"Normal" is a relative term

Looks like things are returning to normal here.  Over the past week we buried my 96-year old aunt (on Tuesday) and yesterday we laid to rest my 96-year old step-mom, too.  They both just wore out and died peacefully....they did it right!

Interesting factoid:  If I understood the story correctly, my step-mom invented the "conference call".  It was during WWII and she was working for the Southwestern Bell phone company.

  
She figured out a way to plug in the wires to the switchboard in such a way that she could connect calls from servicemen to multiple people on the other end at the same time, enabling them to all hear their loved one during the very brief calls the soldiers were allowed.  

Later the phone company techies of the day ran with her idea and, in the true spirit of capitalism, perfected a way to charge us extra for it.

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They are officially zero.  I'm talking about the odds that I will ever travel to India.  Before I read today's paper my odds of visiting India were about the same slightly lower than my sweeping Scarlett Johansson off her feet and driving off into the sunset with her beside me in my vintage Ferrari.

It seems in the northern Indian state of Uttar Prapesh the heat spiked to 117 degrees and the power company shut down.  The story said that on a good day power only works for a couple of hours anyway, but now they don't even get that.

And being the super intelligent folks they are, they rioted, took the electric company employees hostage, and burned down the electric substations.  Yeah, that'll show 'em!

So now they have 200,000,000 people (literally) running around without even their usual 2 hours of electric service a day.  And to make matters worse, I'll bet you $100 the stores are all sold out of deodorant, too.  Man, they can't buy a break!

Nope, sorry. No air conditioning, no Scotty boy.  Texas in the summer is bad enough.  I'm not going looking for trouble.

Stay cool everyone.  :)

S

Who says crime doesn't pay?

It made a lot of Goldman Sachs execs rich....even richer than they were before.  It seems that with the Statute of Limitations governing fraud and the economic collapse of 2008 rapidly approaching, it's now-or-never time for the Justice Department to either prosecute Goldman or walk away.  They're walking away.  They say they don't have enough hard evidence to prosecute.  

By all accounts Goldman has been sweating bullets over this one.  I say Goldman's lawyers are better at hiding things than the government lawyers are at finding them.  Goldman has already paid Rockefeller-sized fines for their shady dealings, but they just paid the fines and didn't have to admit guilt.  There was a reason they accepted that plea bargain.  This is that reason.  (Uncle Sam...I think you were just "out lawyer'd"!)

Party time in the Hamptons!

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It's party time in Dallas, too.  After yesterday's record 108 degrees, today's 96 seems downright cool!  Yea!  ;)

S

The End Is Near!

No, not the end of the world.  I mean the end of this @#$%& triple-digit heat wave we've had parked right over Texas for the past several months.  A quick glance at our 7-day forecast shows a cool front coming through tomorrow and temps falling into the upper 90's, and staying below 100 after that .  Yep, I said "cool" and "upper 90's" in the same sentence.  Absurd, isn't it?


It looks like we'll have around 65+/- days over 100 degrees this year, making it the second-hottest summer since The Big Bang.  It's also come to my attention that the 2011 college football season kicks off tomorrow night, too.  


Is it possible....I mean....could it be that God is a college football fan like me, and He's turned down the thermostat a few degrees so we can all enjoy the game?    ;)


Dinner out tonight with my daughters and a couple of the grandkids (with another "in the oven").  They all wanted Mexican food, which is fine with me, except it isn't exactly conducive to losing weight.  I'll really have to watch myself.  (We're trying to lose a few pounds and ramp up the exercise, getting ready to enjoy some outdoor activities this fall after being cooped up all summer.)  


S