b i r d d r o p p i n g s

I came across this game and am trying to figure it out… I think I am too old for it, but I hope not.

The following is the 2007 winning entry from an annual contest at Texas A&M University calling for the most appropriate definition of a contemporary term.  This year’s term was Political Correctness.

The winner wrote:

“Political Correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.”
 

Twenty years ago my life made a dramatic change…my wife Mary had asked me for a divorce, and we had, under pressure of a court date, made an agreement as to property settlement, and we actually went to court, where our attorneys read the outline of the agreement into a Cherokee County, Georgia, State Court record. I remember the day vividly. Mary and I had been squabbling for over a year by then, mostly over financial issues, but there were other problems in the marriage.

In 1996, Ronald Reagan’s Tax reform had essentially shut down my primary business of providing tax sheltered oil and gas drilling opportunities to serious taxpayers. The economics of domestic oil and gas drilling and production no longer worked. I knew that my cash flow would be seriously impacted, as it was with businesses all over Texas, Colorado, and Wyoming where my oil and gas interests were located. Mary and I had profound differences about our various real estate properties, but I knew, without a doubt, that we would have to divest ourselves of some of the properties.

We owned a beautiful family compound on Turkey Point near Port Clyde, Maine; a 25 acre horse farm and rental properties in Cherokee County, Georgia; and a luxury condominium in Winter Park, Colorado. We flew between those homes in our private plane, drove luxury cars, and vacationed in paradises living a very good life.

I wanted to keep the Maine property and to sell the Georgia and Colorado properties and to buy an inner city Atlanta, Georgia condo. She wanted to keep the Georgia and Colorado properties and to sell the Maine property. We compromised and we agreed that we would sell the Colorado property (which we eventually did), I would keep the Maine property, and she would keep the Georgia farm, but put it up for immediate sale and give me $50,000 upon its sale, and I agreed to give her $50,000 upon the sale or refinancing of the Maine property. After the lawyers read this into the court record, the Judge told them to get it in writing, deeds prepared and the like and we would be divorced with no further need to go to court.

Mary and I went across the street and met my friend Eddie Bunn for lunch, and then the three of us drove out to the farm in a torrential downpour. Just as we got to the house we heard the sound of a train driving by us, and that was very strange as there were no tracks nearby. A tornado came by and did major damage (mostly insured but a lot of work anyway), and just after the tornado passed by and we came up out of the basement, she looked at the damage, and then to me and said, “What are we going to do?”, and I responded “What do you mean we? I thought we just settled that this was your place, not mine”.  I went to the airport and flew up to Maine.

Unfortunately, a few days later Mary’s attorney was severely injured in a traffic accident, and she also discovered that in the last minute negotiation she had been poorly advised and had picked up a large tax obligation in the transfer, and so the final writing of all of this and the documentation remained unsigned when Mary was killed in a plane crash on August 11, 1990. You think it is generally difficult getting a divorce… try divorcing a dead woman.

A friend sent me this powerpoint presentation which is one of the better I have ever seen.

SubPrime Explained

On August 1, 2007, I became eligible (by turning 65) for Medicare. I had learned that I was eligible for a one time “Welcome to Medicare” physical, and my primary care physician, Dr. Brian Pierce at his office in Rockport, Maine, performed that examination, on August 27. He advised me that an ultrasound scan examination should be done at Pen Bay Hospital  and we scheduled that for September 12 at 8:30, having fasted for 12 hours.

That procedure, similar to the one everyone knows as what you check out pregnant women and babies, but really was to check for an aortic aneurism, was done timely and painlessly, and I was back at home working by 10:30 that Wednesday. At noon, Dr. Pierce’s office called me and told me that he needed to see me at 5:30 that day.

Now I didn’t exactly fall off of the turnip truck…  I fully realized the he was not calling me to tell me that everything was just fine and I fully expected to learn of an aortic aneurism and the need for treatment for that disorder, but instead learned of what the radiologist who read the scans perceived to be a 6cm growth on my right kidney. That precipitated an appointment for a CAT scan on Friday at 2:30 also at Pen Bay Hospital, and Dr. Pierce called me that Saturday to advise me that he and the radiologists had read the scans and that my next option was most likely surgery, and I scheduled an appointment with Dr. Lars Ellison at Pen Bay Urology Associates.

At that September 25 appointment with Dr. Ellison, he confirmed the earlier diagnoses. He suggested that surgery was really my only option, and I saw the scans myself for the first time. A growth was obvious to me and my independent research had confirmed surgery really was my only option, and that if at all possible this surgery would happen laproscopically.

After some due diligence on my part, mostly by downloading free literature from The Kidney Cancer Association at their website kidneycancer.org, that surgery was scheduled for Monday, October 22. I checked in to Pen Bay Hospital at 7:30 that morning, having pre registered, done some lab work, and confirmed insurances previously the week before. I spoke with Dr Ellison and the anesthesiologist before being wheeled into a room chock full of electronics and that was the last I remember until I awoke in the Special Care Unit to see my good friend Lora Ludwig, a nurse in the post anesthesia unit, who told me everything had gone as planned. I had been in the OR for about 5 hours, and it was a little more complicated than expected because the tumor was on top of my right kidney right up next to my liver. The staff in the Special Care Unit was wonderful and my treatment could not have been better. It was essentially painless because of an initial morphine drip into an IV and later oral medication. I now understand why people like that kind of drug. I came back home on Wednesday afternoon, October 24, 2007.

I took some fairly heavy duty pain pills for a week, pretty much hung around the house for three weeks, and lots of good friends brought me food and good cheer. My pathology report and the final meeting with Dr. Ellison confirm that he removed all of a lemon sized (6.5cm) malignant small cell cancer tumor along with my right kidney in what turned out to be a bit more of a surgical procedure than was expected, but everything ended up well.  I have no need for further chemotherapy or radiation treatments, and I consider myself to be a very lucky and blessed individual. Had it not been for the chance timing of the ultrasound exam, which was not even looking for the Kidney Cancer but caused its early detection, the cancer would have undoubtedly sat there undetected until its removal would have been much more difficult, and my prognosis much less favorable.

The final score is Richard 1, Kidney Cancer 0 and I once again offer my sincere thanks to every party involved with this process… Medicare, Pen Bay Hospital, all of the doctors, and my family and friends.

I have been an advocate for years for far less government involvement in our lives, and farbeit from me to ever suggest that more federal government programs in our lives is a better thing, but sometimes it just becomes necessary for our goverment to pass strong and definitive laws.

We all have packed away amongst our stuff literally dozens of these low power transformer do-hickies. For some strange reason they are seemingly never properly marked with the name of the device they are used to power or the necessary voltage and wattage information to know what they do, other than plug into the wall socket and then into some electronic device with a round hole that may or may not match any standard.

I believe that, for all sorts of reasons but mostly because it is just plain frustrating to me, our federal government must pass laws that forces manufacturers and sellers of such devices to, under penalty of huge fines and jail time for executives, permanently mark these devices with proper identification that can be read with normal vision. This must include the name, model, and manufacturer of the device.

Is that too much to ask?

A guy is 75 years old and loves to fish and play golf. He was sitting in his boat the other day when he heard a voice say, “Pick me up. “

He looked around and couldn’t see any one. He thought he was dreaming when he heard the voice say again, “Pick me up.” He looked in the water and there, floating on the top, was a frog.

The man said, “Are you talking to me?”  

The frog said, “Yes, I’m talking to you. Pick me up. Then, kiss me and I’ll turn into the most beautiful woman you have ever seen. I’ll make sure that all your friends are envious and jealous because I will be your bride!”

The man looked at the frog for a short time, reached over, picked it up carefully, and placed it in his front breast pocket.

Then the frog said, “What, are you nuts? Didn’t you hear what I said? I said kiss me and I will be your beautiful bride.”  

He opened his pocket, looked at the frog and said, “Nah, at my age I’d rather have a talking frog.”