Bummer news...

Since I keep tabs on the drum corps activity at both the junior and senior levels, I just found out the Seattle Cascades Drum and Bugle Corps is taking a year off from national touring and keeping it regional. Too bad. For a region (the Pacific NW) that isn't a huge epicenter of marching pageantry to lose such a great group (not TECHNICALLY losing, but if they're going to be a regional non-competitive corps, you can kiss the recruiting goodbye) is pretty hard.

Here's to the 'Scades (as they are called)...good luck and hopefully you'll pull a Troopers and come back stronger than ever.

OK OK OK...my LAST post for today...

I totally forgot about this clip from YOUTUBE. I got reintroduced to Mary Poppins because my daughter LOVED to watch it EVERY SINGLE FREAKIN' DAY when she was a toddler. The following clip certainly changes the whole meaning of the movie...holy cow!!!

My 100th Post!!! Let's celefreakingbrate!!

Hi there...second posting of the day because it just dawned on me (by way of a counter) that I am on my 100th post of this infernal blog that so many of you have come to like for some reason. WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU?!?!? I kid--I'm still tickled that people read this and approach me at the weirdest times to say they either agreed or disagreed or think I'm a raving lunatic. Whatever. In commeration of the 100th ranting, I thought maybe it would be nice to see a few pics. Let's start off with some doom and gloom...that's always fun...

This is a snap shot of Oceanside, California, the city just south of Camp Pendleton. About 20-30 minutes from Orange County (on a good day). This sort of proves part of the overall horror story that I'm trying to convey in terms of the world economy. Yeah...Oceanside is part of the world economy. More specifically--all of those red dots represents a family or person that is "under water" because of a pending or active foreclosure. This is NORTH SAN DIEGO FREAKIN' COUNTY. It's PARADISE. And they're feeling the effects of what will surely start to hit the last bastion of good economy...The O.C.

Well, here's something sort of cool. A few weeks ago, I gave the "Opening Speech" or whatever you want to call it to the Kingsmen Alumni Corps Banquet held in Fullerton. Had about 400 people there and I gave a 10 minute talk about my experience as the Official Voice of the Kingsmen during their nearly 2 year existence. It's a little hard to see, but I think if you click on the pic it'll get bigger (only if it was so easy at age 41...WAIT...did I just say that???). ANYWAY--in the pic is my fat mug on the left, to the right of me in the dark suit and mustache/beard is my long-time friend and brother in the business of show design, David G. Weinberg (http://www.omegadrilldesigns.com/). We go WAY WAY back. He's one of the principal people in my life that motivated me, mostly by example, to become a drill designer myself. Nowhere near as good, but hey, I keep striving. The black gentlemen in the center of the pic is the former drum major of the Freelancers Drum and Bugle Corps from Sacramento. He was drum major from 1981-1984, and definitely a MAJOR MAJOR MAJOR influence in my life, MOSTLY BY EXAMPLE (because he had no idea I existed back then), and helped me develop my style as drum major for Freelancers' arch rivals, The Velvet Knights. Rest of the people at the table I don't really know. But they were nice.

I have a friend at work, a former Velvet Knight by the way (from the post 1992 era) that is, among other things, an expert at Photoshop. This would be a picture of me he created after I had returned from a brief vacation to San Simeon where I developed an abcess and had to have oral surgery due to the intense pain. Yeah...that's his tribute to me. Yeah it's sort of gross.

Get over it.

This is what I'm attempting to KEEP from becoming. Another Photoshop creation by a certain former VK computer geek.

From this at DCI Finals in 1987....(ignore the movie poster thing--it's a joke that was sent to me)....

....to this, announcing the Kingsmen Alumni Corps on to the field at the Rose Bowl for DCI Finals 20 years later.

THIS TOTALLY FREAKS ME THE HELL OUT!!!

Happy 100th post. If you've read 'em all...you really need to seek some counseling. I feel sorry for you. But thanks--whatever good THAT does for ya!!

Now......................GET...................OUT........................OF..............HERE!! :-)

I don't understand a lot...but this scared me...

http://www.bloomberg.com/avp/avp.htm?clipSRC=mms://media2.bloomberg.com/cache/v6A3ROrCPZNk.asf

This may seem boring, because it's a propellor head talking about stocks and the financial world. However, this TOTALLY ties in to my last post. The "foreclosure crisis" is part of a larger "circle of disaster" that is poised to occur. Now I keep my ear to the ground and read what a bunch of tin-foil hat wearing people are saying about this situation in the world right now, and of course they're saying the Greatest Depression Since The Dawn Of Time is coming so buy a farm, get out of the cities, buy food preps, get your guns, blah blah blah. I'm nowhere near that way of thinking (well...actually I am when it comes to food preps), but this video is VERY VERY telling. If you can wade through this, just listen to this guy. Typically on the "mainstream media", especially Bloomberg TV, having this level of negativity is very rare, so I hear. You can even see it in the interviewer when all of a sudden in the middle of the interview she blurts out "WOW THIS IS SOOOO NEGATIVE!" or something to that effect.

What's the point Turner???

I don't know--yesterday, I said something was amiss. Even though I don't participate in the stock market, it seems we're on the brink of a MAJOR MAJOR downturn in the world economy as we know it, and that WILL affect the Joe Schlub like myself that is supporting a family. How badly? I have no clue...but according to my paranoid friends...

WATCH OUT!!!

Something is amiss...

I live in a great country. I have lots of freedoms and I have lots of opportunities and there is much to be grateful for. But...BUT...something is not right. Something is stinky. Let me give you a quick recap of things that are on my radar...

--Internet service cables in and around the Mid East are mysteriously "cut"...at the bottom of oceans. Not much news coverage of this. But it's happening. Why? Theories abound, but this is akin to Germany in WWII cutting communications lines to Britain before they attacked. Is something up in the Mid East? Iran???

--The primaries are offering me "nothing new". You Obama freaks are going to get exactly what you asked for. A raging SOCIALIST. With Hillary Clinton...more of the same old, same old. Oh by the way..Universal Health Care is her big rallying cry. Get ready to pay OUT YOUR ASS for that. I want NO PART OF IT, thank you very much. I spend BIG BUCKS every month to make sure that I will have NO PART OF IT. You should too. You've been warned. Let's see...oh...yeah. Republicans. Not that you can tell them apart from the liberals. McCain--Mr. Bad Temper man. He's ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLL about the Iraq War. Yeah. OK. The war that we're "winning". OK. He's real in tune with reality, hanh? This is the same McCain mind you that didn't care much for our sovereignty as a nation and sponsored the McCain/Kennedy Amnesty Bill for Illegal Aliens. You remember illegal aliens, right? The ones that are clogging up our schools, our hospitals, our ROADS, OUR COUNTRY!?!?!?!?! Yeah. If you voted for this loser, you voted for someone who within the last few weeks suddenly "saw the light" and is now AGAINST his own amnesty that he HAD been for. YOU BELIEVE THAT?!?!? No...seriously. YOU BELIEVE HIM???? Romney...I can't tell what he's for or against or anything. He just keeps saying "Put me in the White House...yap yap yap". Something more than sound bites, please. Huckabee and Paul, both non-issues, only confuse the stupid. So why is this all here? Something is amiss in this country because our choices BASICALLY come down to Obama, Hillary, McCain, and Romney. --sigh-- Our country, which HAS been screwed so nice and royally by Bush, is not a rubber stopper away from being sucked into the garbage disposal. MARK MY WORDS. I'm not typically political but HOLY CRAP ALIVE...this past year has been an eye opener to say the least.

--Anyone care much about world economics? You do? Oh good. Because I don't understand much beyond writing checks, making deposits, and working an ATM machine. But I read A LOT. The stock market--on a world-wide basis--is OUT OF CONTROL. If you DON'T follow it, and I bet most of you don't, I will tell you this. Some major major names in the business are declaring that we are in for a world of hurt. If you don't invest like I don't, you may be ok but you'll get hit with higher prices on everything (already see it big time in the groceries, believe you me.) But there are some VERY dire predictions that come summer time, we may be experiencing something worse that the Crash of 29. Get ready. Or don't.

--Speaking of money. Were you an idiot and got an Adjustable Rate Mortgage, thinking that somehow, the 1.5% APR was going to last for 30 years, and then after 2,3, or 5 years, all of a sudden, your house payment on a house you normally would NEVER have been able to afford on Planet Reality is now 40, 50 or 60% MORE. And NOW you can't AFFORD IT??? Are you one of those??? If you are, you're getting EXACTLY what you deserve. Sorry. I have NO sympathy whatsoever for you. If you are a "flipper" and got stuck, OH WELL. You played the odds and lost. You see, sometime in the recent past, houses became investment vehicles for some odd reason. Yeah yeah yeah...people have always bought house and rented them out. That's "sort of" an investment. But "flipping" really didn't come into vogue until the last decade, or so I read. This "false value" created in the market, ESPECIALLY HERE IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA, was and still is to some extent, absolutely ridiculous. Gone is the notion that my parents grew up with and hence, passed on to me, that a house was where you buy and raise a family. Times are MUCH different. But now...it's biting out economy in the ass. I don't pretend to understand the complexities of how our financial markets are built and maintained, but I can guarandamntee you that this "housing bubble collapse" that you hear about so often (or the "foreclosure crisis") is affecting things on a GLOBAL SCALE. Annnnnnnnnnnnnnd...there's one word to describe WHY this is occurring.

Can you say "GREED"? Good. I knew you could.

--If you have a Christian upbringing or view of the world, than what I'm going to say will make perfect sense. If you don't, it'll still ring true with you and get you to say, "Hanh...you're right." I don't know how much "news" you may read or hear, but I'm sure along the way you hear about the major stuff. Lately if it hasn't been Lindsay Lohan or Paris Hilton, it's been about Britney (heck I even joked about it earlier in the blog). TMZ is now considered "the news". But what's scary is this. This may be "just me", but I don't know. I think others are feeling it. But crime and lawlessness...it's reaching horrific in terms of the severity. Now, I fully recognize that there are stats that will show you that crime is actually on the decline in major categories. FBI goes to GREAT lengths to capture data, and there is some truth to that. But I'm not talking VOLUME, I'm talking the horrendous nature of crimes. ESPECIALLY against children. As a dad, I just absolutely cringe at the things I read and hear. Signs of the times??? YOU BETCHA. You don't need to be a Biblical scholar to figure that out. But even if you aren't aware of any Biblical support for what is happening today (or believe it for that matter), can one argue that the deprevity is worse today than ever before? If you're my age, do you remember playing outside your house until the streetlight came on and then you had to go home? Can you imagine letting your kid do that nowadays??

Sorry to rant but it was on my mind, and what's on my mind sometimes ends up out here on this blog. I'm watching the world turn, and I may just post more interesting insights into what's going on. There is MUCH more going on in this world than Britney Spears and the Super Bowl and our horrible choices for President.

I'll try to remind you of these things every so often...

Just thought you'd like to see a cool video of where I work. Unfortunately, when it gets to showing the inside of the Command Center where I work, it shows two dispatchers that are no longer with us. Nice.

Real nice.