IT FIGURES

In case you missed it in the papers:

Senate shoots down minimum wage plans

WASHINGTON — The Senate defeated dueling proposals Monday to raise the $5.15-an-hour minimum wage — one backed by organized labor, the other salted with pro-business provisions — in a day of skirmishing that reflected Republican gains in last fall’s elections.
Both plans fell well short of the 60 votes needed to advance and signaled that prospects for raising the federal wage floor, unchanged since 1996, are remote during the current two-year Congress.
The Democratic proposal would have increased the minimum wage by $2.10 over the next 26 months. Republicans countered with a smaller increase, $1.10 in two steps over 18 months.
The Democratic amendment was defeated, with 46 votes for and 49 against. The GOP alternative fell by a wider margin, 38 for and 61 against

An unidentified Senator was chatting with an unidentified Representative from an unidentified State and he commented, "No, I'm not concerned. Most of them don't vote anyway."
The Congressman agreed saying, "I know. I checked my district and during the last election campaign I didn't get even one contribution from a minimum wage person."
Then, both together, "If they don't care how can they expect us to care."

Disclaimer: It is possible that the above conversation never took place but it might have.

I FEEL SAFER NOW

I feel much safer now. Click here.
(This will take you to my other web site and you can click Back to return.)

MY NEW INVENTION

The other day I saw a short news item on TV that concerned a white-haired, 82-year-old man who was a runner. I pricked up my ears but quickly saw this man was a real runner - not a jogger and certainly not a wogger.

In addition, he ran the high hurdles and he really was serious about it. He would get down in the classic starting position and run to the first hurdle and soar over it. And he was 82 years old. I'm almost 82 years old and I can't do that, but I think I could if I started out small. After all, my first day wogging I barely made it around the track. The secret is to start small and gradually increase. I thought I could start with a strip of paper on the ground and gradually increase it, a strip at a time, until I was hurdling a whole ream of paper. But then what? This led me to think about inventing the Furdle. That's more than Flat but less than a Hurdle.

I think the mechanism of the scissors jack might be suitable.
Each day a small turn of the screw would increase the height until, without realizing it, a person would be hurdling at Olympic-hurdle height. I explained this idea to my lady here and I think she, not being a wogger, didn't understood the idea. When I mentioned finally getting to be able to hurdle the highest setting she asked,"What good would that be?" I explained how handy it would be if a person were being chased and came to a low fence. A person could go right over it. I don't think she understood that either because she just shook her head and walked away. Maybe it isn't for everyone. Maybe it's just for that old guy on TV and me.

I'M BACK WITH GOOGLE'S NEW MAPS

Google is at it again.

They have a new map program that is now available, though it is the beta version right now. I was very impressed with the new look when compared to what we are used to with Yahoo. I tried looking up the high school where I go wogging each morning. I just typed in the intersection and the city and state and it came up.

Click on images to enlarge


The sliding scale on the left allows zooming in to find street names and such.

I found the accuracy to be nothing short of amazing. When I entered my street address it even put the flag on the proper side of the street. (That's the side we live on -- The Proper Side)

Personally, I could do without the cloud effect as I don't see it adding anything except cute and surely by now we have enough cute to go around.

By the way, the map shows the school located in the middle of an intersection. For those of you who might wonder, "No, I do not now, and never have, done my wogging in the middle of a busy intersection."
(If you feel a pressing need for a dictionary definition of wogging just click here.)

MEA CULPA

Just a short note of apology here for any of you who happened to come looking for me. As General Douglas MacArthur said during world War II, "I shall return."

I am currently working on establishing my own web site which eventually will be located at http://www.oldprof.com.

There's not much there right now but I'll let you know when I have something. Right now, I am about at 2nd grade level in learning the HTML language needed to set this thing up. I'm finding it fascinating but time consuming. In fact, I just finished importing my Brazilian Volleyball story to my web site and though it maybe crude and possibly even ugly, it's mine!

So, I'll see you later, I hope.

The Old Professor

P.S. As an afterthought, if you would like me to notify you when my new website is ready I would be honored to do so. Just go down to the bottom here, click on COMMENTS and give me an e-mail address. Thanks.

BRAZIL & WOMEN'S BEACH VOLLEYBALL

I wanted to share a thought with you about something you (and many millions others) may have missed.

As you might guess, I recently have spent a lot of time watching the Olympics, especially Women's Beach Volleyball. Yesterday during the Gold Medal match between USA and Brazil I noticed something no one I know of has noticed. As you know these women wear brief bikini bathing suits which, to me, are quite attractive. There is a bottom part and a top part. The USA team uniform says "USA" on the top part. What to you think it says on the top part of the Brazil women's uniform? Right! It's says "BRA".

This made me wonder what it's like in Brazil. Do ordinary people walk around with hats that say HAT on them or pants that say PANTS. Weird. I know what you're thinking -- I meant maybe Brazilians are weird. I decided to check this out. What better place to start than the President of Brazil.
Currently he is Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva
and I found a picture of him.

Would you believe this? Even his TIE!

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva
It must be true!

A CASE FOR WOGGING AT A TRACK

Almost every morning I go wogging. A wog is slower than a jog but faster than a walk. (If someone can invent a word like “blogging” why can’t I go with “wogging”?)
Of course, there are several options open to me when I do go wogging but I choose to do my wogging at the local high school running track in Carmel, CA.

It's a very attractive place to start any day.

There are several reasons I feel track wogging is better that street wogging. For one thing, the track is a measured distance. The one I use is exactly one quarter of a mile around the oval. That's the distance in lane number 1. Lane 6, where I usually wog, is almost one tenth of a mile more every four laps.

Knowing the exact distance allows for planning the distance I will wog that day. This eliminates that situation where a wogger might end up so far from home that he can’t get back and needs to use his cellphone to call a cab. I hate it when that happens.

Then there is the fact that the track is a flat surface and doesn’t present potholes and other obstacles which might cause one to fall and then while lying there have some smart-ass high school kids drive by and yell, “What’s a matter old man? Can’t get up anymore?” I hate it when that happens.

An important factor to me is there are no dogs allowed at the track.

This completely eliminates that problem where a person might be wogging past a house and the resident dog becomes upset and chases the wogger until he needs to jump over a fence and the dog grabs his pant leg and almost pulls his pants off and then the automatic sprinklers come on and the wogger gets soaked. I hate it when that happens.

Of course, being at a school track there is almost no problem with the police assuming the wogger had just robbed a nearby convenience store and then making him stop and both cops, with guns drawn, jumping out of their car and yelling “Put your hands on top of your head where I can see them!” I hate it when that happens.

And perhaps the most important advantage is the track is quiet. There are no cars and a wogger can just quietly go around and around with nothing particular to think about except possibly what his next blog might be. Sometime he can’t even think of that. I hate it when that happens.

A TSUNAMI IDEA

The other day, once again, I was working up a good sweat while wogging my way around the oval track as I do almost every morning. I find this activity leaves my mind completely blank and susceptible to new ideas. My latest idea concerns the victims of the recent tsunami disaster. If, by some remote chance, you are unfamiliar with what a tsunami is, please click here to find a definition as well as the pronunciation if you have sound available.

I decided to start my own small relief fund.
I am calling it:
TSWEATING FOR TSUNAMI TSURVIVORS

Each day I wog I just put a dollar in a special glass I have created for the occasion. Tsomeday when there is tsufficient money to help the tsurvivors tsignificantly I will tship it to them tsomehow.

SOCIAL SECURITY SYSTEM SAVED !!

So now we know the Social Security System will be bankrupt in a year 2000 something. Of course it will. Why? Because people are living too long, that's why. Back when the system was first started, a person living to the age of 65 was not as common as it is today. For years we have known that the primary cause of preventable deaths was cigarette smoking. That has now been replaced by obesity and the main reason for that has been a consistent campaign to reduce cigarette smoking, either by legislation or by prohibiting advertising.

Perhaps if we could bring back the advertising of 20 years ago we might be able to solve the problem of so many people living so long.


Do you remember the super-masculine Marlboro Man who often was the handsome cowboy?






Or at least in the healthy, rugged outdoors.








And then there were the billboards proclaiming that some fool, "Would walk a mile for a Camel."



And let's not forget the filters. We could use the old Lucky Strike billboard, which proclaimed, "Show me a filter with taste and I'll eat my hat."

And my last suggestion would be to increase the government subsidies for tobacco farmers. The money our government currently spends for these people may seem exorbitant now but when cigarette consumption picks up again they certainly will need all the assistance they can get to keep the production level up and hence, the Social Security System alive and well.

Are you listening Mr. Bush? It could work.

P.S. All of the people shown above are now dead and have no worries about Social Security.

I THINK THIS IS UNUSUAL, EVEN FOR ME

Here is an unusual thing I ran across while cruising the Internet. It's a picture of a couple who are obviously elated about something. I have blacked out what that "something" is. What do you think it might be? Using the size of these people as a base for guessing, would you guess there might be a giant-size hamburger they have just received? Or might it be "a bundle from heaven"? Could it be a tall ice cream sundae made with all 31 flavors?

(Scroll down a little to see)











Well, it might not be as interesting as you expected, but here's an unretouched (really!) picture of what they are so excited about.

It's a toilet! But a very special toilet. It's an oversized toilet equipped with, of course, an oversized toilet seat made for, what else but oversized people. This thing of beauty is manufactured by the Great John Toilet Company and their web site now has it on sale for $1329, which is marked down from their usual $1899 price. This includes shipping in the United States.

The people shown in the ad probably paid a lot of extra money for what they put into their bodies and it seems that ultimately they must pay extra for what comes out also.

In the event that you are seriously interested you can see this toilet and several others at the Great John Toilet Company web site.