Charlie's Rants & Raves

Wanna see some sad stuff? How about a $450,000.00 Porsche Carrera GT wrecked? How about a $180,000.00 Ferarri Modena now worth about $180.00?

Here's the site:
http://www.wreckedexotics.com/

Guess who's asking for an extra $80 billion for the "war" in Iraq & Afghanistan...you know who.

How much more does he need? Didn't they just approve $80 billion late last year? I haven't kept tabs on how much this has cost monetarily, but I'm sure that it's more than the GDP of some countries.

And guess who's next on the agenda...Iran. Hey, it's kind of hypocritical. We can storehouse hundreds or thousands of nukes, Isreal can have a few, only Russia is doing the right thing by getting rid of theirs. Why can't we follow suit? Do we need nukes? I don't think so. We've got such a large military already. We've got plenty of bombs already...why keep the ones that cause sooooo much widespread destruction?

That's all I got for now.

OK, I know that this country was founded on by people who wanted to practice their own religion. That's cool with me. What about the people that don't want to practice religion and don't want to listen to others preach how much better their religion is than another.

Isn't there supposed to be a separation between religion and the government? So, why does the President swear to God? Sounds like a direct contradiction of the separation of church and state. Why must I be subjected to this so much...

Should the Pledge of Allegiance be changed..."one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all"? Sounds a lot better.

If I'm testifying in court, do I need to put my hand on the bible? What about some other religious book?

Just my thoughts...

"All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know: The United States will not ignore oppression or excuse your oppressors," Bush said. "When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you."

Wow, wonder who the next tyrant is...It's interesting that the whole war in Iraq was based off inaccurate information. WMD...where??? Who is benefiting from what is going on in Iraq? You know who...not our soldiers...not the people we "rescued from tyranny"...who...I wonder...

Is it the job of the United States to be the world police? If we deem someone a tyrant, does that give us the right to invade, kill, maim, and occupy? What do police do...they are there to protect and to serve, right? If we are the world police, wouldn't it be our job to be the world protector then? Sounds crazy doesn't it. But think about it, if we can spend multi billions of dollars sending troop after troop (not even well equiped) to war, couldn't we spend more to end world hunger? Is it our job as a country to help other nations when they need it...maybe not. But, it is our job as humans to help humanity. What we have are major humanitarian issues. Death, disease, hunger, poverty...you name it, it's out there. So instead of spending countless amounts of money and resources chasing phantoms, we should be addressing "real" issues.

Here's an article to check out.

http://www.click2houston.com/news/4113413/detail.html

I couldn't believe it myself.

So, I get my power cut off the other day. Nothing as much fun as that.

Ok, here's the story. We move out of the apartment back in August 2004. I call to have the power transfered to the house. They want to charge me a deposit fee. I talk with a supervisor and he waives the deposit because we had been a customer for 4 years or so. We have power at the house

Four months go by, no bill. Ok, so I could have called to ask where it was, but is that my responsibility? How does Reliant collect their money? They send out a bill. Ok, so I call after the power gets cut. It takes forever for someone to find out any information. First they need the account number...like I know it. Then they need my wife's SSN. Do I know it...of course not. Then they need her driver's license number. Do I know it...of course not.

So finally they figure it out. Ok, where have my bills gone...guess where. The old apartment. Ok, so what, they can't deduce that when I shut the power off at one place and transfer it to the other, that I might actually live at the new place??? Anyway $ 348.44 later, my power is back on.

Yeah, their customer support sucks as well. "Well, I can't look up the account without the account number"...don't know it. The account's under my wife's name. I gave them her SSN, and they didn't have any record of it. It was under her driver's license#.

So we slept in the cold...no heat. water heater still worked because it's gas. but it was friggin cold last night. the guy who came to shut the power off didn't care when he saw ana with the 2 small kids. should he care...well, you would hope that there would be some sympathy. he was doing his job. well, he could have been like, i'll give you 5 minutes to call and see if you can pay off the balance. if it's all good, then i'll walk. she could have paid it easily. but anyway....

RELIANT BLOWS!!!!!!

I need to install gutters...or have someone do them for me. Do I really want to install them myself? It doesn't seem to hard, but I don't wanna "F" it up. Doesn't seem like it takes too much brilliance to put them up...but I have a second story. That's gonna require a long friggin ladder. I wonder what it costs to have someone just put them up for me.

Maybe get a bench near the front door so people can sit down to put their shoes on. I saw one at Target for $69.00 on clearance. I'll shop around and maybe find it cheaper. There was another one that had a coat hanger as well. That was $91.00.

Home theater...still a ways away. Thought that would be one of the first things I bought when I moved it...guess not. I'm still interested in getting a projector for upstairs. They tend to be cheaper than an actual TV. An XGA DLP projector will run about $1700.00. A DLP TV will run around $2500.00. I need to see the picture from a DVD player run through the projector though. But projectors can't show "over the air broadcast". I'd have to get satellite or cable to feed into it to watch television. Since the funds for that kind of stuff isn't readily available, then I doubt it would be benficial for me to get a projector. I don't know....

Wow, what it must be like to win the Presidency...too bad I can't, since I wasn't born here...

Let's see, $40,000,000.00 for the party. $12,000,000.00 in security detail alone. This is the tab that DC will have to cough up, not the guy throwing the party. And one bad ass limo. Granted it's a Cadillac, but this one looks pretty neat.

http://www.thebostonchannel.com/money/4088866/detail.html

Here's an anti-inauguration site:
http://www.counter-inaugural.org/

Well, I've finished haning curtains in Alejandra's room. They look pretty good. I would take a picture and load it to the blog, but the bloggerbot thing doesn't work on my PC. Maybe it's the browser...

Anyway, at least Alejandra's room is done. All the bedrooms upstairs are complete. I have a few curtains left that need to be hung. I'll begin on those maybe Wednesday.

Two playoff games. Could have lost last week, but a rookie kicker goes right...He'll probably be canned. This week, kicker misses...TWICE. Once at the end of regulation from 47 yards...He kicked the ball a good 46 yards....too bad the distance was 47 yards. In overtime, a pretty sure 43 yard field goal for this guy sails sooooo far left, he could have kicked it from 20 yards and still missed....

We'll see how the Steelers face up with the Patriots.

I figure that I would try my hand at tinkering with PCs. I'm in the industry, but haven't done anything really. More conceptual work than hands-on.

I have an older PC. HP, Windows 98, Pentium Celeron 533, 64 MB RAM, 4 GB hard drive. I figure why not. Parts for this old clunker can't be that much + I'll learn more.

I would like to upgrade the RAM and add a second hard drive. I would also like tinkering with networking computers. Idea doesn't seem that hard, but I've never done it.

I'd like to boost up the PC so Ana and I can play network games against each other.

Well, the weekend has come and gone. What have I done??? Not much. Took the family out Saturday. We went to Memorial City mall. I told Alejandra to walk throught the fountain. The fountain is the kind that isn't on all the time, rather shoots out some jets of water on occasion. Well, she got wet and that ended our trip to the mall. We went to visit my mother, go eat hamburgers, and then visit Ana's grandmother...That was Saturday. Oh, I also spent around an hour hanging up one set of blinds...it would have gone quicker had I read the instructions...

Onto today...watched TV, went to Old Navy, and Target. Oh, also hung up another set of blinds. This one went quicker (I think). Worked out, and that's about it.

I checked the mail and guess what I got??? A jury summons...oh boy. How I look forward to that...

What do I have to look forward to this week???
Monday
- Back to work
- Do some more housework

Tuesday
- More work
- Volleyball game in the evening

Wednesday
- Yet more work
- Payday (not like I get to keep any of it...)
- LOST

Thursday
- Work again
- Pay the homeowners association fees (from my check on Wednesday)

Friday
- Work some more

Of course, there's the occassional update the blog, play with the kids, pay various bills, etc.

Looks like the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq are over.

The hunt for biological, chemical and nuclear weapons in Iraq has come to an end nearly two years after President Bush ordered U.S. troops to disarm Saddam Hussein.

Four months after Charles A. Duelfer, who led the weapons hunt in 2004, submitted an interim report to Congress that contradicted nearly every prewar assertion about Iraq made by top Bush administration officials, a senior intelligence official said the findings will stand as the ISG's final conclusions and will be published this spring.

Congress allotted hundreds of millions of dollars for the weapons hunt, and there has been no public accounting of the funds. Go figure...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6814588/

If you remember, a grilled cheese toast with an "image" of the Virgin Mary sold for 25,000.00 a while back. A couple of weeks ago, some lady sold her father's "ghost cane" for 7,800.00.

If you don't know, it never snows in south Texas. We got some in Houston on Christmas eve. It was gone the same night. In Brownsville, they got a few inches of snow...the first time ever.

Some guy freezes the snow and sells it on eBay. Question is, how will he ship it...

http://www.click2houston.com/news/4071785/detail.html

The link below is for some Q&A regarding the city's new Safe Clear Program. This program allows towing companies with contract with the city to tow vehicles broken down on the highway. There is a so-called 6 minute rule, where the wrecker should appear 6 mintues after being dispatched by police.

http://www.click2houston.com/automotive/4058468/detail.html

Other parts of Texas (and I think that this is part of the state law) allows the driver 4 hours to remove their vehicle from the side of the highway. That's plenty of time to do so. However, 6 minutes isn't much time. Imagine you run out of gas and the nearest gas station is 1/2 mile away. It could take you about 7-8 minutes to get to the gas station, a minute or so to get a couple of gallons in the tank, and another 7-8 minutes before you get back to your car...just to find it missing.

There are also other issues with this. Some vehicle manufacturers will void the warranty on the vehicle if it is not towed on a flatbed. I don't think that this was ever brought up. Can you request a flatbed if you know your warranty will be voided? Will the wrecker drive there call the police on you because you're not cooperative...I wonder.

Some don't like it, some do. I'm not really for it. Hopefully my car won't die on the freeway. If it does, I'll do my best to push it onto the feeder road.

People are already in line waiting for the movie to come out.

http://www.theforce.net/latestnews/story/Star_Wars_Fan_Camps_Out_For_ROTS_88736.asp

Maybe it's me, but I don't think that waiting in line 22 weeks for a movie to come out, in Seattle none-the-less is worth it. Maybe a weekend if that much, but 22 weeks, nah. Too much time.

I have a wife, kids, and a house note...I wonder about this guy...think he's single? Think he lives at home still? Don't know...

Plus, there is this thing called the Internet where you can buy your tickets early. Go wait in line early in the morning, and you should be fine.

I hope that I'm not that much of a Star Wars nerd.

District of Columbia officials have one question for inaugural planners: Who is going to pay the city's estimated bill of $17.3 million?

D.C. Mayor Anthony A. Williams, in a letter to federal officials, outlined the anticipated costs for the events surrounding President Bush's second inaugural on Jan. 20. Police overtime from Jan. 18-21 was put at nearly $5.3 million, producing special license tags would cost $43,260 and construction of reviewing stands was estimated at nearly $3 million.

Williams cited these costs in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge and Office of Management and Budget Director Joshua B. Bolten.

Sharon Gang, a spokeswoman for the mayor, said the city has been told that a supplemental appropriation for inaugural funds would not be made.

A spokesman for the Homeland Security Department said, however, that $11 million in existing funds had been approved for overtime expenses.

Williams suggested dipping into the Emergency Planning and Security Cost Fund, which has been used for events such as former President Reagan's funeral, July 4 festivities and protests against the World Bank (news - web sites). Guidelines for that fund, however, limit its use to planning and security expenses.

"It's not our event. It's a 100 percent federal event," said Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., the city's congressional representative. Norton said the city should not have to dip into the emergency planning fund — much less homeland security dollars — for a presidential inaugural.

Cost of a Kevlar jacket.................................................................$850.00
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Cost of a M2A2 Bradley Fighting vehicle..................................$1,250,000
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Cost of George Bush's inaguration.............................................$40,000,000
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Cost of human life.........................................................................priceless

I figured that I'd do what all the cool kids are doing, so here is my blog. I'll see how this goes.

Thanks for visiting,
Charlie