This Just In!!!

1. The skies were looking pretty unfriendly for one New Zealand woman earlier this week.
Karen Bass said she went out into her yard Sept. 28 and something smelled terrible. She said there was waste splattered all over her yard, her house, and her car.
"The first thing when I walked out of my door this morning and I saw it, I thought an airplane s*** on us. You open the door and it smells like s***," she told the Herald on Sunday. "I'm absolutely disgusted at the moment. The amount of crap everywhere is horrendous."

Bass' home lies directly along an Auckland International Airport flight path. She's convinced that the excrement isn't from birds or other animals, and has sent a sample of the mess to be independently tested.

If it looks like S**t smells like s**ti, t probably is s**t. I too would be convinced it's not brid s**t .

2. Cops arrested a nurse in northeastern Italy in connection with the deaths of as many as 38 patients, whom she might have killed because she found them — or their relatives — annoying, officials said.

Poggiali, who lives in the town of Lugo, was taken into custody over the weekend and booked for the alleged slaying of 78-year-old patient Rosa Calderoni, who died from an injection of potassiu

Her death triggered an investigation, which found that 38 others had died mysteriously while Poggiali was on duty.

One of Poggiali’s fellow nurses described her as a “cold person but always eager to work,” .

Another one of Poggiali’s colleagues said the accused nurse was once reported for giving powerful laxatives to patients at the end of her shift to make work tougher for nurses working after her.

I'm sure we have always thought about this.

3. This is a public service announcement: Quit having sex in the ocean. Water isn't even a good lubricant, you guys! Not to mention it's all salty. And did you know fish swim in there? Like, literally hundreds of fish, ew! Oh, and there is always the very real chance your genitals will get stuck together via suction.

That seems to be the case for an Italian couple looking to spice up their love life. Il Mattino reported that as the couple began having sex in the ocean, they became suctioned together and unable to separate. Awwww!

The seaman (???), anchored to his siren by his sea monster, stayed in the ocean until he was able to flag down a woman walking along the beach who was able to give this beast with two backs a towel to cover up.

There's no shrinkage in a cold ocean??

PAW PAW, Mich. - One is a building with bars. The other is a building with a bar. A very drunk woman apparently had trouble telling them apart and ended up in a southwestern Michigan jail cell.

The Van Buren County sheriff's department says a 39-year-old woman mistook the Van Buren County jail for the bar where she was trying to pick up her boyfriend.

The department says Deputy Robert Miersma spotted the Hartford-area woman backing into the jail parking lot in Paw Paw about 2 a.m. Sunday and noticed she smelled of alcohol and appeared intoxicated.

It says a breath test showed her with more than twice the 0.08 percent blood alcohol considered drunk in Michigan. She's expected to face drunken driving charges.

An easy mistake

ABC10. Lend me your ear and I'll tell you a story.

An intoxicated man home on leave from the Air Force thought it would be a good idea to give a Minnesota police officer a double "Wet Willy." It was not.

Riley Louis Swearingen, 24, pleaded guilty to disruptive intoxication Monday, KARE reports. Swearingen spent several days in jail before taking a plea deal to avoid felony charges for the early Saturday morning incident.

 According to the criminal complaint, Mankato Department of Public Safety Police Sergeant Adam Gray was talking with a driver of a "drunk bus" in the city's entertainment district when he "felt two fingertips that were obvious to him as wet with saliva being pushed into his right and left ear canals, which caused pressure and discomfort in his ear canals."

    The officer turned and saw a man later identified as Swearingen tell his friends, "I just gave the cop a wet Willie."

Initial charges against Swearingen included assaulting a police officer with bodily fluids, according to the Manakato Free-Press. The punishment for that felony is no doubt quite worse than a school detention.
  
Ewww!

WalMart built a special display of Halloween costumes for "Bigger woman".

That is very discriminatory . Why don't they have a section for fat guys?

That's all the news or not. Until next time. Have a nice day.

Sammy Carl

Pour It On! AGAIN!

The pouring of ice water in the Ice Water Challenge may seem a little stupid, but it went viral. It accomplished the goal of raising the awareness of ALS. Its one thing to get in on the fun and challenge, but if you didn’t follow through with a donation, then it is a wonderful cause stiffed by pop-culture. It would be nice if we perhaps had another challenge for Alzheimer's. It too is a nasty incurable disease.

ALS and Alzheimer’s are a wicked ways to end one a life. I guess the saving grace is that in Alzheimers, the victim doesn’t know what’s going on. I often wonder what is going on in their mind when they don’t recognize family and friends and just sit and stare. It is the family and friends who see this degenerate state. They mourn the loss.

My father-in- law died in a nursing home of the disease. I know Healthcare center is a more politically correct term used by relatives feel better, and relieve their own guilt. Whatever you call it, it is a warehouse for the old and infirmed and very much needed. The experience is often harder on the family than the patient, particularly, an Alzheimer’s patient.

On one visit I made both my sons go to experience what tragedy this disease can do to a human being, their grandpa. Bud didn’t recognize us and peed his pants, and what he did say didn’t made much sense. How degrading. Before he had to be committed to the nursing home, the signs emerged daily, each day going faster down hill. Later my mother-in-law admitted she waited too long to make that awful necessary decision to send him where he would get the care he needed. I know that feeling. I saw it in my dad when we had to re-admit my mom to a nursing home. My mom did not have Alzheimer’s yet, but she had a lot of dementia.

With Alzheimer’s, sometimes it is the funny things they do that makes us laugh and get through this sad event of the human experience. One time Bud was about to walk out the door, he had on his shirt, tie, hat, shoes and socks. Unfortunately, he forgot to put on his pants. Luckily my mother-in-law caught him before he got out.

When my father died, our mom sat across the visitation room pretty far away from where my father rested. She was greeted by family and friends through out the visitation. When we got home, she plopped herself in her chair and said, "What a good time I had", virtually oblivious to why she was there. At the nursing home she would always say that my dad was having an affair with a rather large black caregiver. She also wrote us boys a note that my father found. When my brother and I were in Marion, he pulled the note from his ratty old bathrobe and asked how we would feel if we got this note. The note,” Dear boys.Your father and I are getting divorced and I am moving to Arkansas. I’ll be in touch.” My brother and I laughed, but he certainly didn’t find any humor in it.

Sadly, Bud and my mother’s Alzheimer’s stories are not the end of tragedy of Alzheimer’s in our family. My brother-in-law, Larry, has Alzheimer's. He was committed to a facility about four years ago. He is now totally bedridden and virtually comatose. I didn’t live around him, so I only saw him every year or so. The time I remember most was when I noticed there might be something wrong. It didn’t register with me time, it is only in retrospect that I remember this because of course we didn’t know what was coming. We were playing golf. We had all teed off and waited for him. He was just standing there staring. Finally he slowly walk to his bag a pulled out his club. We didn’t really notice because Larry always moved a little slow, but there was something about this time that caused me to store it in my memory bank.

During all this time his wife visits he him virtually every day. How hard is that on her? We cannot judge unless we have been there.

Larry weighed 300 lbs, give or take, much of his life. His current weight is 114 lbs. We all wonder why God has not taken him. Perhaps it is not right to pray for someone’s death, but in this case we wonder what God is waiting for.

So pour a bucket of cold water on yourself and contribute to this dreadful life sucking disease,

Peace be you, Larry.

Sam

9/11

September 11, 2001 is a day that will live in infamy. It was a day that will never be forgotten. America was attacked on its own soil. What was that day like for me?

I looked out from my covers to be greeted by a sunny fall day. I usually doze for a while and turn on the radio. Sometimes I turned on the cable news channels to get a start on today’s news stories.

At about 7:50 Central Daylight time I turned on the TV.  The first image was of dark gray smoke rising out of one of the Twin Towers at the foot of Manhattan.   It was the beginning of a new day in history. The TV reporter did not know what happened yet. They were reporting that they thought a small plane had crashed into the towers. Details were still sketchy. As I lay in bed watching the story develop, there was a huge explosion with a ball of flames shooting out of the side of the building.  Because of the camera angle, my first thought was that there was a second explosion in the same tower.  It was then reported that a second plane crashed into the second tower. Unbelievable! The pace of bad news accelerated.

A few minutes later there was a report of a plane had crashed into the Pentagon in Washington. It was still unbelievable. A little later it was reported that a plane had crashed in Central Pennsylvania. Unbelievable! The chain of events was surreal. What was happening in my country?  The smoke on the towers continued to grow. Black smoke against the bluest of God’s sky. Panic began to ensue in the buildings. Some people from above the floors where the flames raged jumped to their death. Office papers floated down like huge snow flakes. The street scenes were incredible. Finally the building themselves fell to earth. This was not a movie, it was real. It was a terrorist attack. The world is full of evil.

The rest of the day and much of the following days was spent watching history unfold.

Planes were ordered out of the skies. I later saw a screen at the FAA that showed hundreds of lights representing the position of all the planes in the air.  One by one the lights disappeared from the board as the planes found their emergency landing airport.  The screen finally showed no lights. America was dark.



Just Remember Forever!

Sam

So Blessed!

I have often said that I am the most blessed man on earth. Today I believe that even more.

Yesterday, I was invited by my Rock Church friend to join her to help prepare and feed the homeless near Petco Park in downtown San Diego.

I had be looking for a volunteer project and had not found one in which suited me.  I had thought about volunteering for a homeless project, but had put it off, not sure how to go about it. When my friend asked me if I wanted to go with her to serve, I said sure. This would be a test for me to see if I felt comfortable. 

The charity is a non-profit named Just Call Us Volunteers. It was started by Chef Julia Darling in 2005. It started as Christmas homeless feeding, but expanded to Thanksgiving and now year around. The organization receives support of Chefs and hospitality industry throughout San Diego County. For me this was a big plus. I was in the foodservice industry for almost 60 years. I love this industry and the people in it. It is supported by donations of food and supplies from various purveyers and cash from people.

We drove to a strip mall where the charity had a full preparation kitchen. The first task was to prepare the food. Although I spent years in the industry, I cannot cook. I was assigned to shuck corn and the strip the kernels from from the cob for a delicious Mexican corn dish. Next I removed seeds from cucumbers. All fit my skills perfectly.

When everything was ready we loaded our cars and drove toward downtown. Of course we got lost, but finally found the place. Even getting lost was fun. Especially, since I was not driving. The area has several shelters in this neighborhood, and a very large population of the destitute. There are so many homeless. It is so sad.

We set up the table, mixed the salad and laid out the chili (vegetarian and beef), cornbread and cookies. The people approached us five at a time. It is a very disciplined and everyone followed the directions. And they all said thank you..

Now I was face to face with the homeless. Some of whom were still drunk or extremely hungover. There were druggies, PTSD veterans, and who knows what else? Most were not very clean. Teeth were missing. There were a couple of younger people dressed nicely and must surely be newcomers. You would like to think they had a chance to move forward in a positive way.

As a writer I often use the saying, "Every Life is a story, some are long, some are shorter, but still a story of mankind and history." I couldn't help but think that each of these poor broken people had a story. It would seem that their stories were a trip to the bottom. They had lives before becoming homeless. What were those lives? They all were beautiful babies, and now they are ugly dirty people, destroyed by drugs, alcohol, the wars of their times and poverty and joblessness. I would so love to write their stories, but that would seem to be intruding and perhaps judgmental.

We served 75 people a nutritious meal. We packed up and drove back to the kitchen, passing a few homeless napping on the sidewalk. It was a learning experience for me and requires a lot of thought about those who live amongst us on the streets with all their belongings in a shopping cart or on the back of a wheelchair. It is difficult to absorb. How did they fall so far, stripped of their pride and humanhood? So very sad.

I was glad I did this, and I will do it again. It is God's work and he has blessed me. 

Sam

This Just In!

1. According to the New York post, a Russian man was attacked by a bear. As the bear was ready to attack, the man's phone rand with a Justin Bieber ring tone. The bear turned and ran into the woods.

One smart bear. He knows good music from bad.

2. From the Drudge report and UPI:" Medical marijuana smokers in San Diego say the city has forced their pot shops to locate in remote areas and that means the drives to and from will increase air pollution--- and ultimately harm their lungs. On top of that, some patients without cars, will now have to grow their own marijuana plants, an activity that further contributes to global warming."

I sure hope a judge throws this out and charges them with stupidy.What next? The whole thing is an oxymoron. You do have to give them credit to being eco-friendly while getting stoned.

3. A Florida man accused of killing his roommate used his iPhone to ask Siri how to hide the dead body, according to evidence presented at trial.
Strangely, the Palm Beach Post reports that Siri actually responded to Pedro Bravo's request, giving suggestions like: "Swamps. Reservoirs. Metal foundries. Dumps."
Aside from wondering what Apple's programmers might have been thinking, can this sort of Siri "testimony" be used as evidence ?

The defense attorney will place an IPHONE on the stand for questioning and of course Siri will not understand the quetion.

4. A small Minnesota village has a new mayor. Duke, the dog is Cormorant's newest mayor.
The 12 people who live there elected the 7-year-old dog as its leader.
Duke may not understand politics too well but he's been doing a great job guarding the town. He even makes sure cars aren't going past the speed limit.Duke will be sworn in on Sunday. He won't be getting a salary, but a pet store has agreed to donate a year's supply of food to reward Duke for his service.

Now there's a town that knows what to do. Friendly, loyal, honest and will work for food. We need more politcians like Duke. The only thing the town has to worry about is a sex scandal with the dogs of Cormorant. He's still a politician.

5. San Francisco strip club host job fair. With a better economy the club finds itself short of strippers who have been hired at other jobs.

 Now there's an HR department I can get behind.

6. According to the Austrian Times, Bernhard Pauer, a priest with the Diocese of Linz, went to police after parishioners said they recognized their church in the video.
After the footage was screened on local television, a tipster came forward and said he recognized the woman's breasts. Horsching police were then able to track down the 24-year-old amateur video star, who confessed. She now faces charges of offending religious feeling and desecration of a church.

 Mr. Tipster, you got some "splaning" to do.

7. I've been pondering underwear lately. What is the big deal about Hanes underwear beating their chest that they are now tagless? That's not even a close to my biggest underwear problem. Secondly, is it tidy-whiteys or tighty-whiteys? Today's underwear laundry tip of the day. Wear the colored ones because you don't have to separate the coloreds from the whites. Diversity in my underwear drawer saves time.

8. According to the Huffington Post, a man in Grimsby England decided to light a fire cracker in his cargo shorts. He light it. It went off. His pants were torn to shreds. His leg looked like it had been hit by an asteroid.  His friend who was videoing the event called him a "dopey bastard".

Ya think?

9 Recently Comcast has received some bad publicity, including recordings of a Comcast employee berating a customer, who was trying to cancel his service. The employee berated him in every way and kept offering freebees if he would keep he service. The customer said no to every thing. Just cancel, cancel, cancel, cancel. The treatment was awful and somewhat disturbing. Later the company apologized and that the employees had gone a bit (?) over board, but also said this was part of the training for the special forces for customer retention employees. Really? The conversation lasted eight and a half minutes. You can check it out on YouTube.

Wow! Training employees to insult would be cancelers is quite a atep backward for the term Customer Service. How did that work out for you Comcast?

10. Two gunman jumped from behind some bushes an topped a woman of her chicken nugget meal. The men demanded money from her and fired a shot into the air and then fled with her #7 combo meal from McDonalds.

A lot depends on the size of the McNuggets. The 20 piece size carries a higher penalty, not to mention armed robbery.


And that's the news, or not.

Sam

The Sound of Silence

It was a summer night at the lake. I walked down to the pier that extended out into the water about forty feet. Across the yard fireflies showed their tiny yellow beacons to light the night, ever so slightly and soundlessly. The lake was without a ripple, as smooth as glass. The temperature and humidity fit together in a perfect balance of comfort. I lay down on the wooden planks and looked up at the bright light of a full moon and the twinkling of the stars against the darkness of the night. It was a golden silence, occasionally punctuated by the sounds of summer at the lake, a screen door slamming, some conversation and laughter of people having a good time. There were sounds of clicking crickets and crooking frogs, hidden somewhere in the grass. Even the noises fit into the silence, like the music of a symphony.  It was a perfect storm of silence and peace. It was a moment of Nirvana here on earth.

Suddenly, the sound of a stereo reverberated from across the lake. It was Simon and Garfunkel singing, The Sound of Silence in perfect harmony.
                                         

                                             Hello darkness, my old friend,
                                            I've come to talk with you again,
                                           Because a vision softly creeping,
                                         Left its seeds while I was sleeping,
                                     And the vision that was planted in my brain
                                                        Still remains
                                                Within the sound of silence.


And all was right with the world.

Ring a Ding Ding!

I did not grow up in an era where we did not have phones, although I have been to rural areas in my early days where they had no phones service. I have, however, have witnessed the evolution of telephonic communications from near the start.

My life started when there were party lines, as well as private numbers. A real opeator would answer when you picked up the phone with, "number please?" you would then give her a four digit number of your party. Long distance was accomplished by asking for the "long distant operator." Our number was 2703.

Next came the rotary dial. Finger in the number and pull the rotor right, then when the dial returned back the second number was dialed and so on.

Next was push buttons. Phone numbers were also expressed in words, Pennsylvania 6-5000. When the phone company decided to go to seven digit numbers only, no prefixes, people were up in arms. How are we supposed to remember all those numbers. Next came area codes. Holy cow, another three digits to remember. Just when we got used to knowing various area codes, they split the code into more area codes. Holy crap, but we survived the numbers invasion.

Next was the wireless remote phone, where we could pace around the room while we talked. Certainly as a boon to the Type "A" personality.

Of course the voice answering machine created a convenience for you and your friends, when someone called and you were away. Imagine that before, if someone called they would have to call back. What a damned inconvenience by today's standards. You kids got it easy.

When the first cell phones was introduced, it was like talking into a phone the size of a shoe. The cell phones began to shrink in size. I must admit, I was a late comer to the cell phone. When it made me look like an old man, I got my first cell phone. we all moved through generation after generation of smart phones. Wow, what it can do. The wonders of this new communications phenomenon hit me as I was driving down the road with my friend, Carolina, in Minnesota, and she was talking to her mom in Mexico. I can literally access the world from anywhere. We have come so far in my lifetime, and I am a participant, like the Man of the 21st Century I am.

The cell phone becomes an extension of yourself like an arm. If we forget it or are in a area where there is no service we feel lost. Anxiety sets in. Gosh nobody can reach me to see if I can go to lunch. I heard a line the other day that captured what we see everyday when out and about. "Where shall we go tonight to watch our phones and text?"

Today I forgot my phone at the coffee shop. I discovered it was missing when I was driving down the highway. Crap! Too late and too much trouble to turn around. However, my first thought was to call them and see if they found it. A light went on. They have my phone I can't call, dumb ass. Dah?

Of course now we don't have to call. We can text, avoiding personal contact.  Ever call someone just after they text you and immediately called them and got no answer.?Hell, they had their phone in their hand ten seconds ago.

That brings the question, Has the current communications tools taken away too much personal contact? The answer is, yes, but it has also let people keep in contact more often. I'll prefer the later. Facebook is an issue for some people, on occasion me, but when Mark died, it was comforting to see the posts from his friends. They still post on occasion. It allows me to look at moments of his life. I have recordings of his voice, his appearance on Celebrity Apprentice, his remarkable photos put to music and his documentation of Hurricane Sandy. I have the last post he made the night he died. It is sad, but also heartwarming to have an electronic album of Mark as he was.

I don't know what the next big thing is, but it's always something and it will be exciting. It's been a great ride. so far.

Have a nice day.

Sam