Presidential Election and Birthday – Take 3

Well it has happened again. I have woken up on November 3rd and had another birthday. That is 71 times now and I think I see a pattern developing where this occurs every year. This year is different than most of the previous years as it is election day, specifically Presidential election day. This is the eleventh time that election day has fallen on my birthday (of course meaning there were 60 that it didn’t or 84.5% of the years). Of those eleven 6 were just run of the mill local election years, 2 were mid-term years (1970,1998), and this year is the third time it has been a Presidential year. When you consider the previous times and the results (1964, 1992) it does not bode well for the Trump guy and his chances as my birthday seems to be a great predictor of presidential election results.

The election of 1964 had LBJ running against Barry Goldwater, the leading ultra conservative of the Republican party. He ran on small government, low taxes, strong defense, all the usual Republican talking points although he was a bit extreme. He also ran against the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Johnson won in a landslide with Goldwater winning only his home state of Arizona and the Southern tier of states. Notably this was the first time they had voted Republican since the Civil war and that has not changed since. That was all the Civil Rights Acts doing. The same act split union support in the 68 election. Now I won’t try to claim that any of this was impressing itself on my 15 year old brain more than being aware it was happening. I had more important things to be concerned with. There was a British music invasion that had to be kept up with. There was a space program that was always doing something new. I was 15, I didn’t have a drivers license yet so I had to walk everywhere including to school and then home and back for lunch every day. That was like a mile each way, and uphill both ways. I put forth that my birthday happening on that election day held off the conservative forces getting control of the country sooner than they did. It allowed LBJ and the more liberal congress that resulted from this election to pass the Civil rights act, the voting rights act and start a number of anti poverty programs during the next 4 years. The republicans have spent the last 40 years overturning them as Reagan was a disciple of Goldwater’s and from the ashes of this election the conservative movement managed to put a coalition together that brought Reagan to the Presidency 16 years later.

The 1992 election between Bush and Clinton was the second time the election and my birthday coincided at the presidential level. Bush was running for his second term and though popular because of the great Gulf War victory the economy was going to crap. He made a deal to raise taxes which upset his conservative base. Because of Bush’s high approval ratings none of the expected Democrats decided to run and in the end Clinton, a centrist Democrat (read that as Republican light) won out for the Democrats. The country had just been through 12 years of conservative rule with Republicans winning every popular vote total. A third party candidate entered the campaign, Ross Perot, and he ended up getting about 19% of the popular vote. He was anti deficit and against the NAFTA trade agreement. Those positions pulled votes about equally from both Bush (the conservative deficit people) and Clinton (unions and anti NAFTA people). Nonetheless Clinton’s more liberal social platform and the failing economy allowed him to win the popular vote and the electoral college as well as both houses of congress. That lasted for 2 years. In 1994 conservative Republicans won back the house, led by Newt Gingrich, and that started the decline into cynical divisive politics that have been in play for the last 25 years. But at least my birthday brought an end to the conservative choke hold on the government for a couple years. Unfortunately, Clinton moved more to the right, aligned himself more with Wall Street and generally screwed the Democratic party until today. During his eight years I moved from South Bend to Long Island and worked at a 750 person plant that was turned around from big losses to profit, sold to a US fortune 500 manufacturer that immediately built 2 plants in Mexico and moved it there. Then there was 8 years of the Bush-Cheney nonsense and 6 years of Republicans blocking Obama from getting anything accomplished and 4 years of Trump. What a 40-year run of disasters. Which brings us to today.

With today’s election being billed as the mother of all-important elections it would behoove my election birthday fuju to work its magic again. While Trump certainly deserves the blame for his actions being the incompetent psychopath that he is the real blame lies with the Republican Party as a whole. They allowed this guy to run and after he was nominated, they supported his candidacy. After he was elected, they turned a blind eye to all the unethical and probably illegal activities that have been exposed. All because they are just as corrupt but also because they are power hungry and wanted the courts stacked with conservative (and in many cases unqualified) judges. It has taken the Republican party 40 to 50 years to get this corrupt and anti-citizen. So, the birthday fuju not only has to work against Trump but it has to work against the entire Republican Party. It is time for these guys and their ideas to be put in the dust bin of history. (think of the Whig party).  I intend to crank up the fuju to create enough juice to have Trump lose the popular vote by about 55% to 45%. Lose the electoral college by somewhere in the neighborhood of 493-143. Also flip the Senate to a 52-48 Democratic majority and pick up another 5 or 10 house seats. I may not have that much fuju. It’s untested at this level.

Hopefully I can pull this off so that when I vote in the next birthday-presidential election on my 99th birthday in 2048 and I tell all the young whippersnappers about the 2020 election and how it started the turning of the Republican party in to a force as about as potent as Dadaism.  I would expect they will be going to the polls to decide how to continue to improve the world for each individual and not each company or billionaire. When I tell them about the Republican Party their response will be something like yours when I mentioned the Whig Party.  When I write this birthday rant thing next year I can write about what song was playing 50 years ago or something if in fact I can make this happen.

In fact coming in at 35 on the chart the first week of November 1970:

Seems good enough for today.

Just call me El Septuagenarian

Preferably with a bad fake Spanish accent. It is a title I have been working on for about 70 years and now that it has been awarded it should be used. While there are many that earned this title in the past there are also many that never achieved this title. So it seems that the title carries more weight (both literally and figurative) than say the title of The Tricenarian. When you turn 30 its no big deal I guess because the ratio of those that make it vs. those that don’t is pretty high. Of the original 100 there are as of today only 77.7 have made it this far. And I’m sure I saw that .7 guy at the grocery today. By the time the rank of Octogenarian is achieved only 57.3  will make it to that level. Something about this decade of ranking up eliminates almost as  many as all the previous decades combined. I may have stumbled upon something that science should look into.

One thing that as a septuagenarian that you have more of is an appreciation for the length of time. Of course we are all aware that time has been going on for quite a while now but it’s not until you have been through quite a lot of it that there is an understanding of how long time is  and how much can happen in a short amount of time let alone a long time. While working on scanning old pictures for the family history thing, right over there to the right on this very page, I got to thinking about my great grandfather Nixon, born 1833 died 1920. What changed in his 87 years was pretty significant. His family moved to New Mt. Pleasant in 1936 cut down some trees and built a cabin. (of course it wasn’t New Mt. Pleasant when they moved there because they were one of the first to live there) During the first half of his life the steam shovel, the self cleaning plow, repeating rifle using casings, pasteurization, all of Edison’s stuff, were invented. Railroads went from nothing to a major way to move goods and people around and across the country. Photography went from nothing to somewhat common. During the last half there was the automobile, the airplane, the telephone, electrification, and many of the first plastics, solar cells and wind turbines were developed. He lived through two wars that in themselves created new and inventive ways to kill people. The point being as he got into his eighties he must have said something to the effect of “holy crap I’ve seen a lot”.

So now as I begin my 8th decade when I look back and remember that during the last 7 decades TV has gone from 13 inch black and white showing 3 channels, in the best of weather, to the current 4K wall size bazillion of channels. Not only did seat belts get invented but they invented air bags. We’ve gone form 4 engine prop planes for long distance travel to jets that can get you anywhere in the world within 15 to 18 hours. I bought my first computer in 1982 about 30 years after the cutting edge room sized computer was put into use. Now I carry more computing power in my pocket than was in existence when I was born. The highest anyone had flown in an airplane when I was born was about 60000 feet. 19 years later we were on the moon. We have had 2 spaceships leave the solar system. All kinds of stuff has been developed in medicine ranging from drugs to control various chronic diseases to artificial limbs and organs to Greyson’s implants. Holy crap I’ve seen a lot.

I did learn one thing thinking about this. The urinal was not invented/patented until 1866. To think that humankind lived without this until then in mind boggling. Although I suppose urinals were called trees before that.

Assuming that the climate thing or the interaction of some of the batshit crazy leaders in the world today don’t do us in it would seem that the rate of technological advancement is continuing to increase and one can only imagine whats next. I won’t take time here to do that imagining  but this time it might actually finally deliver the often promised flying cars. When I reach the next rank up I’ll make a point to review the big advances in the coming 10 years that by then will be the last 10 years.

So stay tuned (they used to say that in the old days when you had to get up and walk across the room to change the channel on the TV) as it won’t be long until you can call me Ol’ Octogenarian preferably with a bad fake hillbilly accent.

Live from Brazil home of a bazillion Brazilians

I’m posting this from a hotel in Joinville, Brazil while waiting to go to a meeting later this afternoon. Joinville is a city about a one hour flight from Sao Paulo and this is the second time we have been here this trip.

We landed in Sao Paulo late afternoon and went to a hotel near the airport for the night and the next morning took a 2 hour taxi ride to travel 16 miles to get to the other airport on the other side of the city. To say Sao Paulo has a traffic problem would be somewhat understating the situation. We made the flight and arrived in Joinville for the first time late afternoon and spent the evening walking around and finally having dinner. The next day we had an early morning meeting and at the conclusion we went back to the hotel and decided we would try to get an earlier flight out than the 7pm flight we had so we headed to the airport only to be told the earlier flight was booked so we had 7 hours in the airport. To give an idea of the size of the great Joinville airport here are gates 1 and 2 as seen from the world class restaurant where you buy your food by weight. (an all you can eat fill up your plate, have it weighed, pay and enjoy)

It should be noted that gates 1 and 2 are 100% of the gates at Joinville airport. Here is the flight we had hoped to be on arriving at gate #1.

Finally after 7 hours we took our 1 hour flight back to Sao Paulo and got to the hotel  in central Sao Paulo about 9 and had a dinner and bed.

Saturday morning was Mary’s birthday so we set out to do something. In this case it involved the subway to to the big market. 3 stops, a train change and 5 more stops got us within about 8 blocks of the market. What we didn’t realize was that those 8 blocks involved some kind of major shopping area for generally cheap products and the streets were closed to autos. This was because they were filled with about a bazillion Brazilions. After fighting our way through that we get to the market that is a huge building filled with fruit, fish and meat. Mary buys about $40 worth of fruit (although I think we got taken because we were foreigners and obviously didn’t know diddly). We left there and worked our way back to the hotel and dropped off the fruit and went back out. We were 1 block off Ave Paulista which is the major street in Sao Paulo. Center of banking and all other non poor things. (maybe similar like Park Ave in New York) We walked that and of course ended up in a big shopping center. I should note our suitcases are completely full and no room for anything else. So Mary needs to buy something and of course she can’t just buy something that could easily be squeezed into the suitcase, like say, a pair of underwear, she has to buy 2 pair of steel toed  oil rigger high top work boots that would require an entire suitcase on their own. Buy this time it was late afternoon and we needed food so we search around and find an Italian place within walking distance. Their menu states all items are sized for 2 so we had a meal for four between us as well as a bottle of wine. Here is said meal partway completed.

With all that food and wine that finished our day of any activity other than passed out in the hotel.

The next day (Sunday) we were up and on our way to the modern art museum by 10am as there was a Sunday antique sale that was to take place. What we discovered was Paulista had been closed off for about 2 mile and it appeared something was going on. We got to the museum and wondered thru the antique booths and Mary seemed to zero in on blue plates that matched in color the ones she has on the top of the kitchen cabinets. see one such booth here.

The blue plates we have are Christmas Plates my Mom would buy at Christmas during the late 60’s early 70’s for Polly, Lori and I. The were made by Bing and Grindle (Grundel, Gumball, I don’t know) aka B&G. Well at one of the last stalls a lady had 2 of these plates one from 1982 and one from 1987 so Mary had to buy them. Here is the transaction taking place.

After that high level negotiation some coconut water was needed.

What we figured out was that this was a weekly event. They close the street and craft and junk sellers, artists, and food guys set up booths all along the street (remember for a couple miles) and it becomes a day long street party.

Along with that are music guys. All kinds of music people set up and play all kinds of music. I will note that I don’t have pictures of the heavy metal band and the headbangers headbanging and I bang my head because I don’t because it was a real headbanger. This whole thing is called Domingo Na Paulista (Sunday on Paulista) They did have kind of a main stage here with some singing guitar playing woman.

There were random people holding their own little marching things.

There were a few of these drum clubs throughout the day.

After spending about 8 hours on Paulista we called it a day. The next morning we were off to the bus station for a 3 hour bus ride to Rio Claro in preparation for another meeting which we had on Tuesday morning. Had lunch at the Brazilian restaurant where they serve the grilled steaks (salt and fire) on a sword and carve it off as you eat. The next morning a bus ride back to Sao Paulo, a taxi ride across town to the airport and back to Joinville landing at gate #2 and here we are.

After our meeting today we fly back to Sao Paulo to catch a fight to Dubai to then catch a flight to Hong Kong and the next step of this big trip. More to come.

The case of the baffling bovine breakout

A couple weeks ago on a dark but not stormy evening long about 11pm the doorbell rang. I leapt to my feet to see what was the commotion. Well not really leapt, more like stood up. Now be aware that the doorbell ringing at 11pm is not a normal thing. In fact this is only the second time that the doorbell has been wrung by someone we didn’t ask to come and ring our doorbell since we moved here. The first time being a couple old ladies that wanted to know if I had found God, which happened within the first month of moving in. I told them I didn’t know he was missing and if he was God he could probably find himself. (no I didn’t but should have). Anyway I moved down the stairs turning on lights as I went. From the upstairs window I could see a car with it’s lights on and a spotlight sitting at the curve in the drive way. Once I got to the door I could see a couple coppers standing there. When I opened the door they asked if I knew who owned the 2 cows that were grazing in the front yard. I found that a strange question since we don’t have any cows and I immediately thought that these 2 coppers were going to plant 2 cows and arrest me for unlawful cowing. But then as I looked closer I could just barely make out 2 black cows grazing like they owned the place. (It was a dark but not stormy night). I told them they were not mine and I speculated they belonged to someone that had cows. (that is why I am an ace detective. The secret to solving a case is to see the obvious) They said they would check the ear tags and do something about it. About 15 minutes later as I went to bed they were gone. I don’t think they hoofcuffed  the cows and loaded them in their car so the next morning when I got up I didn’t see any cows so I assumed someone came and got them. Case Closed.

2 Days later Case reopened. When I got up 2 days later and I looked out the bathroom window to check if it was daytime and to make sure no one was looking at me what did I see? Well if you have read this far you probably guessed cows, which would be a correct guess. The were taking a break, resting next to the woods along the creek.

I immediately got on the phone and called the non emergency copper number and told them the cows were loose and I had solved the case as I knew where they were.  The said they would send someone although, spoiler here, it was a Trump promise and I never saw anyone. Meanwhile the cows had started their workday. They got busy grazing the side yard and the back yard.

They continued grazing and eventually moved from our yard to the neighbors through the gap in the fence way back at the far edge. I had to leave and do things and when I got back no cows were seen. Later as I went to get the mail I saw them resting under a tree across the road at the next house toward town. After that I didn’t see them again. Case Closed

A week and a half later, last night, around 10 pm shortly after Purdue beat Maryland and I was trying to get some files from Whirlpool for China the doorbell rang. Once again it was a dark but not stormy night and this time I did not see a car in the driveway. So I moved down the steps turning on lights and when I got to the front door there was a copper. Case Reopened. He wanted to inform me that he was parked on the side of the house and he had someone with him to try to collect the 2 cows that were in my back yard. This undercover photo shows the car.

The guy he had with him had the boots on that indicated that he knew his way around cow muck so I let them have at it. When I got done with what I was doing they were gone. I guessing the guy walked the cows back to confinement. As an after thought I realized that I failed to offer the copper my investigative experience by suggesting that it is obvious that these ‘on the lam’ cows were getting some kind of inside help and that he should interrogate the chickens or pigs or maybe even the farmers wife. I’ve see a few TV shows and that is what they always do. So Case Closed. For now.

 

I almost spoiled Sunday brunch.

This morning I was busy installing an electrical outlet in the storage area upstairs next to the office. That is cautious work to insure you don’t electrocute yourself or burn something down. I had to find the wires in the wall and then figure out which breaker would kill the power and stuff like that. Since this is an attic like area there is no insulation in the roof area so about halfway through I started hearing loud noises on the roof. My first thought was that squirrels were on the roof but that didn’t make sense because we don’t have many squirrels around and certainly none that come out of the woods to the house. I figured that I would look into it when I got done. But then as is always the case when doing these little projects I needed a tool I didn’t have with me so I headed to the garage.

I should note that this morning while sitting at the table having a delicious slice of pecan coffee cake and a glass of refreshing orange juice I noticed something in the middle of the back yard so when I finished that wonderful breakfast interlude I went out to see what it was. It turns out that it was a dead animal. At first glance I couldn’t tell what it was as it was somewhat mangled. But then I noticed the little tine human hand like paws and that made me think that it was a raccoon and we do have one that lives down by the back creek. My bet is that the raccoon and Wylie Coyote didn’t see eye to eye over something. So since I had planned to install an electrical outlet this morning I figured I’d come out when I got done and get the shovel and gather up the carcass and bury it in the woods.

As I came down the stairs I quickly solved the mystery of the loud noises on the roof. As I looked out the window into the back yard I noticed that Sunday brunch was underway with a raccoon carcass for the main course.

Once again for the second time this year I can use this metaphorical statement. They were attacking that carcass like old folks at the all you can eat.

While all this was taking place the vegetarian vultures just stood and watched.

Within about a half hour everything was eaten and they were gone, off to the next all you can eat I suppose.

It’s here again, the days are long the years are short.

Another year has blown by and suddenly it’s Nov 3 again. Over the last 3 years I’ve had to fight off the attempts of Congressman Fred “just call me Fred” Upton and others to keep me from achieving senior status. I’ve used the term Junior Citizen officially. I’ve signed up for the old folks programs and got my hair cut every day for huge savings. Just look at the last 3 years of Nov 3 posts to see all that activity. But now I find that turning 68 doesn’t  mean anything as far as milestones go. Even my current congressman, Congressman Scott “just call me the biggest hypocrite in Congress” Desjarlais couldn’t get enthused enough to propose some GOP based law to prevent me from proceeding onward in seniorism this year.

The 50 year  look back for this year doesn’t hold much excitement either. 50 years ago I was a freshman at Purdue and just about 50 years ago Mackey Arena was opened with a game between the Rick Mount led Boilermakers and the Lou Alcinder, John Wooden coached UCLA Bruins. 50 years ago in Nov. 1967 The Moody Blues release “Days of Future Past”.

The Chambers Brothers album with “Time has come today” was released.

And one of the albums that I think makes many greatest list Creams “Disraeli Gears” was released. Yes I do own these although I can’t find the Chambers Brothers. For those that don’t remember or don’t know here it the full album so listen to it Junior Citizen. You don’t get music like this anymore. (yes, it’s a play list)

 

For some reason I always liked this one.

Of course it was the last half of the 60’s so the Beatles had to release something, which they did, “Magical Mystery Tour” . Although Not much stands out on this album as classic Beatles there is “Strawberry Fields Forever”

And finally Country Joe and the Fish released the album that provided this Woodstock moment.

So other than the music of the period represented by those from Nov 1967 there was a lot going on but man just wait for next November. 1968 was a major fricking year in the course of human history.

38 Years in the making, because you can’t rush fine art.

About 38 years ago I started what I’m sure will become the defining art project of the 20th and 21st centuries. While working at the Sheller Globe Plant in Niles MI. I started this project. The material used was intended to be the rear LH inner door panel support for the 1980 Lincoln Town Car. The injection molding machine that this part was being produced need purged so that is what I did and art history was made. At the time I knew I had produced the art of the century and I also knew that the art public wasn’t ready for such a piece so it has been aging for the last 38 years. Early on I was going to finish it and take it to one of the big art places in New York and sell it for like a million dollars but I thought I best wait. Well now it’s finished and since it was started at about the same time Reagan did the trickle down economics stuff and started what has been a 40 year deregulation craze that has allowed the very rich to reap most of the economic gains so now I figure I should be able to get more like 10 million (although I wold take 9.5 million). But then again I’ve considered just donating to some museum and taking a big tax write off. When we were at the Louvre they had one wall that was kind of empty, it only had one painting on it, some dinky little portrait thing of Mona somebody. I think it would look nice there.

Anyway here is the finished piece that will be taking the art world by storm over the coming decades.

As you can see, even in just a photograph, the powerful art things coming off this work. They just jerk your eyeballs from one end to the other. Also you can tell it’s great art because it has a brass plate saying important stuff.

Now that it is done I’ll hang it here at the Estate d’Yusmith until I find the permanent home.

2017 The year of the barn swallow

You may recall that last summer I had a problem of birds sitting on the ledge above the front door and pooping all over the place, well not all over, just in front of the door. I determined that they were barn swallows a common bird that hangs around people and their human structures so they can build nests in them (thus the barn part of their name). The nest look like this.

If you are wondering how I happen to have a picture of a barn swallow nest it is because it is built in the upper corner of the thing that covers the front porch and door. I noticed this last spring and at that time pulled it down, (it is about 25 feet off the ground). I didn’t think much more about it except Mary said that that is a lucky bird and there is some top secret thing in the nest that if you are some Chinese person you are suppose to eat. A few weeks ago I noticed that it had been rebuilt. I didn’t do anything about it at that time under the mistaken assumption that it was abandoned. A week or so ago I noticed that there were birds in it and that it was then too late to pull down. So the birds grew and I decided that there were 4 (although as they left the nest over the last couple days I think the real number was 5.) I could count them here.

 

This was the only way I could see them because as soon as I opened the door or approached from outside the adult birds would start flying around in buzzing mode sending up warnings and the young birds wold duck down and hide in the nest. Now the problem with this is once again poop. I can’t find a study to confirm it but the barn swallow has the highest ratio of poop to body weight in the known universe. Also, apparently the first rule that is taught a young bird is don’t poop in the nest but stand up on the edge and poop over the side. As a result the ledge under the nest and the front porch have about 248 tons of bird poop collected. This generated another great mystery that, since I am not a lepidopterist, I have no answer for. I noticed the other day that there is one brand of butterfly that flocks to this collected bird poop like old folks flock to the “all you can eat”.

Yesterday and today it appears that they have left the nest for good and soon I will need to clean this mess up. I’ll leave you with the photo that will be the envy of all great wildlife photographers. I can’t tell you how I got this picture, trade secret, but I outsmarted the birds and their stupid warnings.

 

The big NAS box crash of 2017

The golden site of the internet is back online after being down for about 2 weeks. It seems that the NAS box suddenly slowed down and after trying to do something about it tried restarting it which at that point caused it to not start at all. I still don’t know how this happen as that is what a NAS box is to protect for by running RAID arrays and stuff. To make a long story short I had 2 or three scattered backup locations for the data but none of the quick ones to get to had the WordPress database so I could recover Yusmith. I had another full back up at Amazon using their Glacier program (about $.60 per month for a couple hundred gig of data.) Now I know why it’s called Glacier. Its been downloading and resorting for about a week and a half now and still is only 70% done. But luckily it had restored the required WordPress files first and I found that there was still no database. This led me to discover that I didn’t know how to back up WordPress so I’ve got to recreate the whole thing. That can be done, I have everything but the text (pictures and most other things) It all needs to be loaded in the appropriate databases. The text I can get get from the Wayback Machine and cut and paste it over. I just have to do it one post at a time. I started this chore today as you can see below with the first 3 posts from 2012. Consider this to be like one of those TV shows where the main people sit around and talk to each other and say “remember when we…” and then they fade to a part of an old show and they make an entire show out of doing this. You can relive the last 5 years of YuSmith while I do this. I probably wont get this done before I leave for China and I suspect the Ol’ Chairman Mao blocks the Wayback Machine. If he doesn’t I can work on it there also. To give you a glimpse of possible future posts here are some happenings in the wildlife department of YuSmith

I spent the winter trying to figure out what animal was trying to live in our crawl space. The vents kept getting knocked out. So I put on my wild kingdom hat and investigated. The first sighting was on the back porch (along with what is apparently a neighborhood cat)

opie!

I then found it around front.

There is a local racoon that lives down by the back creek.

Of course all the deer that just seem to keep growing in number.

The hawks that fly around rarely land but this one did.

This spring there were quite a few wild turkeys grazing the front and back yards.

On beast that I’ve been tracking since last fall goes by the name Wylie. This picture from mid afternoon in the fall.

Again from the middle of the night this winter, although it does resemble one of those Bigfoot pictures.

About 3 Sundays ago we got these 2 pictures.

There is no doubt there are coyotes around here , our neighbors say they hear them at night howling  and the suburb west of us claims to have a problem with them I just hope i don’t see a pack or have someone come to the door selling one of those velvet paintings of wolves baying at the moon that you used to see on vans.

Finally the scariest creatures of all caught crossing the back yard.

So there you have it the new beginning for YuSmith. I have one hard drive that is giving me a warning but I can’t replace it for another 3 or 4 days so if I get that far with no problem I should be able to say everything is fully operational. All that will be needed is to redo the posts so watch history unfold again in the coming weeks.

An item I forgot to post last fall at the exact time it happened.

In Nov. of 2015 we went to Stockholm to attend the Electrolux awards banquet. Last fall Mary was asked to attend this years banquet that was being held in Charlotte NC in Oct. She was busy and couldn’t go and didn’t see the need to send someone from China to attend, that is until 2 or 3 weeks before the event that they insisted that Sepstar-ETI be represented. As a result I was elected to go.
So I get in the car and drive to Charlotte and stay at the big hotel. Late in the day of the event I put on a suit and get on the bus at the hotel and go to the Electrolux NA Headquarters to stand around an talk to people with name tags. Come to find out the reason we needed to be there was that Sepstar had been nominated again and was one of 3 companies in the supplier innovation category. So we listened to Electrolux high rollers tell us how good they were and then got on more buses to go to a downtown artsy convention center to stand around and drink wine, look at art and talk to people with name tags. After an hour of that we went upstairs to have food and get the show started. We ate something brown, something white, and something green and finally our category came around. Last year we didn’t win and I expected the same this year but when the winner was announce to great fanfare, we won. Now that meant I had go up and collect the award, give a speech and have a picture taken. This was just like being at one of those big time award shows except instead of sharing the stage with attractive actress ladies or nice singing ladies I got to share the stage with these guys…

VP Engr. Purchasing, CEO, President, NA Head

after wowing the crowd with wonderful manufacturing stories and humor.

The award is now back in China where it belongs although there was the temptation to keep it here.

The crescent shaped parts of the logo are loose and I’ve decided that you could us it as a plate/bowl to hold peanut M&M’s so that you would always have a supply of a delicious snack available.

No Presidential proclamations this year

For the last couple years the President has made proclamations concerning my senior status and it seems that I’m now fully senior and no more are needed. (although there is still the “you have to start taking social security payments” coming sometime in the next 4 years along with ” you have to start withdrawing from your IRA”. But other than that I guess I am a full senior. At least I didn’t have to put up with our idiot congressman making some stupid statement just because Obama said something.
50 years ago on Thursday Nov. 3 1966 (I was born on Thursday also so this is also my birth day birthday) Portland In. had had  a big snow the day before. We had football practice in a large amount of snow, which was fun, and it was our last practice before the last game of my limited and pretty much unsuccessful football career. The next night was the senior night game that would bring it all to an end, that is until the school officials decided to call the game off because of snow.
46 years ago Nov 3 1970 I turned 21 and in celebration of this election season I’ll note that it was an election day. And since the 26th amendment was not enacted until 1971 you had to be 21 to vote and I was not, by about 6 hours. Although, it didn’t seem that big a deal as it was the mid term elections and there was a bigger deal. What was a big deal was the rule that was in place that required a liquor establishment be closed during the voting hours. They stole most of the traditional ‘go to bars all day on your 21st birthday’ from me on top of not letting me vote.
Actually the whole thing of voting on Tuesday is nowadays pretty stupid. When the old founding guys decided this the reasoning was that you can’t vote on the Sunday the Sabbath because you are to waste your time sitting in church and stuff on that day. Because they didn’t have the highway system or good public transportation the male land owners needed a day to travel to the voting place and so it was decided that Tuesday would be a good day. Why we don’t change this is beyond me. I voted last Thursday and it worked just fine.
Meanwhile back in 1966, it was the fall of the senior high school year for the class of 1967. So I have just turned 67 50 years after the year of the class of 67. Highway 67 was the main road between Portland and Muncie so on Nov 3 1966 a pretty important highway. This year 67 seems to be a pretty important number so add it to your lotto list.
Even though the football game got called off we still got our letter jackets and after wearing it that year it has hung in the closet for the last 50 years. I was surprised to find that the Wilson Sporting Goods company must have used some kind of inferior wool like materials and leather like materials in the manufacture of this jacket as it seems to have significantly shrunken just hanging on a hanger in the closet for the last 50 years.