John Burkholder

I noticed something today as I was looking at a ten dollar bill. It is ugly. I mean, really ugly. The government has taken the greenback and brought color to it. But not usefully, like making the face look like a real face and and eagle to have the splendid color of an eagle, no, they added what looks like a dirt color to the entire bill and splashed some blood red in places. When I first looked at it, I tried to clean it. It doesn't come off. For my off-shore readers, this is the new bill link: $10 front $10 back The other bills are really no better. The twenty looks like it was sitting out in the sun too long and has one of the tan lines: $20 front $20 back You know when you were a kid and you would draw a picture and you hand would smudge the section where the ink wasn't quite dry...the fifty: $50 front $50 back Is the government in such a bad way that in order to make the money harder to counterfeit, we had to make it ugly? I compared the old ten and the new ten and I have

I hate my job. This brings me to my point (as I almost always have one). Why is it I can look at everything else going on around me and find the magic fix, the resolution, the point. But when it comes to dealing with my own crap, I am hard pressed to see the solution. I guess it is like trying to see the forest from the trees. I actually have contingency plans in place if I happen to lose / quit my job. I say quit because it costs less than going postal. The contingency plans aren't great and would require a large amount of belt tightening, but there are options. I am just more willing to deal with the bull than to take that step (although today was really pushing my limits). Did you know... An employee of the Alabama Department of Transportation installed spyware on his boss's computer and proved that the boss spent 10% of his time working (20% of time checking stocks and 70% of the time playing solitaire). The employee was fired, the boss kept his job.

My wife has purchased a scale. I have never had a scale in my house, let alone my master bathroom. I hate it already. It is a weight watcher scale that measures in tenths of a pound confirming to me information I already knew. My major problem with the scale is now I want to weigh myself every time I enter or exit the bathroom. For example: Yesterday I woke up and headed toward the toilet for my usual morning pee. Oh, wait...let's see how much weight I lose by going pee! So I perform the ritual necessary to make the scale work and I weigh myself. After doing my business in the toilet, I again step on the scale to discover I lost .6 pounds just by going pee. That is so cool! Later that morning, I was about to take my shower when I though "OK, what is my true weight?" I again perform the procedure to discover that all of my clothes add up to about 4.3 pounds. So, now as I stand there naked looking at the scale digits I determine how much weight I really need to lose. I weig

Martain Anthropologist wrote an excellent blog entry today about the San Antonio police arresting people in bars. This is the article being referenced: SAN ANTONIO, Texas (Reuters) - Texas has begun sending undercover agents into bars to arrest drinkers for being drunk, a spokeswoman for the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission said on Wednesday. The first sting operation was conducted recently in a Dallas suburb where agents infiltrated 36 bars and arrested 30 people for public intoxication, said the commission's Carolyn Beck. Being in a bar does not exempt one from the state laws against public drunkeness, Beck said. The goal, she said, was to detain drunks before they leave a bar and go do something dangerous like drive a car. "We feel that the only way we're going to get at the drunk driving problem and the problem of people hurting each other while drunk is by crackdowns like this," she said. "There are a lot of dangerous and stupid things people do when the

Today is my oldest daughter's 18th birthday (no comments about how old that makes me...I was 11 when she was born). She has moved on with her life and moved out so I really don't know exactly where she is. I miss her. She has not been communicating with us very much. Jami is a child who has and does live by trial and error. If someone explains to her there is another easier way to do something or avoid hardship and heartbreak, she should do this...she would rather do it her way and face the music. Please do not misunderstand me, she is extremely smart. When we lived in Virginia, she tested the top of the state for mathematics and in the upper 5% for science. She plays tennis and bowls very well and if she followed up, she could be playing in tournaments. She is extremely funny and normally carries a good sense of humor about everything. But she is a rebel and a klutz. She has made some decisions that are harder to rebound from than she realizes. She also for some reason can fa

Today I am home sick. The bug I have been frantically fending off at work has finally beat me into submission. It is not fun. It involves lots of bathroom runs and praying to the porceline gods. I have asked the gods repeatedly to make it stop, but for some reason my toilet must not be transmitting well. I am sore all over. My muscles hurt when I move so I am saying "ow, ow, ow" all of the way to the cool water cleansing circular waste recepticle. My head hurts because of the dehydration I would imagine, and I wish that the exorcist in my stomach would just get out. Me being sick really makes me miss my Mother, may she rest in peace. I was born in Long Beach, California, moved to Anchorage, Alaska, and ended up in my home town; a little town named Clinton, Illinois . My family moved there when I was four. When my Mom and Dad first moved to Clinton, their purpose was to build a bakery. Little did they know how it would change their lives. BRB... My Dad committed suicide when I

For the past few weeks, I have been doing my best to dodge the never ending bullets of "the cold" or flu. I had done fairly well up until today. I fear I have taken a hit and am starting to wallow in pain and misery. People at work, on the train and my family at home have ALL had this bug and I had managed to survive the onslaught fairly well. I am always the last to get sick. When we first moved here, we had temporary residence in my bosses house. One of the children caught the sickness. This was a very BAD sickness and the kids were throwing up like some sort of "Exorcist" kid. My boss and I managed to make it through the entire time without being touched by the illness. Until that day...that day when our defenses finally fell and we both took a hit. He was the first one down. At this point I knew the inevitably was rapidly approaching like a F5 tornado. I knew that even IF I managed to fend it off a couple more days, it would only be long enough for me to have th

I am driving the Ford Ranger pickup the Queen's Mom gave to us from Virginia this weekend so this post is short and sweet. It drives well and has a few noises I will have to investigate when I finally get home. I flew in today from Midway to Washington National on ATA . I have always been a devoted United flyer and have accumulated many miles and free flights in the process. My last flight on ATA was dismal at best. However, I must admit that this flight very well could be the best flight I have EVER had. When I booked the flight the reservation system placed me behind the wing in the middle seat. To understand a little better, the are 3 seats on each side of the isle. Those 3 seats are: window, isle, and middle. Everyone HATES the middle. On top of this, I knew ATA was in bankruptcy and trying to emerge thus making my anticipation even less. So, when I was forced to take an ATA flight because the closest I could come to the price was $169.00 compared to ATA at $67.00, I relunctan

At some point in time, I realized that I was seperated from other generations. It dawned on me that I was now part of an older generation looking at the younger generation and trying to understand what is wrong with them. I KNOW we didn't act that way. OK, we did act that way. I remember thinking that when my favorite songs are all place on a album called something like "awesome 80s," I was officially old. I remember thinking that when you start wanting to watch the news, you are old. I remember. Little. I guess this is a good thing because if I remembered everything that defined me as old, I would probably want to drive around wearing my parachute pants and OP t-shirt with a Mr. Microphone in my Pontiac Fiero yelling "Hey good lookin! We'll be back to pick you up later!" What is it about nostalgia that makes people miss things or events? I have to admit there are some things I don't miss (mostly because I didn't like them back then) like night time

Well, we the public (because we voted these people into office) have agreed to raise the national debt to (Dr.Evil grin with the finger on the edge of the mouth) nine trillion dollars with no intention of paying it back. How much is this really? I love numbers so here we go. Nine trillion dollar looks like this: $9,000,000,000,000.00 Just to give you a landmark, Wal-Mart in 2004 had a revenue of $287,989,000,000.00 or close to 288 billion. Now let's assume you live to be 100 years old. You can pay for a lot of healthcare with 9 trillion bucks. 100 years equals 36,525 days, or 876,600 hours, or 52,596,000 minutes or 3,155,760,000 seconds in your entire 100 years of living. So if you wanted to SPEND the 9 trillion dollars in your lifetime, you would have to spend $2,851.92 plus per second since your birth to your 100th birthday (this doesn't count the extra second we get every 18 months or so). Now if you wanted to MAKE the money on a regular work week assuming you are going to s

I had to work late. I tried to catch my 6:15 train only to see it driving away. Hmmph. So, I walked to the LaSalle station to catch THAT train. Only to walk up about 5 minutes after the train left. Hmmph Hmmph. So, I sit here in LaSalle station until the train leaves at 7:40 to arrive in Joliet at 9:05. I normally like mass transit. However, tonight, I think mass transit could use some fine tuning. Chicago's mass transit system is enormous and yet, not big enough. My wife has offered to come pick me up. I said to her "Really, by the time you get here the train will be leaving. I will see you in Joliet. This will not be nearly as much of an issue when we have the truck. God bless your Mom. She has no idea how greatful I am." What do I mean? Well, my mother-in-law is gifting us her Ford Ranger pickup. How cool is that?! This means I don't have to leave the Queen at home without a vehicle. My MIL and I have not always seen eye to eye. Fact is, I really didn't give he

Tonight I had an adventure with the kids to White Castle for dinner. The Queen is ill so she stayed home. After leaving, I found out all of the kids were also sick. I am not sick...yet. So I walked into the mini fast food restaurant and place my order to the tall geeky looking kid behind the counter. While placing my order I was greeted with the question "Dude, would you like fries with that?" OK, maybe I too am sick...did he address me as "dude?" I then scanned the back area for the adult amongst the group. Nope...the sign clearly states Ashley is the crew manager on duty. Ashley is the high schooler behind the counter with the leather choker around her neck. As we were leaving, I half expected her to say "Oh my gawd, was your food OK or what?" Have we butchered customer service and quality so much that we need to butcher the English language as well? My next call to the bank: Bank teller 1(In a male teenage thug voice): "Yo, Wassup, this is tha bank

I am an avid reader of Reuter's Oddly Enough. Every so often I come across an article that make me smile. Well, today is one of those days. OSLO (Reuters) - A woman thought she was in heaven when beer instead of water flowed from the taps in her apartment in west Norway. "I turned on the tap to clean some knives and forks and beer came out," Haldis Gundersen told Reuters from her home in Kristiansund, west Norway. "We thought we were in heaven." Beer in Norway is among the most expensive in the world with a 0.4 liter (0.7 pint) costing about 50 crowns ($7.48) in a bar. Gundersen said she tried the beer but that it tasted a bit odd and was not fizzy. It turned out that a worker in a bar two floors below had mixed up the pipes on Saturday evening, wrongly connecting a new barrel to a water pipe leading to Gundersen's flat. The bar got water in its beer taps. "If it happens again I'm going to order Baileys (coffee liqueur)," she said. Why is it, I

I should change my name. I know I am nearly 40 and that this would be a very odd time to change my name, but why not? Anyone can change their name at any time in their life. If you named your child Moonbeam and she is really more of a Muffy, change it. One would think with such a long history of John's in the world that it would be held in high regard. John the Apostle, John the Baptist, Saint John, 23 Pope Johns, and 12 rulers named John. So, why change it? Through most of my childhood, I have learned that my name has other meanings than just identifying the most wonderful person in the world, me. Take for instance: Prostitution. The term John is used for the person requesting or paying the prostitute for sexual favors. Abusing a cat. In Southwest Texas, if you shake a cat violently you will John a cat. Male genetalia. Why? For some reason the most often form of describing male genetalia is the John. Ending a relationship. Were there really enough males being dumped that they have

Today is Avery's birthday. She has truned three and this is a very exciting day for her. She has opened most of her gifts this morning. Now she is playing with Mr. Potatohead, markers and her doctors kit. With the older kids, I always thought they would like the more expensive items so much more than the everyday items. Well, as I continue to learn, I firmly beleive that the crayons and paper are as good if not better than almost any other gift. Last Christmas Avery received this talking book. She has played with it maybe twice. It just doesn't keep her attention. However the door painted with chalkboard paint and a stick of chalk keeps her attention for hours. I am moving to Blogger (blogspot). I am going to stop copying items to Xanga, because there are some features built into Blogger that I just like better. Some of the things I like are the Audioblog capability, the email blog capability, the blogshare tracking, and the audience is mostly adult. The customizations are

There are certain mornings that I will have the priviledge of having my wife drive me to the train stations in the spacepod. Besides her driving the oversized roller skate like a Formula 1 car, she tends to talk to me. Normally, my day starts in the following way: I get out of bed and walk to the bathroom in the dark using my blackberry light to prevent stepping on the cat or alien spaceship. I attempt to drain the hot water heater before my daughter does, dry off, brush teeth, and then begin clothing myself. After I have fully clothed (checking to make sure I have the train ticket, bus ticket, wallet, company badge, blackberry, laptop, and keys) and give the wife a kiss on the cheek before I head downstairs. I check the news for weather (you have to check the weather here...of course the forecast will change an hour later) and head out the door. As I drive my van to the station myself and plan out my day from the parking at the train station to how many appointments I have and oh, whe

Why can’t women ever put the seat back up? I know, the women reading all just thought “What?!” But really, why can’t women put the seat up? Is their arm broken? Do they not understand how much easier it makes it for us men to not have to bend over and lift it to the proper saluting position? Men only sit on the toilet every sixth or seventh time so it only makes sense to have it up all of the time (especially if your house is mainly male). I remember living in the dorms and having a woman use our toilet. She left it down. Think of all of the confusion when the next guy went in there and HAD to put it back up. The Queen once asked me why can’t men ever leave the toilet seat down. It is actually a courtesy that we lift the seat. Why would we care if we pee all over the seat? Women are the ones that have to sit on it. You should appreciate the fact that we actually lift the darn thing. I would suspect in runningslow’s house, the seat would remain up with the husband and son both using it.

I have mentioned many times before of my need and readiness for a career change. Well, I have all kinds of business ideas, but I am having a hard time putting them onto paper. Sometimes I think it would just be easier if I just built it first and then convinced people to move toward it. Some of my ideas I am more than willing to give away. After all, this would help everyone, not just me. Take for instance: Reverse E-Bay. Is it me, or does anyone else realize that E-Bay works kinda backwards? If I want to buy an item, I have to bid on the item, and then if someone else bids higher, I bid higher, until the bell dings and the winner pees their pants with joy. Isn't the objective to get the item for the lowest possible price? What makes you think that the seller isn't telling his friend next to him to bid higher so he can get more money? My idea is to create an auction where you place the item you want to buy. You know what you want to buy, the 2006 Aston Martin Vanquish S. You a

First, I would like to thank those subscribers I have left (I lost two) from yesterday’s blogs. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one (I love Star Trek). I appreciate everybody’s opinion and your thoughts and expressions help me and hopefully others, grow. I believe that through knowledge, we can make the world a better place. Howdidigetsoold wrote a blog today about…oh hell I forget…go read her. Included in her blog was a comment about how health food was so darned expensive. This reminded me of a blog I had on my list that I lost. Yes, I have a lost list of latent literary legends yet to be logged. So, why is it organic and health foods are more expensive than the chemical laden non-health foods? Of course, since I am big on researching answers to the ever popular questions, I had to do look into it. Logic would dictate that products missing the added chemical and extra stuff would costs less. What would you say if the car salesman told you that you can buy

Two posts in one day. I do feel this is important enough that it deserves a new post. I have decided it is time to address this issue of homosexuality and the Bible since it was brought up by OkieDokieThen . I am not saying he cannot believe in his faith. But making the broad statement that homosexuality is against everything held in the Bible in my OPINION, is incorrect. Again this is a VERY long post, so hold on. Just an FYI, I am using someone else's research . I am really going out on a limb here because I promised myself not to talk about religion in the blog. Homosexuality and the Bible Sexual issues are tearing our churches apart today as never before. The issue of homosexuality threatens to fracture whole denominations, as the issue of slavery did one hundred and fifty years ago. We naturally turn to the Bible for guidance and find ourselves mired in interpretive quicksand. Is the Bible able to speak to our confusion on this issue? The debate over homosexuality is a remarka

Eiprhylle posted the other day about her friend’s marriage falling apart. It is at this point everyone who does not have an open mind can leave. If you wanted to read a short, funny post, this is also not the post for you. I need to post this because, when someone makes me think, I have to talk about it. Eiprylle made me think and for this, I thank her. She posed the question “What reason will there be, if given circumstances, for them to remain as husband and wife?” My quick answer was “It sounds like a marriage of convenience. I have seen more than one of those…and some last forever.” Granted, I could have expounded on this in the comments section, but to be honest, another person’s relationship is really none of my business. I married for convenience. My first wife (Teri) and I married for convenience. Before judging me, let me explain. I was a 19 year old male living in Limestone, Maine under the auspice of serving in the Air Force. The male to female ratio for that area at the ti

I have been riding this commuter train since the beginning of the year into work. So far, the cost involved versus my old carpool is about the same. Before, every fourth month I would have to pay the $270 in parking per month. Add to this the gas involved in the commute and the parking fee for when the parking pass was left in someone else’s car, and it came down to about $160 per month. Except for December, which ended up costing me about $450 because of the parking pass being in someone else’s car a lot. So, January I started taking the train. I began sitting in a specific spot and entered the social circle. They are a good and very dynamic group of people which includes a deputy, bank executive, IT support people, legal secretary and more. In total, there are about 25 people in this group on my upper level. We communicate and joke with the 40 people on the lower level as well. On Friday evening rides, intense amounts of alcohol are involved. Where am I going with this? Well, tonight