Sex or Death

Which one is more worthy of news and keeping us informed?

I am assuming this articles facts are correct about the news programs here, I don’t watch them because I already find them designed for sound bite journalism.

It doesn’t surprise me though, more news is devoted to the possibility of some sort of nakedness than to people dying and people being mislead about a war.

Nudity doesn’t bother me, sex doesn’t bother me, “kinky” sex doesn’t bother me, so long as it is safe, sane and consensual that’s fine. When it comes to airing Janet Jackson’s nipple on the superbowl, I have to say that was a little out of the family atmosphere, but really, the coverage it got was so hyped up. I would have expected the nipple to make a good talking point with parents with kids about why that is inappropriate/stupid/pointless, not to have parents calling up the TV network saying “how dare you?”.

I wonder in America whether nudity would be such a big thing if the conservative lobby didn’t make so much noise. If it wasn’t so “Bad”, so many people wouldn’t make a spectacle of it and it would all go away.

I have had a couple of vacations at Hedo III in Jamaica, it has a Prude (Clothing) section, Optional, and Nude pool. 90% of the couples there hang out at the nude section, no one cares what others look like or that they are nude, the only people that stand out there are the ones who wander in from the Prude area looking embarrassed. Sounds a lot like the conservatives?

I really think that the conservatives who make such a big thing of a little bit of skin should get their priorities in order and start putting their efforts and, lets face it loud, voices into something that really matters, like stopping people dying in a war that at this rate will never end, and a government that deliberately and with the TV networks help (which is worse) deceives the taxpayers, voters and viewers.

Although it has it’s faults, I say, bring on the BBC, it is beholden only to it’s viewers, not to advertisers or even the current government in power. The news from them at least seems reasonably objective.

Neighbours

I think my neighbour has finally stepped over the line from being weird to stalker.

He is mad at me because he thinks I reported him for running an illegal trucking business from his house, which I didn’t, which he now knows, but I apparently am still worthy of being yelled at.

I can deal with the yelling, I put it down to him being a crazy red neck and I live 400 feet up a hill from him, but this weekend it escalated.

Some friends and I went out for breakfast at the diner and he got in his truck and followed us all the way there.  Initially I thought it was just coincidence, but the way I get to the diner is a very quiet way to go.  He followed us all the way there, drove round the parking lot and left.

I’m still of the opinion that he is nuts, but it bothered me that he is now doing things like this when my friends are around.  I’d like to talk to him, but he doesn’t want to talk.

I have considered talking to the police but that can only escalate it and I’d really rather calm it down.  Neither of us are moving so we might as well try to get along.

Trash!, Pick it up, How hard can that be?

The last few weekends I have had the chance to get out some more in the Kayak.  It has been great weather and I have gotten sufficiently sun burnt.  The rivers in this area are nice, we have a few large rivers with rapids and fast moving currents and lots of smaller rivers, maybe 20 feet wide, with lots of wildlife and beautiful scenery on.

So why do people leave all their trash behind when they go on them!?

A lot of the rivers have small trash on them, things the people just toss aside, like beer cans, plastic bags, shopping carts etc.  Can’t people just take them home?

Some of the rivers are even worse though, people dumping paint, pieces of old car, etc.

These rivers bring life to an area, they are drinking water to many animals (and the ones that feed reservoirs, our drinking water too).  What would possess you to leave all you crap behind?

A simple rule is “Bring it with you, Take it away with you”.  That way everyone gets to enjoy the sites and they will be here for generations to come, as will the wildlife that won’t have to live in the toxicity that you create!

This truly is a rant, you can tell by the exclamation points, the outdoors is there for everyone to enjoy, not just you until you leave and leave your trash behind.

Sore, So Sore

This construction stuff is hard work for us office types.

I’ve been at it all week from about 3pm till 8pm and the deck looks like a deck.  The frame went up one day along with the footings, the joists another day and then onto the deck boards, I am about 1/3 of the way through them.

The deck boards are screwed down and are the most painful thing to work with, the deck isn’t quite high enough to sit under but is just to high for me to lay on my back and reach the screws.  My shoulders, arms and necks ache so much this morning, I might have a night off.

But on to my rant,

First of all, dimensional lumber, why isn’t it what it says it is, a 2×10x14 board should be 2 inches by 10 inches by 14 feet, but no, it is 1.5 inches, by 9.5 inches by 14 feet 1 inch!, or 14 feet 1/2 inch.  Why isn’t the wood the size it is claiming to be.  I build a deck that is 14 feet wide, the deck board claims to be 6 inch wide, so I need 28 pieces?  Not at all, I need 30 pieces!

And then there is the Trex.  Dimensional lumber’s inaccurate lengths I can blame on it being a natural product, so why then is Trex so inaccurate?  It is made in a factory, the grain on it is identical, the board is supposed to be true, yet I still end up having over an inch of variable length and the board has twists in it that I have to correct when I screw it down.

I guess Trex just wants to be SO like wood it has some of wood’s irritating qualities too?

Only 1600 screws left to put in……

Panhandlers

… or beggars, which ever.

In the area I live and work there are very few homeless. The homeless seem to head into the city not to the suburbs, but this makes it very tiresome with the panhandlers we get.

Most of them are dishonest, I mean flat out liars. I think they’d get far more help from people if they didn’t lie.

Yesterday I was stopped at a gas station, I was filling up with the corporate gas card and this guy comes up to me and says “I need to get to *insert next town* and just need a gallon for gas”. Lets start with the fact Gas is about $3.50 so that would have got him 1/3 of a gallon, next the fact he kept going back and talking to his buddy in the truck like mine which means at best his 1/3 of a gallon would have got him 5 miles. But it gets better…..

I said to him, I have no cash (which was true), but if you pull your truck up I can throw $5 of gas in to get you home. He was offended and walked off muttering.

Why did he feel the need to go round a gas station for money, why did he ask for money for gas but refuse the gas, surely $1 at a time is gonna take him a while to get money?

Another one a few weeks ago was similar, this time I was in the city, a “homeless” guy asked me for $1 for food, I said I had no cash (notice a pattern here, I really should find more ATMs), but I was on my way to the deli for a sandwich and offered him one. Once again, offended and stomping off.

If these guys actually asked for money for what they wanted would they get better results? Are they less ashamed about lying about what they are begging for than begging for what they want. If the homeless guy had said about booze, I might even have got him some, I never need an excuse to look round a new liquor store!

The one that irritates me the most though is the panhandler that stands at the traffic light outside my office. He is there most days, on one corner or other. His sign just says “help, can you spare some change?”. But I get the chance to observe this guy. He is wearing $150 sneakers, $150 for shoes and you are out panhandling? The other day I noticed he was wearing a sport team jacket too, those are never cheap.

I once read a news story about people that make a fortune begging, there was one who begged all day then got in his Jag and drove back to his wife, kid and 3 bedroom house. It was simply his tax free job.

I don’t mind people in need asking for help, I like to help where I can, but it’s a minefield with all these lying fakes.

Put the ambulance on standby

It has been long enough that my wife has forgotten about me and power tools…..

We are building a deck. Nothing fancy, 16ft x 20ft rectangle, hopefully with a trex or similar top and we haven’t decided on a hand rail.

Day one done, nothing more than a few scratches and we have an outer frame, tomorrow I need to rent a post hole digger and make some foundation holes.

A new CB sneaked past me

Normally I’m pretty good at keeping up with chastity belt technology, but I seem to have missed this one.

It is the Arch from Neosteel. It seems to get around the pinching the balls with the front shield problem, by just removing the front shield completely. I also like the masterpiece waistband. The liner always sticks to the skin, where as the steel shouldn’t. I remain unconvinced about the thong back though, moving stuff out of the way to use the bathroom always seems like to much work, not that the chains are comfy to sit on.

I think this is the way to go, but at 590 Euros I can’t afford to try one and find another belt that doesn’t fit right.

Maybe when I win the lottery

Panic Attacks

I don’t know why I should suffer from Panic Attacks, I really don’t think my life is that hectic, but I can’t seem to get away from them.

Several times in the last year I have had attacks, some as simple as me getting really flustered and having headaches.  A few have had me breaking down shaking and in tears.  I can’t seem to place WHY I am getting them though.

I had one this morning because everyone in the office needed everything, instantly at the same time.  I was calm enough to let them all know I would take care of the quickly and in turn, and then returned to my office to shake and pace.

That sort of thing should not elicit this kind of reaction though.

I’d considered caffeine as a reason, for as long as I can remember I have had a can of Coke in the morning, thats it.

I have considered my high blood pressure, but that shouldn’t affect my psychological well being.  I don’t know what else might cause it.

I look up the anti-depressants on line and firstly I don’t think they are designed for occasional panic attacks, secondly I hate taking pills for things I shouldn’t have to and thirdly, the list of side effects is not good.

Perhaps I need to find some sort of holistic approach, I don’t know what else to look for.  If I go to the doctors I will end up with prescription meds, not what I wants.

Perhaps I just need a vacation?  But that is a stress in itself trying to figure out what I want to do

CB Kinda Day

I am still trying to figure what the appeal of chastity belts are. I decided yesterday I was kinda in the mood to wear until the weekend, which sucks because I have to go to a conference today and the steel belt is just not practical for that on me.

I decided the steel belt would be fine for the evenings and night, and could use the less secure cb3000 during the day as there is less temptation anyway (I can pull out of the cb3k). All was going well till bed time when a wrong moved pinched enough to make me scream and my eyes water. I gave the steel belt a miss for the night but have the CB-3000 on today.

What inspires someone to wear things like this.

I can’t say they are particularly comfortable, well none of the ones I’ve tried.  Granted your body after a few hours starts to ignore the restriction, pinching or rubbing, but still when you go to take them off there is still some relief.

They certainly are not to assist self control.  If you have the key then they are no more secure than will power, if you can take it off then you aren’t really securing yourself.

Sadistic pleasure, now here may be something, the knowledge that you are wearing something to stop you pleasuring yourself, gets you excited enough to want to pleasure yourself more, and hence realizing that you can’t because of the lock.  This only works if you do not have access to the keys though.

There are people out there who wear because they are instructed to by their significant other.  This has to just be a psychological game they play with themselves.  If they had no choice but to wear it, it would be abuse, the game has to be played on both sides, with sufficient risk and reward, otherwise no one would play.

In my perfect world, the belt would be comfortable yet immovable, and my wife would hold my keys demanding her satisfaction and taunting me with the prospects of mind blowing releases.

In the real world we like to play till the pain and irritation get to much, her getting her satisfaction when she is inspired.

If anyone out there has some ideas for a more comfortable belt, that is more secure than the ball trap devices, and you need someone to work with you to get a good design, please contact me…. I am determined to find one that works!

There are still some nice people out there, they just don’t work for local government!

It has been a long weekend.

I was going on a Kayaking/Camping trip with an “organized” group.  The idea was to start paddling Saturday morning, get to the half way point around 6pm, camp overnight and paddle the second day.  Fun as it was it was very badly organized.

It started a couple of weeks ago with the camping, we were coming from 150 miles away with a caravan, so we were talking to the group leader about making sure we could camp Friday night as well as Saturday night at the preserve.  Wednesday before the trip I got a copy of the permit, Saturday night ONLY.

A call to the New Jersey township resulted in a stern, absolutely not for changing the permit or camping Friday night.  But only after 3 days of chasing them down.  So we had no place to camp Friday night.

A quick bit of research and using Google satellite maps, we found a couple of truck stops and parking lots so we drove up there hoping.

Turns out that there is was a small furniture store right next to the preserve, and the owner was a great guy!,  I explained the permit situation and the kayaking thing and he was really interested, he said staying in his parking lot was totally fine so long as we were out before he opened at 10.  No problem, Kayaking started at 9, be there by 7, so we were out of his lot by 6:30.

Just to reiterate…. REALLY NICE GUY , if it wouldn’t compromise his privacy I’d tell you were he is and insist you buy something from him.

So we set up in his parking lot and took a walk up the street.  We were in a very cute part of Princeton, NJ, lots of older homes, with paved sidewalks.  If it wasn’t for having to be up early the next morning, we’d probably have spent a little longer exploring.
Up next morning early and moving the caravan onto the preserve.  Got picked up by a friend and get the put in point.

Here is where it got really disorganized.  No one knew where we were going, who was there who had equipment, etc.  After an hour though the organizer finally got his head round it and we started to get ready to go.  Then we meet Lisa, she was useless, I mean utterly useless.  Within 30 seconds of arriving she had lost her car keys and had all 20 of us out looking for them.  Once they were found, another 30 minutes for her to get ready and we finally set off.

The paddle really did show how little New Jersey residents think of their waterway system,  we are very used to dodging trees and plants, but the morning was more about dodging paint cans and shopping carts.  But we saw herons, frogs, turtles, hawks, lots of types of fish, groundhogs, and lots of other wildlife.  We had to keep stopping though because Lisa was so slow, that by the time we had paddled for an hour, she was an hour behind…. yes we couldn’t figure it out either, was she going backwards.

By the stop, according to the GPS we had been stopped 10 minutes longer than we had been moving!

This is where Gail and I took charge.  Gail and I don’t like following, especially when there is no one to follow.  When moving we had averaged 3mph.  We had 7 miles to go.  It had taken us 4.5 hours to get to the first stop.  There was much debate about having another stop, or keeping going, or where to stop.  Gail and I just stood up and said, 3mph, 7 Miles, 2.5 hours…… lets just paddle!!,  there was much murmuring of agreement, they handed Gail the radio to be point person and we set off.  The second part of the day was much more enjoyable.  Especially dashing for cover as the thunderstorms rolled overhead.

In the afternoon we saw a couple of cool dams which none of us had the nerve to paddle over and we went on Lake Carnegie which was fun.  Eventually reached the camp site around 4:30 where the ground grew had already chilled the beer

The evening was fun, everyone put up their tents, we set up the caravan, everyone appreciated the bathroom, running water and fridge.  We weren’t allowed an open fire so there was singing round a propane camping grill, had a visit from the local cop who wanted to check the permit (good job I hadn’t stayed Friday night), and everyone was off to bed.

It was cold, I was so glad for the heating, not sure how the tent people survived.

Sunday I woke up aching, to many aches, so I decided to skip day 2 of the paddle and come home.  Got in about noon, had a long bath and spent the afternoon evening sleeping on the couch before going to bed for some much needed Zzzzzzz’s.

All in a all a fun weekend.  I forgot to mention that out of this group, the disorganized ones were all government employees.  The rest of us seemed to have out heads screwed on right

Now I just have to look like I am working while I sleep some more at my desk, I ache!