The Curmudgeonly Professor

The WalMart Chronicles Continued: Men, Do Not Accompany Your Wife to WalMart, Especially if she is on a Store Scooter Cart

After already having spent a fortune trying to stock up from zero inventory, we needed a few more things, so we went to WalMart.  My wife is still unable to walk due to sciatic pain, so she got one of the mobile electric carts, or whatever they are called.  Big mistake for me.  While she could whiz around at 50 mph, I could barely stagger up and down the aisles.  I spent about 80% of my time looking for her.  Here is a summary of this latest inspirational experience:\

1. While entering the door that said enter, the entrance was blocked by dumbbells exiting said door.
2. While exiting the door that said exit, the exit was blocked by dumbbells entering said exit door.
3. Part way through our epic shopping experience, a massive hailstorm pounded on the roof so noisily I interpreted this as a stern warning from above:  Never, never accompany your wife to WalMart.
4. I walked at least 200 miles, 2 miles shopping, and 198 miles looking for my wife.
5. When I got home, there were 3 smelly, rotten potatoes in my 10 pound bag of russets
6. The average number of children per mother at WalMart seemed to be between 3 and 8.
7. Cell phone yappers negotiating carts full of babies, Pampers, groceries, etc., and creating hazardous shopping conditions, were in rich abundance.
8. Most people seemed to be going up and down all the aisles not having any idea what in blazes they were doing there, as evidenced by the fact I saw the same people in virtually every aisle I wandered through, no matter how many times I wandered there.  Perhaps people thought WalMart was a form of entertainment and they were reluctant to go home and clean their kitchens and bathrooms.

In WalMart's defense, most of their stuff is cheap, especially boxed groceries like cereal and most canned staples.  The store is clean, well-stocked, and devoid of any human beings who can tell you where stuff is unless you search for them for a half hour.  Unlike some WalMarts, this one at least had several checkout lines open, unlike some stores where they have 200 people lined up behind one checkout counter.

When I checked out, the obviously fatigued checker asked me the obligatory question about how I was.  Instead of giving the obligatory answer "fine", I elaborated that I was totally exhausted, sick of looking for my wife, anxious to get home and spend another hour hauling stuff in the car and stashing it wherever I could find a nook or a cranny.  So I asked her how she was, and she said she was tired, too.  So checkers really are human beings and ought to be treated as such.

Oh, I almost forgot.  There were no WalMart greeters.  But WalMart has started having by-by sayers instead who sort of give you a passing glance as you leave to make sure you are a Republican or something, unlike Costco which has a stern person checking your receipt to make sure you haven't stuck in a 42 inch TV on the way out the door.  I asked the last Costco receipt marker lady if she ever thought to herself, "What are they thinking?" as she examined their cart perfunctorily and swiftly, since another 30 people are waiting.  She said, "I just told myself that when someone went out of here with thousands of dollars worth of stuff."  Who said the economic stimulus from Washington isn't working?  But I have digressed, and that is what professors do.  How else do you think they can bore you for an hour and 10 minutes?  Have nice day.

Your Call is Very Important to us, Please Stay on the Line Blah Blah Blah

One of the horrors of being a snowbird is changing phone, internet, newspapers, television cable, etc., every few months.  Thus far, in over a dozen years, no one has ever gotten any of these changes right.  To illustrate: I was on the phone for nearly two hours the other day changing our phone, TV, and cell phone service.  We had placed our Salt Lake phone on suspension which was supposed to leave it so people could call in and out last October.  We discovered that the phone company had totally disconnected the line instead, charging us for nine months for the service that they cheerfully terminated.  After two hours of delightful messages such as:  Your call is very important to us.  Please stay on the line and a customer service representative will be with you shortly.  We appreciate your patience.  We are experiencing a heavy volume of calls now and your waiting time is expected to be less than 15 minutes.

So after finally getting connected with a real person, it turned out I had the wrong real person and was given another number.  I call the other number and wait another 20 minutes listening to how important my call is, etc., etc., etc.   Eventually we get the phone business straightened out.  We think.  We hope.  We have never had the change work out correctly yet, so we are uncertain.  Then we went to work on the TV.  Another round of waits, reassurances about how many customers are all trying to call them at once and how they have no idea how to handle a heavy volume of calls except one by one and I should sit and twiddle my thumbs and wait another half hour for the privilege of spending my money on their wonderful service.

Then I need to get my internet modem fixed.  An hour of being on the phone and getting bounced among three numbers and then a tech guy was scheduled to come this morning.  He never showed.  But he did come this afternoon while we were gone.  So I called the number the tech guy left on the door to reschedule.  I was informed that they didn't reschedule at this number and transferred me to another number where they had another heavy volume of calls and a wait, to be informed that they didn't schedule tech stuff either, and to call the other number back again, which I did, and, lo and behold, miraculously, they Could schedule tech support after all.  Whoopee!

So then we tackled the newspapers.  The local newspaper circulation is apparently handled somewhere in Iceland or somewhere and we got the local paper stopped.  USA Today has always been a pain.  They never seem to know how to handle circulation.  We got bounced to a circulation office in Fort Collins, who bounced us back to St. George, where, miraculously, what do you know, they discovered they Could actually handle termination of the St. George delivery and start us in Salt Lake again if we ever get there.  Then, about once a month, we get a phone call from USA Today telling us that their records show we canceled our paper and would we like to start it up again.

Then there is the Post Office.  We have had better luck with the Post Office the past couple of years.  About three years ago, our mail didn't show up for three months after we changed our address and we discovered that the USPS had never thrown away the old card and substituted the new address.

I have this message implanted in my brain:  Your call is absolutely, terribly, incredibly important to us.  We know you won't mind waiting for a half hour listening to raucous commercials and terrible music for the privilege of talking to one of our wonderful representatives where you have a 35% chance of someone getting things right, and you may not have to make more than another half dozen calls to get things straightened out.

The solution:  cancel all newspapers, all television, all U.S. mail, all telephones, all cell phones.  But meanwhile we will see how many errors get made by another round of careless customer representatives who have been so anxious to talk to us.  If only people could be retrained to recheck everything and proofread numbers, addresses, and procedures!  Can this processs really be that hard?  Apparently it is that hard and even more difficult than some percentage of the armies of customer representatives are prepared to handle.  Have a nice day.

 

Pity the Curmudgeonly Professor

Periodically, one of the functions of this blog is to produce a tale of woe.  Here is the Woe of the Day.  Night before last, about 10 p.m., I bit down on my right side and shot through the ceiling with pain.  After a miserable night, I called my friendly dentist and, fortunately, he had a cancellation and got me in immediately.  A quick X-ray and a 30 second diagnosis showed I had a cracked rear molar.  The crack, however, went completely around the tooth and showed several other fractures.  This was the gold crown I mistakenly bit down on a caramel on a couple of months ago and paid same dentist a bunch for glueing it on with super glue.  This was the same dentist who filled two teeth a week before and told me, concerning one tooth, "It looks pretty good for what you have there." Like being told, you look great for being so blankety-blank old.  So I was sent off down the street to my friendly oral surgeon who took one look at it and explained, I can put you to sleep, but be forewarned I will have to make deep incision in your gum, dig out some bone, and take the tooth out in itty-bitty (he didn't say itty bitty, he said little) pieces.  But going to sleep will cost you $350 bucks.  Take your choice.  I paid the $350 bucks and woke up a bit woozy but minus the offending tooth.  Now I have another choice: spend $2500 bucks for an implant, or chew on my gums.  At least I won't have to drill and fill and crown that miserable tooth any more.  Thus ends the tale of Woe until the next one.  And I have plenty.

The Curmudgeonly Professor Opines on Life's Daily Irritations

In fulfilling his mission of curmudgeonliness, the Curmudgeonly Professor now expounds on a few of life's recurring irritations, as follows:

• ball point pens.  I buy ball point pens by the dozen.  By six dozen.  And I strew them around everywhere, by the phone, on the night stands, on the end tables, on the counters, in the bathrooms, in the kitchen, in the living room.  So why is it that every time I need a ball point pen to jot down a phone number, take a message, or write a 500 word essay, there is never one available.  All of the ball point pens disappear just as soon as I have distributed them around.  I don't know how this happens.  Ball point pens seem to vaporize, disappear, vanish.  And they rarely show up in the future.  I just bought a couple of dozen more recently.   Plus we pick up ball point pens at all of the doctor's and dentist's offices we frequent.  These pens are really nice ones, but they all disappear quickly.  I blame my wife.  Who else is there around here?
• socks.  I have complained about socks before.  Socks get eaten up in the wash.  No matter whether I do the wash or my wife does the wash, socks disappear.  A month ago, I kept two socks prominently displayed until their mates showed up in a few days.  Weeks later, they missing socks have never appeared.  This dilemma irritates me.  Ball point pens cost ten or 15 cents apiece for the cheapos, but socks cost $3 a pair unless you get the WalMart ones that don't last very long.  Where do socks go?
• TV ads.  Again, a recurring gripe.  I realize TV stations have to sell ads to survive.  But must we see the obnoxious Progressive Insurance lady 250 times per hour, the ambulance chasing attorneys a thousand times a day, and why must the volume be cranked up three times louder when an obnoxious car lot ad comes on?  Bless TiVo, but my thumb is getting weak and I am probably getting carpal tunnel syndrome from pushing the fast forward and the delete button on the remote.
• Wastebasket drift.  Again, a recurring pain.  I would like to get through one day throwing something in the direction of a wastebasket and having it actually go in the wastebasket rather than doing a full earth orbit and an arcing trajectory out into the middle of the floor.
• computer passwords.  I have 3,252 passwords.  I try to use the same one, but have to keep changing them.  I have five single spaced pages, both sides, of computer passwords.
• Scandal mongering cable newspeople who revel in the dirt digging and spreading, ignoring other issues like the global economy and other matters of significant importance, or at least shoving them into obscurity.

I'm sure I'll have a few more irritations at the end of the day.  But in the interests of brevity, I will conclude with this beginning list.  Have a nice day.  And try to smile and not get irritated.

A Song to Prepare for the End of the World

The Curmudgeonly Professor has attempted to ease viewers into the apocalypse as painlessly as possible.  The old song "Enjoy yourself:  It's later than you think!" comes to mind.

The Curmudgeonly Professor's Guide to Preparing for the Apocalypse

Since the geezer who warned us about the apocalypse has apparently piled up $70 mil, apparently he has convinced a few people to divest of their winnings before the big quake.  To help you prepare for the end, here are a few suggestions:

1. Buy 2 bags of Cheetos, a case of Mountain Dew  or, if caffeine compromised, decaf diet Coke, or a case of beer if that is your taste, 3 bags of kettle chips, 2 cans of dip, one onion and one jalapeno cheese, a large bag of jelly beans, and a bottle of Tums.
2. Rent 30 movies from Red Box.  It doesn't matter which ones you rent.  You'll just be killing time, and you won't have to return them anyway.
3. Showering and changing is optional.  You could wait until Sunday morning, otherwise you may have wasted your time.
4. To get in the proper mood, read the novel titled "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy.  McCarthy won the Pulitzer Prize for this book so it must be a good book.  The book is about people roaming around hopelessly after the big blast.  The Road is probably the most depressing book I have ever read, other than advanced Microeconomic Theory.  And perhaps more depressing than Dostoyevsky's "Crime and Punishment."  When I required this book for an undergrad reading course, a student wrote to the Dean and protested that no one should have to read a book where someone does in the landlady so early in the book.  Such are the trials of great literature.
5. Charge up all your batteries before Saturday in case you are a lucky survivor and need to call 911.

I trust this guide will be useful to you.  Have a nice Saturday.

Countdown to the End of the World

Five Signs of the time that indicate that the end of the world will happen Saturday after all:

1. Lady Gaga has apparently replaced Oprah as the biggest celebrity.  I have no idea who Lady Gaga is or what she does.
2. I got a $1 off a quarter pounder burger at Arctic Circle without having a coupon.
3. The Lakers had advance knowledge and faded out of the playoffs early to have their lockers already cleaned out by Saturday.
4. We have gone a whole 24 hours without a new amorous escapade revealed for another big shot.
5. No new GOP members have announced their candidacy for President.  They are waiting to make sure that announcing is a viable possibility.

If nothing happens Saturday and the world continues on its merry way, all naughty people will be sent to Time Out for a minimum of 3 hours apiece.  We didn't have time out when I was a kid.  Now it is equivalent to extreme punishment.  I may wait until Sunday morning to see if I should continue blogging.  Happy End of the World watching.  The Curmudgeonly Professor will provide additional guidance and intelligence after Saturday to help you determine whether the end of the world really did happen.  What time, though?  Eastern?  Mountain? Central? Pacific?  And, if the end of the world happens at midnight Saturday, does that mean that the end comes at 10:00 p.m. mountain, or do we just hang out for a couple of hours?  These are important issues to consider.

 

 

Five Ways You Can Tell if the End of the World Happens Saturday

The End of the World gang took out a full page ad in USA Today today to warn us in no uncertain terms that the end of the world is happening day after tomorrow.  So why did they waste their $$$ on the ad?  Here are five definitive ways to tell if the end of the world actually has happened:

1. The obnoxious lady on the Progressive Insurance ads has blessedly disappeared.
2. All TV channels are running Apocalypse Now 24/7.
3. Your plumbing is clogged.
4. Fifty more Republicans have announced their plans to run for President.
5. No one will tag you, want to befriend you, or comment on your status, and you will be left alone to go see if WalMart is still open  or if you  can still  get some fry sauce at Arctic Circle before they all bite the dust.

So Happy Saturday.

 

 

Ten Things We Won't Have to Worry About if the End of the World Happens Saturday

Inasmuch as some prognosticators have forecast that the world will end on Saturday, here are ten things we won't have to worry about:

1. Raising the federal debt limit.
2. LeBron James won't have to wonder any more why he "took his talents to Miami."
3. I may postpone vacuuming and mopping the floors until I see for sure what will happen.
4. I may have some unrepented sins not reported or repented of in time for Saturday's deadline.
5. How many Republicans plan to run for President.
6. Whether the BCS fat cats will ultimately get busted for their unmitigated greed.
7. Whether I will ever get more than 355 followers on Twitter.
8. Whether some heretofore undiscovered episodes of Matlock will be found in a vault and released.
9. Whether the Heat will go to the finals and whether Dallas can beat them to keep their (the Heat's)  egos at a more humble level.
10. Whether all of the economically illiterate members of Congress and the voting public will ever learn enough economics to make sense out of economic policy.

But, just in case, I won't cancel my four newspaper subscriptions or my cable TV contract.  And I may order some more books from Amazon or Daedalus Books.  Just in case.

The Curmudgeonly Professor's Rant on Disasters, Calamities, Fear and our Loving Attachment to Such Negative Thoughts (You Can Easily Skip This Post).

The 1970s and 1980s were rife with economic catastrophizers (is that a word?).  Popular books selling in large numbers included "Small is Beautiful," "Spaceship Earth," (if my memory is anywhere near correct) and many similar titles.  The idea was rampant once more that Parson Malthus had been resurrected from the grave and was stalking the earth with his basic thesis that population grew geometrically and resources to feed people grew only arithmetically.  Thus, we were doomed.  Billions more people would be reduced to starvation and penury.  While it is true that countless millions do face daily starvation, the general proposition that all of us would soon be eating our shoe leather has not come to pass.  Instead, in countries like the U.S., we have eaten so much pizza, pasta, fast food, and everything else that we have become a nation with a problematic population of fatties.  Not everyone in the U.S. has access to this bounteous food supply.  Nonetheless, we have not run out of food, in the aggregate.  Just as the world of economic soothsayers and philosophizers overlooked the role of technology when Parson Malthus first became famous, so have we underestimated the role of technology in the modern world.

Similarly, disaster books about economics sell well.  Books that promise how you can safely survive the next stupendous, inevitable, soon-to-arrive, world of market and economy total collapse, sell extremely well.  Books that detail economic progress and continued development and policy-solving analysis get a ho-hum buyers' market.

Why do we like to go around scared all of the time?  We're a nation of fraidy cats.  We're afraid of Democrats.  We're afraid of Republicans.  We use fear as a major political tactic because it works, and works with a vengeance.  Just think up the worst that might, but may not actually even be likely to happen, and you can stir up votes by the ziillions.  We've also become a political environment of unbridled prevarication as the boogey-men and image makers have become skilled in knowing how to frighten the electorate into an Elm Street Halloween Night frenzy of fear.  Facts have often taken a back seat.  I learned when I studied economic forecasting that what people think is going to happen will typically outweigh what can logically be expected to happen.  Even in retrospect, we overlook objective evidence on what has actually happened and paint dark and dreary pictures of failure that wither in the light of facts and rational analysis.

The moral to the story is that if we want to write a book and make money, write about a disaster.  Many topics abound.  The coming crash, always a winner.  The political failure of (fill in the blank).  The disastrous impact of (fill in the blank for any proposed or new piece of legislation).  By spending so much time criticizing, dissembling, and avoiding the facts, we escape from the hard work and reality of focusing on making the world in which we live a better place.

Things the Curmudgeonly Professor is Ticked Off About Today June 29 2010

Some people never get ticked off, apparently.  They smile sweetly and never argue or disagree.  Or so I've heard, but never actually experienced.  To keep you up to date, here are the Curmudgeonly Professor's Gripes of the Day:

• The Los Angeles Lakers necktie my son gave me for Father's Day, knowing full well that I am an old man and that this gift would emotionally scar me.
• The Utah Utes going to the Pac-however many.  Glorious.
• The fact that I have a nasty cold in mid-summer and spend all my time coughing, sneezing, blowing, hacking, trying to breathe minimal oxygen for life sustenance through a stuffy nose, cussing and whining.  Courtesy of my wife.
• The dearth of sports on TV and in the newspapers.  I know, there's golf, whoopee.  Also baseball, which I usually don't get interested in until the pennant race gets serious since I don't want to spend time watching all the losers.
• I am getting sick to death of wasting an hour a day watching Matlock, since I can recite all of the lines to all of the episodes, and can actually predict with 100% certainty that the client will get off, unscathed, for a mere $100 grand.  Actually, old Ben raised the fee to $150 grand the other day.  Then why does he shine his own shoes and live like a pauper?  And have you ever seen a hot-dog stand right outside the courtroom in your own court house?  Bring back Leave it to Beaver and Three's Company and Happy Days.
• The stock market.  Come on consumers, belly up here and quit acting like deadbeats.  Get yourselves to Costco, WalMart, the junk food emporiums, and show a little spunk here.  It's the American thing to do.
• Bloviators.  Just take your millions and go away and shut up.
• Rex Morgan, M.D. in the comics.  Please remove.  Along with Cathy and Prince Valiant.  Help us out here.
• The toxic political process.  But probably hasn't changed a whole lot since the days of John Adams.  New nasty people born every year.  We just have to put up with them more in the era of cable TV.
• The blue carpet at Boise State, now a member of the Mountain West.  Boise State guy twittered me to explain they just had a new blue carpet and were ready to crush all comers.  Nice.

I assume there are some nice things I could say but that would detract from the overall aura of gloom, doom, pessimism, negative thought, depression, and other manifestations of this blog post.  Have a nice, nice day.

Here's a List of Things for Doomsayers, Pessimists, and Disaster Prone People to Worry and Stew Over Today

Catastophizers rejoice.  If you are at a loss for things to worry about, fuss over, and obsess about, here is help from the Curmudgeonly Professor:

1. How the end of the world is soon upon us.  Some people are once again spending time scouring scriptures and other information sources to prove that at no time in history has so much crud been raining down on us and that the end is near.  No matter that the good Lord drowned everyone but Noah and a boatload of animals once for being wicked, or that Sodom and Gomorrah were not exactly role models of behavior.  I told one person who was citing chapter and verse if he knew what Adam told Eve upon leaving the Garden of Eden: "Eve, we are living in an unprecedented time of trouble and woe."  That darned apple.
2. The NCAA is thinking about expanding March Madness to 90 something teams.  Heaven help us.
3. I can't figure out how facebook works, and I'm not sure I even care.
4. The Kleenex boxes don't distribute tissues when you get near the bottom of the box.  Why is this?
5. Hardly anyone has a civil word for hardly anyone else in matters of politics.  You know what happened on the Tower of Babel.  Maybe if everyone could be cursed (or blessed) with a different language so they could all shut up and stop yowling.
6. Did you buy a new iPad?  They will be cheaper and have the bugs worked out in a year or so.
7. How soon will my email be spammed again?  I haven't even bothered to activate a new email account.
8. Will the price of gas reach $5 a gallon this summer?
9. Should I fill out my census form or not?  And, if yes, what boxes should I check?
10. If I am taking 10 pills a day, how do I know whether each pill knows what it is supposed to do and when it is supposed to do it?
11. If I have to go to the doctor, what if he or she finds something really, seriously, the matter with me?  Then what?
12. Now that it is April 5, why have I not implemented a single one of my New Years' Resolutions?
13. Why am I such a hopeless specimen of humanity?
14. Why do I not have hardly any friends on facebook?

Well, this list will get you started today.  Dang, I just noticed a new spot on my scalp; I wonder if that is something serious? But The Curmudgeonly Professor is a confirmed hypochondriac, catastophizer, and pessimist so he can continue to contribute to your ability to exacerbate your own miseries.  Have a nice day.

Options for a Wednesday Morning

Here we are on Wednesday morning.  First off, I wish to take issue with the way Wednesday is spelled.  The word is pronounced Wenzdee, not as it is spelled, Wed-ness-day.  So how do we expect people learning English as a second language to learn how to spell and pronounce it?

Moving on, after preparing a totally balanced and nutritious breakfast of oatmeal with raisens and blueberries, OJ, skim milk, and an egg, unloaded the dish washer, wiped up the kitchen, I pondered my course of action for the rest of the morning.  I settled on four options:

1. Work on repairing the cabinet door that has been off its hinge for several months now.  Not that I haven't worked on it before.  Plus, I had my neighbor, who builds multi-million dollar mansions in SLCity, and who knows how to do everything, work on it.  Plus I asked the folks down at Ace Hardware what to do about it.  Plus, I just worked on it again the other day.  And the stupid thing defies being repaired.  My wife came up with the solution this morning: move everything out of the cabinet that we need so we don't have to open it any more.  Stay tuned.
2. Write on my blog.  A problematic choice.  My blog has been waning in viewer interest for several months.  Once averaging 70-90 views per day, we are now down to 30-50 max, with two days last week at 23.  Obviously my creative talents have been flowing in the wrong direction and people no longer wish to be advised, instructed, and corrected by the Curmudgeonly Professor.  Thus, I may seek another activity with which to while away the days.
3. Watch the movie Fletch for the 232nd time.  Fletch is an epic treasure.  The most memorable line in Fletch is "Utah isn't exactly a cure for boredom."  How's that for a slam on my state of residence? Plus, the scenes of Fletch driving through the streets of Provo were poorly selected, showing a seedier part of the town.  However, Chevy Chase demonstrated his thespian talents throughout.  Fletch is right up there with my favorite movies which include Fletch Lives, My Cousin Vinnie, Family Vacation, Caddyshack, Second Hand Lions, and John Wayne oaters.  My son swears by The Jerk, and has apparently memorized the entire script which he quotes frequently.  However, I haven't ever quite captured his enthusiasm for this cinematic classic.
4. Watch the Fox News crowd chortle, hee-haw, and I-told-you-so all day over the Democratic debacle in Massachusetts.  What a depressing thought.

After careful deliberation, I settled on option 3, since the movie was already 15 minutes underway.  As it turned out, Fletch was an excellent choice.  By the time the movie was over, the sun came out, I checked my Twitter site which remains steady at 222 followers, barely glanced at Facebook (which I don't really like), checked a half dozen blogs, read my email on two email accounts, checked my Kindle to see if the cheapskates at Amazon are offering any more free Kindle books today.  So now I must make out a new list of options for the remainder of the day.  At least I don't have to leave my office and go stand before 400 eager economics students, all waiting with an eager and excited demeanor for me to explain why the Law of Comparative Advantage tells us we should do what we do relatively better than anything else, or, failing that, do what we are least egregious at doing and make the best of it.  Leaving you with that comforting thought and dose of economic wisdom, I move on to bigger and better things.

The January Blahs

The month of January can be the month of blahs and blues if we let it.  The weather is cold in most parts of the country and gray, drizzly, and depressing in other places.  St. George is beautiful, sunny, and in the low 60s, so I can't complain about being cold, even though December was a pain.  January is the month in which we pay attention for a brief time to what miserable, overweight, pizza scarfing specimens with good intentions we are but bemoan our lack of self control.  In northern Utah the air is gunky and thick enough to cut with a knife and you have to drive up the mountain a ways to find a blue sky.  The Utah Jazz are stinking up the season and only a handful of fans are attending the U of Utah basketball games, unlike capacity crowds in days of yore.

College football has come to an end, however questionable, and we must wait nine months for the new season.  The big Leno-O'Brien exeriment has tanked and no one knows how to fix it.  The Republicans continue to blast the Democrats as big-spending socialists who want to compel people to have health care when they know that people ought to be free to be uninsured, sick, and unable to afford health insurance.  Rush slows down his $40 million career a bit to get well and return to form. The Democrats continue to say bad things about Republicans because they know what is best and they know how to cast yes votes.  The House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate have to get themselves reelected one more time and, therefore, must cater to whatever ideas, uninformed, biased, or otherwise, that the voters back home may have so that they (Congress)  can provide true representation in the nation's capitol and so they don't have to go out and find a job in the sick economy they helped create and see if they can actually generate some real GDP.  The bloviators seem to have become a bit more anemic at present, the Palin book tour seems to have died down and the book no longer is at the top of best seller lists, likely soon headed for garage sales and remainder piles.  Terrorism threats cloud our horizons.

The economy chugs along, gasping for breath, with a faint hope here and a bit of flatulence there, while banks are stubborn about lending since they got their teeth kicked in while gleefully accepting bailout money, jobs continue to be scarce, foreclosures continue in abundance, airline travel gets trickier and more gruesome, and everyone blames everyone else over and over for the mess the other guys got us into.  Some sadly mistaken Congress persons want to control the Fed, a mistake that Andrew Jackson made nearly two centuries ago that took another century to correct, and general ignorance of basic economics principles prevails among those who either never took it or who got a C- or D+ when they did take it and should never have been allowed to graduate as if they knew something useful at all except how to get cash out of an ATM and run up credit card bills.  How's that for a convoluted sentence?  But then the economy is convoluted, so what?

On the plus side, January is a good month actually to read a few books about what is going on, venturing forth beyond our comfort zone television stations and usual favored authors and sources of information and taking a serious look at our government, our economy, and the world.  Learning something is never going to hurt us and might make us more effective voters and citizens.  Also, January is a good month for resurrecting our sorry selves out of our chip eating, couch potato, worthless selves and, maybe for the first time in ages, actually make a few constructive changes in our lives and stick to them, thus shocking everyone who knows us and who may have given up on us decades ago.

What I am looking forward to most is the return of blossoms here in St. George by mid- to late February, then to the Parade of Homes, and to spring and summer in Salt Lake with endless opportunities for photos on the LDS temple grounds, the mountain sides, the spectacular Thanksgiving Point flower gardens, and the wild roses and varied blooms along the Jordan River Trail.  Meanwhile, I will continue to provide unbiased comments that afflict both sides so that I don't lose blog readers for going off on irrelevant tangents.  Soon, January will be over.  At least I am no longer living in Laramie WY in January or stuck in the inversions of Salt Lake City.  And maybe I will be in a better humor on February 1.

A Crummy Sunday. Or is it?

Sunday did not start out well.  The wind was blowing, the sky was cloudy and murky, and the day was just plain gloomy and depressing.  Something destroyed the petunias and flowers by the front door in just two or three days.  I still have a biserable rotten cold with endless quantitiez of dose stuff and a headache to go with it.  The morning political talk shows sounded like the Book of Lamentations.  Wo, wo, wo, wo, and wo again.  (which some wag once said were words spoken by an Israelite to his horse).  The economy is still tanked.  Joblessness continues to be a disaster.  In 20 years, when I will be gone, the gummint will chew up 95% of the GDP.  Maybe I got my figure off a bit, but that was the general idea.  People whose parents are on Medicare and Medicaid don't want gummint control of health care.  Furthermore, they want the millions who don't have health care to get a job, earn some money, and go out and buy it, while everyone else, meanwhile, pays for their visits to the emergency room.  Democrats and Republicans (some, not all) behave like spoiled children, calling each other names.  How much truth can a truth-stretcher stretch?  Fact checkers appear to be largely unemployed, since facts have not been necessary in many instances in the current uproar.  I was sorry I even got up this morning.

Then the Mormon Tabernacle Choir came on the TV, and sang the old hymn "Count Your Blessings, Name Them One by One."  Well, gee, maybe I should back up a minute while wallowing in self pity and political blathering.  The choir sung "are you ever burdened with a load of care?"  As a matter of fact, I did think I had a boatload of care.  Reluctantly, I thought maybe I should change my sour disposition, quit griping about the bloviating politicos, stop worrying about the petunias, ignore the gray and miserable day, and see if I could possibly think of anything I should be thankful for.  So at that stage, I went in the kitchen and made my wife blueberry pancakes with sliced peaches.  That helped.

Then, wouldn't you know it, the next song by the Tabernacle Choir was the Irving Berlin classic, "Count Your Blessings Instead of Sheep."    ". . . and I fall asleep, counting my blessings."

Like the commenter on my blog post about how old people sometimes have a hard time getting through the night said, "how much we are suffering . . . how much we must endure . . . but becomes . . . how can I make the most of each day that I have left."  May we each echo that sentiment and have a great Sunday, cloudy, rainy, or sunny.