They are smart up in Flint, MI

You want to assume that the police are on the ball. Highly trained. One step ahead of the criminals. You want to assume that if something bad happens, that they are going to be there in a flash solving the crime. Maybe its not one of those open and shut cases, but you want to know that they have a grasp on what's going on and are at least headed in the right direction. I am not so sure the people of Flint, MI are feeling that way right about now.

The police up that way have released a statement that they are "investigating" to see if any foul play was involved in the death of a 9 year old quadriplegic girl. Who was found dead in a public storage unit. In a trash bag. Covered in moth balls to mask the smell. Who wasn't reported missing for over 6 weeks after she was last seen.

What do you need to investigate for signs of foul play? The cops are waiting for the autopsy they said. Even if she died of natural causes.. the rest of the stuff is STILL foul play. What is their scenario looking like? One of my coworkers suggested that maybe she did the 'worm' to get to the storage facility. So maybe that's what they are thinking. She threw herself out of the wheelchair and 'wormed' her way down to a public storage facility. Then waited for someone to leave and sneak in real quick. She then omehow used her mouth to pick a lock to the storage unit. Then wriggled inside a plastic bag and then quickly covered herself in a mass of mothballs in the most elaborate hide-n-seek spot ever?

Look, even if she was suicidal and decided to suffocate herself in a trash bag in a pile of mothballs, SHE WAS A QUADRIPLEGIC. The definition of which is someone who has lost the function of both arms and both legs. Have you seen an adult trying to get a plastic yard trash bag off the roll, open, and get leaves stuff inside? Its not all that easy for a full functioning adult. Yet it doesn't raise any 'foul play' notions for the Flint PD that a girl who can't use her arms or legs ends up inside of one hidden in a pile of moth balls? Someone draw them a picture already as they are obviously just not getting it.

I know people are innocent until proven guilty. That is a GOOD thing. But that doesn't mean you make inane statements to the public like that. Give them some confidence in the police department. This is not a good way to do it.

I guess when I finally decide to take out Kirsten Dunst, I should do it in Flint. Then I can wrap her in a trash bag and toss her in a pile of moth balls in a public storage facility. That should raise no questions for at least a couple of months!

If you really want to see a badass 'worm' move though.. check out good ol' Steve Wozniak of Apple computers @ 3:15 in this video.

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C'mon Now...

First off, let me agree that guns are dangerous and shouldn't be left around loaded. I am all for gun safety. It's very important that if you plan on having firearms in the home that the kids are educated on them and that they are stored properly.

I just read THIS article and I am just floored. Yes, it's tragic that a kid got hurt. No one wants to see that. However, this was not a 5 year old that didn't know any better. This kid was TWELVE.

Now I have two boys in that age group so I feel somewhat qualified to talk on the capabilities and reasoning of said age group. Even if they stumbled across a loaded gun, decided to pick it up and then decided to be really stupid and try to shoot said gun, they are smart enough NOT TO POINT IT AT THEIR HEAD FIRST. Really, by the time they are say 10ish.. if you have not imparted the knowledge to your child that you never want to have a gun pointed at your head if you are going to pull the trigger to see if it's loaded or not, then you have failed as a parent.

It's a common sense thing. Much like not slicing your jugular with that kitchen knife to test and see if its sharp. Or sticking your hand in the garbage disposal to see if the blades are spinning or not. Or sitting bare-assed on the stove to see if the burners are working. It's people like this that force companies to put warning labels on things like "Do not attempt to stop chainsaw with genitals". (Yes, that is an actual warning label for Husquvarna chainsaws)

You know those darwin awards.. it's like chlorine for the gene pool. Yes, the parents should have had better control of a loaded firearm. But a 12 year old should be smart enough to NOT shoot himself in the head even if he did find a loaded gun. I have never taught my kids specifically about grenades, but I am confident that if they found one, they are not going to pull the pin and hold on to it just to see what happens. It's common sense.

See.. you can learn things from violent action movies and video games. My guess is that 12 year old had an overbearing mother that wouldn't let him do anything. Wouldn't let him watch anything with guns or violence. Wouldn't let him play any video games. Pretending the big scary world isn't out there doesn't help prepare them to deal with it, which they are going to have to do eventually.

The boy in the story is in stable condition now. If he survives, I hope he has learned something from the experience. Like Gun+Head=Bad.

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Devil Vision!

As we all now know from previous posts of mine, webcams are the work of the Devil himself and will immediately begin to corrupt the innocent and pure minds of those that use them. Fortunately, my mind is neither innocent nor pure, so its effect has yet to take hold.

I hopped on my Devil Cam and connected with my sister in AZ. My parents were there as well and so I got to see all of my family and even my new nephew Zane for about an hour. We had a good time chatting, seeing each other, and making plans for when I come visit in a couple of weeks. I do feel bad about exposing poor baby Zane to the Devil Cam this early in his life. He is DOOOOOOOOMED!

My family is insisting we have some kind of contest to tackle the Vermonster while I am there. Yes.. 20 scoops of icecream + toppings. I get my nephew Caden on my team though.. and I have seen that kid put away some serious icecream despite his size, so I think we have a good shot at winning!

I am not looking forward to the 100+ temps in AZ, but then again, I am not enjoying the forecast of snow today either. Maybe that move to San Diego isn't such a crazy idea after all! :P

Oh and here's a bit of humor for your day. This guy, Gary Gulman cracks me up.

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Wow... just wow.

How people can design things and not just step back and take a real good look at what they have created is beyond me. Or did this person know full well what he/she was making? If that's the case, it's even more disturbing. This is supposed to be a slide. For kids.

To be fair.. there are kids. And they are sliding. So I suppose in a way, it met its goals. But how.. HOW.. does this get made. How does a parent walk up to his and go, "Yes, go ahead little Billy.. go play on the giant penis and slide right on out of it!"?

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Happy Easter or something.

So I'm a few days late. Sue me.

The boys and I had a great, if non-traditional, easter. While I did have a ham ready to cook, I didn't feel like cooking it and my brother doesn't really like ham. He also doesn't like bacon and neither does my SIL. Which I am pretty sure makes them communists, but I am still checking on that.

So instead of ham and scalloped potatoes and finding eggs around the yard, we skipped all that noise and went and had Mongolian grill for lunch. It was fabulous. Even my picky eater enjoyed it. You get to pick your meats and seafoods, noodles, veggies and the type of sauce you want. Then you take all your ingredients up to the big grill and the entertaining guys there grill it all up for you while you watch. We all ate with chopsticks too, which was also very amusing. I think we all go the hang of it towards the end though.

The boys had brought their baskets over from my Ex's house where they celebrated easter last year. They made many, no-so-subtle reminders to the 'easter bunny' that they wanted stuff put in said baskets. So I got them lots of candy, including the sweet tart jellybeans they were requesting. The funny part is.. Gabe had his first orthodontial stuff put on yesterday and was reminded that you can't have any 'sticky' food. Like Jellybeans for example as the orthodontist mentioned. The look of dissapointment on his face when he heard that news was quite entertaining. So now they get to look at the jellybeans every day.. but not actually eat them. My older son decided he is going to try to sell them at school instead. Always thinking that one.

My brother hadn't seen the movie Dogma yet, so I took that over to watch with him yesterday. I love that movie. So many great lines in there and a ton of amazing actors. Yes, many great actors and actresses.. and also Ben Affleck. One thing he is not is even a good actor, much less great or amazing. He is like the male counter part to Kirsten Dunst. He is just not good at acting. Its a good thing he is friends with Mat Damon so that he still gets parts in movies otherwise he would be showing up on the next Celebrity Rehab reality show.

Well anyway.. happy belated Easter everyone!

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Oh.. and WTF

Read THIS

Well more specifically .. the comments below the question. I'm more than a tad bit disturbed. Do they have a support group for these people? I think they need some help. If nothing else, they could do some multi-group outings with the support group for "People who still eat elementary school paste" and the support group for "Janitors that snack on urnial cakes because they have the word 'Cake' in their name".

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Shouldn't you know?

I don't know why I am still floored by some of the things that go on around here at work. Today was supposed to be a nice easy day. Half day with nothing major pending and most people just ease into a holiday weekend so they don't call us to start anything major. Then I get an email which wants a bunch of information to put together in a report... well crap.

The thing is though, this email is very, VERY vague as to what they are looking for. So I ask for clarification from the person that sent the email. What I get back for an answer was basically:

"Well the person that requested this from me was vague too.. so I'm not sure."

Umm.. so you didn't think to ask for clarification? What was I thinking.. of course you didn't. That would make sense. This individual is supposed to be using his technical knowledge as well as his people skills to provide a bridge so to speak between the non-technical departments and management and the technical world. This is his position now. It's what he wanted to do. Yet when asked for a report, he is unable to even determine if he needs to ask more questions.

Helloooooo.. if you want to be a liaison .. then get to liaising already. Hmm.. not sure thats even a word, but I like it. Nothing irritates me more than a person who wants a job, gets said job and then chooses to not make any kind of effort to do that job. Really, we had ambiguous, pointless requests before. We don't need a middle man that just repeats that crap. We can get that directly from the source and at least they have a reason for it. You are supposed to understand. You are supposed to be able to speak both languages. Apparently you just haven't figured out the mythology of that yet.

Yes, I mean to use the term mythology there. Yes, I know the term methodology would be a better fit, but who am I to judge or question the choice of terms used by the master liaison? Clearly he must know what he is about and I am just a simpleton.

Today's email request was the equivalent of calling up your neighboor and saying, "Hey.. my boss is asking me questions and I need you to give me a report on grass."

Now your reaction to that would be something along the lines of .. "WTF does that mean? Are you talking grass like in your front yard? Or grass as in weed? Do you want to know how to grow it? Do you want to know the different kinds out there? Do you want to know the best kinds of fertilizers and weed killers for your lawn? Do you want to find someone to maintain your lawn? Really.. can you be more specific on what you are looking for so I can get you the information you are looking for?"

Legitimate questions... to which he replies, "I don't know.. he just wants a report on grass."

How the hell do you not ask more questions. Get clarification. Forge some kind of understanding between their world and ours. That is what you signed up for and claimed you are good at. This is an epic failure and is most likely going to be a giant waste of time for all involved.

It is very tempting to just make a crappy report with random facts that are just as useless and unhelpful as the instruction were that they gave us. But my brain doesn't work that way. I need to know. I need to understand what you want. I need it to come out organized and structured. Why must you piss me off so?

Happy hour can't come soon enough. Must drink away the stupid and annoying that is quickly taking up too much of my relaxing half day at work.

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