Another Facebook find.

This goes for law enforcement, fire department and social services workers too. (20% may be an exaggeration too, but the sentiment still is valid.)

Branded!

is asking us to explore the brand names that surround, call to and lure us.  My first selection comes from the energy drink fad.

At last count, the Chevron I work at carries 15 different varieties of the drink.  Ironically, one of them is “relax”, a “calming, herbal blend”.

At first I thought “A relaxing energy drink? What the…?”  But then a funny thought came to me:

Yeah, that would be good for the heart.

A victory for the reasonable.

"GOP extremists lose at their own game" - Paul Rolly, S.L.Tribune 3/25/2012

Yup, the Teabagger's reign of terror is very likely coming to a close. They lost almost a dozen delegates to the Utah Republican Party at the recent caucus.

And it seems that even the L.D.S. Church is sick and tired of them. According to Rolly, part of their defeat was due to the church encouraging their members to attend their local caucus and voice their opinion. Officials even encouraged local wards to cancel any meeting on the day of the Democratic and Republican caucus.

In the past, teabagger power came from dominating the caucus meetings, due to apathy from the general public. Because of this they could hand pick the people that would run in the election, basically giving the general public a choice between Democrat and their ultra-conservative Republican. Other than in Salt Lake City, the Republican wins regardless of how much froth is spewing from his (or rarely her) mouth. Match, set, game.

I never thought I'd ever say this, but I'm glad this means that Orrin Hatch may actually get on the ballot. Couple of years ago the teabaggers prevented Bob Bennett from even getting on the ballot, even though 72% of Utahans supported him.

Loss #2 for the Queen of the Teabaggers, Gayle Ruzicka. HB343 and now the caucuses. She must be tossing and turning all night long wondering how her "Telephone Tree of Terror" could have let her down.

Bummer.

Didn’t have to go far.

Right out my front door I could see why they chose Sunday.

Look to the south and they’re working in the road.

Look to the north and they’re working in the road.

And I think I was wrong about it having to do with the new construction.  When I walked by I saw them pulling out an old, rusty valve and there was a brand new one exactly the same size on the side by the hole.

Oh well, it was a good guess.

All ready for the water outage tomorrow.

Gonna be a Stinky Sunday

I just went to the bathroom, flushed the toilet and watched the water flow.

I know.  You’re wondering why I’m blogging about such a mundane, daily and unappealing subject.

Because on Sunday I won’t be able to do that for around 8 hours.

I found this door hanger on my front door this evening.  Well, actually I got two of them, since my house has two front doors.

So tomorrow one of my chores is going to be to fill a bunch of buckets with water.  Because I can’t go 8 hours without going to the bathroom, and in the city they frown on using the bushes, even if they are in the back yard.

Funny schtuff.

Junior high “dances” are funny things.  They are more like “stands”.  And if there is any dancing, it’s amusing how many of them find it more embarrassing to dance boy-girl than to dance either girl-girl or even boy-boy.

So I was with a group of boys trying to encourage them to go ask a girl to dance, and they decided to return the favor.  One of them tells me I should go ask Miss. M to dance.  I reminded them that she is now Mrs. J, and that she’s a married woman.  This boy’s response?

“You’re not going to sleep with her, you’re just going to dance.”

Sometimes the best option is to just walk away.

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Of Mice and Bees

A couple of my students came up from their foods class to bring me a treat they had made.

Graham crackers, yogurt, strawberries and string cheese, assembled to look like little mice on a plate.

Mmmm, they were good, but for some reason I just couldn’t eat the raisins.

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My 6^th period is a keyboarding class, in room 208.  It’s also where I got delivered the strawberry mice.

My 7^th period is an Algebra class, in room 203, and the other keyboarding teacher takes over in room 208.

At the beginning of 7^th period, after I got the kids started on their warm-up, I headed back to the keyboarding class to pick up my mice, which I had left there because I had too much to carry.

As I open the door the class goes deadly silent, not even typing going on.  Ms. N turns towards me with a really guilty look on her face.

I knew something was up, had no idea what it was and had a class I had to get back to so I just said my hellos, grabbed the plate of mice and headed back.

After school I opened up my email and found about 15 emails, all from myself.

14 goofy emails, all “from” female staff members professing their love for me and telling me how hot I was.  The last one simply informed me that it was a bad idea to leave myself logged in on the lab’s teacher computer.

Yeah, the other keyboarding teacher decided to have fun with my stupidity and asked the kids to tell her what she should write to me from my own email.

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Another student came in after school today, since it’s the end of the term he wanted to look at his grades, and he wanted to know what percent you needed for a ‘B’. 

He asked me “What makes a ‘B’?”

I told him “One straight line with two half circles, or a straight line and one circle if you want a small b.”

Him: “Seriously, what makes a ‘B’?”

Me: “A mommy bee and a daddy bee.”

That’s when he explained that he wanted to know the percent he needed for a B grade.

Whew!  I was afraid I was headed for trouble with the Sex-Ed Police.

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Yeah, it was a good day.

Clap on, clap off.

Seems I have surprisingly few pictures of my cars with their lights on.  That’s Carmi’s theme for the week – “Lights on”.

But here is the first brand new car I ever owned.

A 1979 Mazda GLC (Great Little Car) I bought for $4,500.

It came with nice rims, a 5-speed manual transmission, cassette player, roof rack and a rear window defrogger.  Air conditioning was an option I passed up, power windows and door locks weren’t even offered.

I did have a lights-on picture of my 1989 Nissan Hardbody pickup.  On a trip down to Moab, the transmission went out, every gear except 4th.  Fortunately it was 4WD, because I had to drive it home from Price, Utah by starting out in 4-low and shifting into 2WD while moving as fast as I could get it going. 110 miles (177km), up one canyon and down another, fortunately all on the highway.  Didn’t stop once until I got to Salt Lake City.

And finally, one of Old Blue, my ‘69 Ford LTD 4 door hardtop.

Check out other lights-on photos at Carmi’s:

Scenes from a Chevron station.

Ok, we all know what I think about taggers and graffiti.  But this one seems to know where it belongs.  Or maybe it’s just a case of low self-esteem and he doesn’t feel his tag belongs anywhere better than on the side of a urinal.

Either way, I’d rather look at what goes inside than his tag.

And then there’s the person who did this.

Either they are a total dipstick and didn’t notice the flap with “TRASH” in big letters right above the windshield water, or they are just a big a-hole and thought it would be funny to make it hard for the next person to wash their windshield and eventually give me an opportunity to stick my hand in really cold fluid to clean it out. 

Either way, these people shouldn’t be procreating.

Wasatch Car Club

I’ve been invited to join a new club, the Wasatch Car Club.  If you are a car fanatic, everything from old classics to new commuter specials, you should check it out.  It’s brand new, which means the users are in a position to shape it into something they really like.

Even if you are not a fanatic, you just might find something you want there.  There’s a section devoted to answering questions, for non-fanatics who just need a little help.

Check it out, or not.  The choice is yours.  (Yes, Writer, I stole that from something you may recall.)

Found this on that interweb thingy.

If Truth in Advertising Laws included Non-Profits.

Thank the Governor, so he knows you are still paying attention.

I got another email from the man who spearheaded the online petition for the repeal of HB363.  You can read the whole thing, but the main focus was thanking everyone and encouraging people to email the Governor thanking him for the veto.

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Congratulations Everyone!! Governor Herbert vetoed HB363!

Because of all of your efforts; signatures, comments, emails, phone calls and the rally, we truly made a difference.

It just goes to show, that all of us together can become a voice that cannot be ignored.

Last night after vetoing HB363 Governor Herbert Stated “After careful review of existing law and following extensive discussions with stakeholders on both sides of the issue,” Herbert said, “HB363 simply goes to far by constricting parental options.”

After hearing about the veto I sent Governor Herbert an email thanking him for doing the right thing for the people of Utah. Here is the link to email the Governor if you would like to do the same. http://governor.utah.gov/goca/form_comment.html

If you would like to know how your representative voted on HB363 here is the link:

http://le.utah.gov/DynaBill/svotes.jsp?voteid=551&house=H&sessionid=2012GS

If you are unhappy with how your representative voted let them know and remember this the next time they run for reelection.

There were many people involved in the defeat of HB363, I want to say thanks to the Utah PTA, Utah Education Association and special Thanks to Maryann Martindale with Alliance for a Better Utah for organizing the rally at the Capitol rotunda.

The Alliance for a Better UTAH is a year-round, multi-issue education and advocacy organization providing resources, commentary, and action on important public policy matters. To find out more, visit betterutah.org. To stay informed about important issues and to learn about opportunities to participate and make your voice heard, join the Alliance for a Better UTAH email list, here is a link.

http://betterutah.pnstate.org/site/Survey?ACTION_REQUIRED=URI_ACTION_USER_REQUESTS&SURVEY_ID=15522

I am going to leave the petition up until the Governor’s decision is a done deal as there has been some talk of a veto override. However, I don’t think they have the votes for an override.

Thanks again everyone, well done!

Paul Krueger

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Since I think it is important that the Governor knows that we appreciate his gesture, and that we are keeping tabs on developments, I sent him this email:

Dear Governor Herbert,

Thank you for the veto of HB363 and protecting the rights of parents to have the option of a trained professional instructing their children on human sexuality.  I am truly glad to see that you did not cede to the pressure of special interest groups that feel they know better than the 97% of the parents that actively opt to have their children participate in these courses.

Thank you Gov. Herbert.

It’s “Happy Dance” time.

Today, the citizens of Utah proved me wrong.  Their voice can be louder in the state capitol than that of Gayle The Fail and the Wrinkles Forum.

Governor Herbert proved me wrong.  I honestly didn’t think he would defy the Teabagger Party folks and do what the majority of parents in Utah wanted him to do.

But we are louder and he did listen.  Top of page 1 of the Salt Lake Tribune this morning:

HB363 is dead.  For now at least, but the article did say that it passed with less than the two-thirds majority it would need to override the Gov’s veto, and even some of it’s supporters have backed off since the controversy.  Possible, but not likely.

“Sad day for the children of Utah” my ass, Ms. Ruzicka.  It’s a happy day for all the children whose parents care enough to get proper education on sexuality for them.  Especially for the parents that know they are either not up to date enough to supply it, or they are not the ones their children would feel comfortable asking the hard questions.

Thanks to all the people that called and/or emailed the Governor, good job!  We’ve shown that logical citizens can trump the dreaded Telephone Tree ‘O Terror.

$100

There was an envelope waiting for me when I got to work (at Chevron) this evening.  At first I thought it was a pink slip thanks to some customer that complained about me, but instead it was good news.

I passed a tobacco sting, and Chevron gives out a $100 bonus to everyone when they do that.

Every now and then the Utah Health Department gets a 16 to 18 year old kid to drive around with an adult and go into various stores trying to buy smokes.  If you I.D. the kid and refuse to sell him the tobacco, they give you and send the company a letter congratulating you for refusing to sell to a minor.  If you sell the kid the smokes you get a ticket and both you and the company are fined.  Obviously the company doesn’t like getting the fines (they are in the hundreds, not a buck and a half), so a lot of convenience stores reward their employees that pass.

Now I just have to decide what to do with that cash. (It’s not the lottery, don’t ask for a loan.)

Blockin’ up the scenery, breakin’ my mind…

I learned a few things at the rally today.  First was that not all Republicans voted for the idiocy that is HB363.  Second, according to a B.Y.U. survey, 58% of Utahns are either for or strongly for the veto of HB363.  Third, and most important to the discussion, is that only 3% of public school students do not get their permission slips signed and end up missing the Sex-Ed part of their health class.  That means 97% make the conscious choice to have their children educated on the subject of human sexuality.  Consider the part of that 3% of parents and students that never got around to it, lost it or simply forgot to get it signed, and you have a very, very, very small minority that agree with Gayle Ruzicka and her band of merry ostriches.

This is the guy that started the online petition that Governor Herbert calls bogus. (Click any picture to see larger version)

He is also the person that organized this not-so-bogus rally with several hundred real, live people there.

And here are a slew of the signs that I saw there.

And finally, I didn’t see this sign, but I like the box the cardboard came from.