Can Sombody Help Me With This

What’s Happening

 I would like to know what is going on in Ukraine. A person gets so little real knowledge through the media. President Obama and Vladimir Putin don’t help the situation. They both talk tough and make threats. Obama banned a few Russians from coming into our country, and Putin then banned some Americans from going to Russia. No one even hinted that any of these people would want to go to either of these countries. Then Obama bans a couple more, and Putin bans a couple more, and so it goes. Putin says he will enlarge their military and Obama says something appropriately tough sounding. It’s like two little boys seeing who can urinate the farthest.

Now the problem with my analysis is that I don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes. Is what these two leaders doing really how they feel, and is it indicative of what they’re willing to do, or is all the rhetoric just their public personas and without meaning as far as to what is going on in Ukraine? If someone has a clear handle on this situation, I’d like to hear it.

A Guy to Have Along

         Today I was in line at Safeway waiting to buy some stuff. (An aside here--Safeway seems to put a high value on making their customers spend an inordinate amount of time waiting to buy their products. They’ll have twenty customers trying to get out of the store and have only two cash registers open, plus of course the check-yourself-out stations.) (Excuse me again, but an aside about the check-yourself-out stations. These places really bug me, so I try to avoid them. The reason is that although they say right on the station that you can pay with a check, it always comes as a surprise to the person riding herd on these stations when I try to pay with a check. They have to come and fiddle with my terminal, then transfer all the info over to another terminal, where they can finally process my check and let me escape this fabulous experience. In this whole process there are only about a dozen things that can go wrong, even if the clerk knows what he or she is doing, which is usually a stretch.) But I digress.

    While In line I was standing behind this guy who was probably about my age. He was slight of build, well weathered, and  had no body fat. He was wearing clean, but well used Levis, a pressed short-sleeved sport shirt, a belt, and suspenders. The suspenders were to hold his pants up, because he didn’t have much in the way of hips, and the belt was to hold a Buck folding-knife (about 8 inches), a Leatherman multipurpose tool, and a cell phone. He just had the look of a guy who had been there and done it. He was calmly watching the clerk telling the customer in front of him some long-winded story, which lasted well past the time the customer was ready to leave.

    I thought to myself, now if I were to get in trouble, this is the guy I’d like to have along.

    However, he was wearing a cap, so I would need to do the driving.

Now This is Chutzpah

       As reported by Ko Im on Yahoo’s News, a man from Corban, Kentucky (that’s close to where Steve and Angie live, and maybe why they’re moving), got arrested by the local police chief and was being booked for the suspected shoplifting of some beer. While being held in the police station waiting for this whole process to conclude, the suspect used his cell phone to call a local pizza parlor, and claiming to be the police chief, ordered five pizzas.

    Now he’s facing other charges. It seems that in Kentucky doing what they call indentity/deception/impersonation of a police officer is a felony. Go figure.

Mississippi Attorneys

     There was always an element of humor in the characters and In Biloxi, Miss., police officers stopped 30-year-old Roger Beasley Jr. who jumped out of his car and took off on foot. In his haste he ran into the Harrison County Law Enforcement Training Facility, which was in the middle of a training session. That was the end of his escape. Now this is all marginally interesting and shows a guy who does not react well to stress.

    But what got me was the last sentence in this report which said, “It wasn’t immediately know if Beasley was an attorney.”

    Now what was there about his whole incident that would lead anyone to think this guy might be an attorney?

    It his the way attorneys act in Biloxi?

    Is this the level of intelligence the attorneys in Biloxi exhibit?

    Who would’ve thought?
 

Goodbye Jim

       James Garner has passed away. He was one of my favorite actors. He has left a huge legacy of very successful movie and TV shoes.situations he played. He had an easy relaxed style that I enjoyed. I understand that he was somewhat the same in real life. He and his talent will be missed, but I’m sure we will be seeing his acting efforts for years to come.