasn’t enough time even if people worked 24/7. They cringed when I passed around photocopies of the directive from the University’s Legal Counsel instructing me to erase ALL of the hard drives on ALL our computers. The assembled multitude of suits couldn’t understand why I had received such an extreme order.
I explained that since we produced ‘educational’ videos for elementary and middle schools, we used minors. Our records had photos, personal data, and once we were gone, there was no way of insuring those records wouldn’t fall into unauthorized hands. I explained we had also destroyed the bulk of the paperwork in the department.
I told them that some of the directives we received had been generated before the decision had been made to retain the chief engineer. They demanded to know why they were talking to me and not him. So I explained about his having vacation time he would lose if he didn’t take it. They weren’t happy, and I told them to please take that up with HR. I told them that he had requested an extension and HR told him “use them or lose them”.
I also explained about what I had learned of the ‘cabal’ and the plans to divert the money from our department to fund more deserving projects. I had the spreadsheet from the Graduate Student Research unit that did cost benefit analysis for the university that showed the university received $ for each dollar we cost. I explained about the many last minute video shoots we routinely performed and that no outside contractor would be able to do many last minute projects.
They were so less then thrilled but understood that we had been told that effective May 21 our only job related ‘duty’ was to find another job. That we had stopped every project in progress, either gave the partially completed project to clients or destroyed it.
They offered me my old job back and I explained that hiring me wouldn’t solve their problems. They had lost all the producers, who had all obtained better positions elsewhere, they needed the remote production crew, three had simply retired and the other two had landed jobs in related fields, and while I was a very competent engineer, two engineers really couldn’t keep the satellite and distance learning/outreach going much less to anything else. I told them I had a new job lined up in April that paid about 50% more and that if they offered me my position back I would gladly take, after all UEI unemployment insurance would only be about half of my regular salary, but come April I would be gone regardless. They weren’t happy and told me the committee (cabal) who had recommended the dissolution of my department had neglected to inform the administration exactly what all we did for the university.
They assured me the ‘cabal’ would be sadly surprised and the “Technology Day” was canceled. They gave me two ‘gift certificates’ for the University Club so my wife and I could have a nice lunch.
They canceled Technology Day and scaled back the cable outreach operation. And from September 2003 through December the university spent about twice our department’s annual budget. Several members of the Cabal left the university under odd circumstances and those who remained found themselves pariahs.
Oh how unsad.
Flash forward to March of 2004. One of the ringleaders had been shuffled around to a dead end position to await retirement. One Sunday afternoon she left her office and stepped out between to legally parked vehicles on a major, very busy, roadway and got clobbered.
Both legs had multiple breaks, her hip/pelvis was crushed, her back was broken, both arms were broke and she had severe facial lacerations.
OMG how funny.
It turned out she had a blood alcohol well above the legal limit.
I almost sent her a bouquet of dead flowers but my wife talked me out of it.
She has “kind of” recovered, but she still must use a walker. She was rather vain about her looks and it now looks like she had been hit by shrapnel from a land mine (or something).
Normally this would have been a tragedy. But in this case it was karma.
So that is about the stupidest person I ever knew.
Oh to top it off the university has strict rules on being drunk on the job and after she was released from the hospital she was ‘involuntarily separated’ [fired] for cause. No UEI benefits. No references. No career. God help me but I loved hearing of her misfortune.
She screwed an entire department, helped ruin several lives, cost her employer a boatload of money for piss poor results, ya’ gotta love such cleverness.
Of course our department supported the College of Ag’s video unit, and helped all the various sports video folks. They all had to pay through the nose for outside ‘expertise’.
“Expertise” that often only existed in the mind of the service provider.
The only person who survived the departmental nuking decided it was time to retire after a dry chemical fire extinguisher “popped its top,” which covered everything with a super fine coating of ‘dust’. All of the VCRs were ruined and all of the tape library is ruined. He decided it was a serious enough nightmare that he would be better off retiring.
Friday I was contacted by the dean of distance learning who wanted my opinion on some “technical issues.” OK I really have no love for my former workplace, and after my summer unfun I have no love for the academic side of things either. But the Dean of Distance Learning was a nice guy who had nothing to do with our mass firing, or the vindictive actions taken by the university. So Monday (2014.08.18) I met with the dean of distance learning and he wanted to know what it would take to get the defunct Ku uplink working, and if possible could it be done by next Wednesday…
After I recovered from uncontrolled laughter I had to explain why simply replacing the control terminals would be enough. With the loss of the uplink control system the high voltage was removed from the TWT (Traveling Wave Tube) and the waveguide pressurization turned off.
I tried to explain that a TWT can’t be left in a powered down state for any appreciable length of time without incurring serious damage. And the loss of air pressure would allow moisture to “wick” in, and moisture on the inside of the waveguide causes corrosion.
The entire system was overdue for major maintenance cycle. All the remote sensors require replacement, the motor/gear system need a rebuild, and many other minor and not so minor problems need to be addressed.
The Dean took it well and explained that the college of Engineering in a stroke of genius/insanity had decided a visiting professor could be used to rake in some much needed cash by offering his popular coursed to many other universities via satellite. For some reason it isn’t possible to offer this course to ~20 universities as a web streamed video.
And now they are gonna have to rent a Ku-uplink truck. Which ill be very pricey, and given the short lead time may be problematic as most Ku-uplink trucks are booked for the fall football season.
So they will probably have to refund tuition and deal with the PR nightmare of cancelled classes.
Oh ain’t that a shame….or not.
I love life, it is just soo freaky I can’t wait to see what the next odd thing I see….
Terry
