It’s Scooter Sunday Monday and I just got back from out of town, so this is getting posted a day late. I know… the emptiness of not seeing that Twitter reminder for Scooter Sunday. We’ll be back to Sundays next week.

My original plan was to take some pictures of scooters in San Francisco while there this weekend, but that didn’t happen. There were so many of them and so little time, I didn’t feel like whipping out the camera to take pictures of each one we saw.

 
San Francisco Trip

On Friday, my daughter and I flew out to San Francisco for the Outside Lands music festival at Golden Gate Park. Friday’s nights headlining band was Radiohead. [click here for a gallery of photos]

The Video Screen Montage of Radiohead

Radiohead put on an excellent two hour show. The band was flawless. However, the sound engineers running the festival were flawed. Seriously flawed. The sound went out twice during their set. For at least 30 seconds each time. Not only that, but whoever planned the schedule was flawed. Multiple bands on multiple stages with 60,000 people packed into an area that was made for maybe 20,000 was extremely poor planning. Regardless, we enjoyed our first time seeing Radiohead live.

The show finished at 10pm. All attendees were encouraged to take public transportation. We took BART and MUNI to get there without any trouble. Getting back to the hotel was another story. It took us over four hours to go from Golden Gate Park back to our hotel near the airport. All of the buses were packed. No extra busses. Taxis were at least 4 hours out when we called for pickup. And there were still two more days to this. EPIC FAIL.

At least it wasn’t a VW bug they were trying to fit into
 
RAIDERS

The next night was no where near the public transportation fiasco. We went to a pre-season Oakland Raiders game. I had been to NFL games before, but this was my daughter’s first. And BART took us right to the McAfee Coliseum, with a walkway leading right to the stadium.

Black & Silver on the field

They didn’t win [they lost to the Arizona Cardinals 24-0], but it was still fun to mingle with the serious fans. [of which there were a LOT]

 
Downtown

Our last day, we headed downtown to ride the cable car…

… and see Fisherman’s Wharf

Then back on the plane to head back to Utah.

“Goodbye San Francisco…” *sniff*

But wait… what about scooter coverage?… keep reading…

 
 
Scooter Dead?

After taking my daughter for her first day back to school this morning, I came home and got my scooter. I went to start it and nothing… tried it again… nothing. I had to manually kickstart it. It had only been three days since I last rode it, I didn’t think there would be any issues. But obviously, there was. The battery was pretty much dead. I didn’t have time to charge it [trickle charge takes 12 hours], so after kickstarting it, I hopped on and went to work. Going to lunch, I had to kickstart it again. Same with going home at night. GRRRR!!! Frustrating.

According to the manual, it says it needs at least an hour of continuous riding time to fully charge the battery. I’m lucky to be on it 10 minutes going to work and 15 minutes coming home. Do that five days a week and it adds up to well over an hour, just not continuous. Once home from work, I got out the charger tonight and put it on the battery [it only take about five minutes and an extension cord]. So when I get up in the morning, I will take it off the charger and it’s ready to go for another few weeks.

That’s All Folks

Speaking of ready to go, that’s it for this week. I am working on getting more posting and more often. I lead a busy life, as you have read, but never too busy to post some scooter goodness for my readers. Until next time….

Listed in my blog roll are the blogs I read and visit on a regular basis. Blogography.com is one of them. In fact, it’s one of the first I started reading [for well over 3 years now] when I discovered all of the blogging goodness that was out there. I mean, who doesn’t love Little Dave and Bad Monkey.

The First Meetup

Back in April, Dave came to Salt Lake City for a visit, where my wife [then fiance] and I met up with him at the Rio Grande Cafe. At the time, Dave was all hopped on pain killers, even though that didn’t affect his ability to share stories and make us laugh.

 
 
Dave Lake City 2

Hard Rock Cafe - Salt Lake City, UT

When I heard he was coming back into town recently, I thought of all the other blogger events that have recently happened: Davecago, Dave Diego… and the hoards of people walking around with buttons and lanyards. At that point, I had to admit it. I had lanyard envy. I wanted to live in a city with tons of bloggers where a meetup was like a house party, walking around with their names hung around their necks.

So when Dave walked into the Hard Rock Cafe last night, what did he have with him?

OMG!! LANYARDS! OMG!! BUTTONS!

Elated as can be, I proudly put on the lanyard. Unfortunately, my wife wasn’t able to attend. But Dave did not disappoint. As you can see above, he had brought her a lanyard as well. [she says "That was very nice of Dave to do that"]

 
Small, But Cool

So even though there was only two of us, Dave Lake City 2 was a blast. We had dinner, drinks and even dessert. [sorry, no pics of the sorbet and ice cream sundae we consumed]

 

Marty and Dave at Dave Lake City 2, Hard Rock Cafe, SLC, UT
 
Next time

And that ends another Dave Lake City blogger event. Can’t wait for Dave Lake City 3. Click here for Dave’s post on Dave Lake City 2.

In last week’s Scooter Sunday comments, Dave2 mentioned how my scooter had been “oddly absent from Scooter Sundays as of late…” And he is right, albeit partially.

Scooter Sunday #17 was a recap of my vacation in Park City, with no scooter coverage at all.

For Scooter Sunday #16, I was on vacation that week, where my scooter remained parked in the shed while I updated my fun time at a concert and the start of my week off in Park City.

Looking at previous posts, there was Scooter Sunday #15 where I raved about my gas mileage I am getting, compared to my car. And then the posts for Scooter Sunday #12, #13 and #14 covered the saga of how the dealer broke my scooter, and it’s glorious [but marred] return.

So while the most recent Scooter Sundays were lacking in scooter coverage, I will do what I can to refocus coverage back on the scooter, at least until the end of the riding season, which I hope to extend well into October.

Speaking of…

I filled up my scooter’s gas tank this last week. The cost was $4.17 for exactly one gallon. It’s obvious that the Honda dealer did some good with my scooter when they did the regular maintenance on it. Either that or it’s broken in now that it’s been driven over 1,400 miles. Regardless what happened, I ended up getting 106 mpg… three more miles per gallon than last tank. I doubt it will get any better than this, but I’m just amazed at how lean it is on fuel [it helps that it doesn't go over 45mph]. And of course it’s still so fun to ride, getting looks from everyone, including fellow scooter riders.

Long Rides

Last night’s ride was pretty long. My friend had a party at his house. He doesn’t live too far away, but it’s at least five miles from my house. And five miles is actually a decent distance on a scooter. Since this was a drinking party, I stopped at the grocery store to get a couple bags of ice. One bag fit into the seat of my scooter and the other bag laid on the floorboard between my feet.

Then a couple of hours into the party, we ran out of few drink ingredients. Since I wasn’t at a state of inebriation that hindered my ability to drive, I offered to run down to the store to pick up the items. The ride home at 1:30am [I was mostly sober by then] was not bad. I brought my windbreaker with me, since the temperature gets chilly at night. Plus with hardly any cars on the road at that time, it made for a pleasant ride home. Can I say again how much I love my scooter. Oh yeah.

Breaking Dawn

The popularity of this book series by Stephanie Meyer is incredible. Older teens and adults of every age have snapped up all of these books, including the latest and final part “Breaking Dawn”. My wife just borrowed the first three books from a friend and will start reading them. I wouldn’t mind reading them, even though it takes me forever to get through a book. I love to read and as a budding author, I’ve got a vested interest in these books that consume the interest of a collective general audience.

Plus, as my daughter told me, there is a movie coming out, based on the first book “Twilight”, which just got moved up by three weeks to open on November 21st, 2008. Let’s see if I can read the first book by then, so I don’t sit in the theater scratching my head while everyone around me is in tune with the plot.

Next Week on Scooter Sunday

Next week, Scooter Sunday will be posted late due to my trip to San Francisco. If it all works out like I hope it will, I’ll have something different to post, which will involve scooters. Stay tuned.

One of the current topics of today is gas prices. You can’t turn on the TV or open a newspaper without finding a story about how much gas costs. Consumers everywhere are making changes. I ride my scooter as much as I can to help reduce how much gas I use for my commute. My car - a 2001 Nissan Sentra GXE - which I paid off in March 2008 and gets around 30 mpg on the average. I don’t have an exact figure of how much I’ve saved, both gas and money, but I’m sure it’s a nice sized dent of what others are spending that drive bigger cars or get less miles-per-gallon with their vehicles.

With the price of a gallon of gas at $4 [give or take 10-20 cents nationwide], people are wanting change. They want to save money. They are tired of big oil. But other than the ten or so models of hybrid and electric cars available today, there is not a large selection of options for someone who is both environmentally conscious and wants to reduce their reliance on gasoline for their daily commute. Change is coming, but not soon enough.

Chevy Volt

Original image found at chevy-volt.net

More than a year ago, GM announced the Chevy Volt, an electric car of hybrid proportions. It’s not a 100% electric car, as there is a gas engine under the hood. Technically, this makes it a hybrid. The talking heads at GM have been downplaying the word “hyrbrid” as to not lump it in with the current breed of hyrbrid vehicles on the market now. The Volt is technically defined as a plug-in hybrid, meaning you can charge the batteries without using the gas engine to charge them. You have a charging station installed in your garage that you plug into the Volt nightly, which takes approx. 6-8 hours for a full charge. Then when you drive off the next morning, you get about 40 miles of run time on electricity before the gas engine kicks in and starts charging the batteries.

The Volt will be available in 2010 and according to recent reports, more than 30,000 people are lining up to get one. And at a estimated cost of $40,000, it’s almost double what an average economy car costs, but (obviously) more efficient. Exciting, but two years is a long time to wait. Gas could easily be $5 a gallon by then. What consumers want is change now.

It Could Have Been Better By Now

General Motors, who recently posted a $15 billion loss, is trying to scramble, like all of the car makers, to produce cars that are either more fuel efficient or vehicles that use an alternative form of fuel. And many of them are announcing vehicles, like the Volt, that won’t be available for a couple more years. Personally, while I applaud their efforts, it’s a bit late in the game. A deathbed repentance if you will, to try and make things better. Well, back in 1996, a lot of companies like GM had their chance to make a change. GM was at the forefront of change with the electric car.

GM EV1

Original image found at Modern Racer

In 1996, General Motors came out with the EV1, an all-electric vehicle. I won’t bore you with all of the details, which you can read here. But just to summarize, it was a leased vehicle that had a strong following at the beginning. It was the start of what would have been the change to alternative fueled mainstream cars. There were some glitches and other shortcomings [like a short run time on each battery charge], but over the years, that all could have been worked out, getting these out there to consumers. But GM deemed it a failure and by summer of 2003, all cars were recalled, removed from the roads and either donated to schools or destroyed. There is a great documentary film called “Who Killed The Electric Car?” that brilliantly documents what happened, complete with first-hand accounts, discussions with owners, official statements from those that worked on the project and the group that attended the final protest/standoff when they hauled the cars away.

Now GM is claiming the Volt is the next step from the EV1, even going so far to announce that people who worked on the EV1 project are part of this new endeavor. An expected announcement, since it is a given that anyone that was familiar with the events surrounding the demise of the EV1 would be soured on any future work that GM would be involved in. Which is the same sour expression I had when I first heard about the Volt. My thoughts were, “Well, there’s 11 years that we could have been so much further along towards adopting electric cars.”

Don’t get me wrong. I really am happy about any progress made towards reducing our reliance on fossil fuels for transportation, regardless of who is behind it. But you have to wonder how serious people are taking GM for this Volt project and the longevity of it. I’m sure some are being open-minded, but the company is in a different place than they were 12 years ago. They are hurting big time. They have no choice but to finally embrace a change of how they make cars. It’s too bad they couldn’t have been smarter, because if they would have, it could have been them at the top of the heap, producing reasonable electric cars that most of the buying public could afford. But this is where we are today, everyone rushing to be part of the “me too” marketplace and still a couple of years out before they can deliver an overpriced product for the consumer.

Nissan Puts Their Plug Into The Electrical Outlet

Original image found in the post on Jalopnik.com

While we are on the subject of ‘vehicles a couple years out’, Nissan just announced their all-electric car a couple of weeks ago. The test model they showed looks very similar to a Scion xB. While I’m not that fond of the boxy design, I’m really looking forward to seeing what the final specs will be when it comes to the US in 2010. Yes, this one is also two years away, but it’s another option we will have at that time. I’m a fan of Nissan and I could see myself being an owner, quickly getting over my dislike for the body style in favor of driving a car that uses NO GAS.

My Plans For the Future

So you ask.. what are my plans for the future for personal transportation vehicles? Let me outline what I am thinking about.

• Riding my scooter - As most of the regular visitors to this blog know the love I profess of my Honda Metro scooter in my Scooter Sunday posts, it has been the biggest thing I’ve used so far to change my commuting habits. I take it instead of my car to work, to the store, to run small errands and it has become my vehicle of choice when I need to go somewhere [when I am not required to carry large items or additional passengers]. We are planning on getting a second scooter for my wife next year, which will help her save energy and money in her local travels. We are looking at both gas and electric models, depending on what is both practical and affordable at the time of purchase.
• Reducing trips - When we do take either my car or my wife’s truck, we do what we can to reduce multiple trips. If we are out, we plan to get all of the items we need in one trip, not driving all over to save a buck on some item. It’s much more cost effective to pay a little more and just purchase the products we need at one or two stores. Believe me, this helps a lot and goes a long way to not only reducing the gas we use, but reducing the effect on the air and environment.
• Walking - I need to exercise. As I recently told another blogger, I plan to start an exercise program that will help me reduce some of the load I’ve let collect on my body. Why get in the car to go 4-6 blocks when you can walk. My step-daughter lives 4 blocks away. Where possible, when we go over, we walk. Of course, with winter coming in four months, that may not be as feasible, but while it’s 80-90 degrees out, we plan to walk instead of drive. Same with some store visits. We live about 4 blocks from a couple of stores and the last couple of trips we made were on foot. So not only do we get exercise, we also leave the car and truck at home, further reducing our oil consumption.
• A new blog site - In an effort to really stretch myself thin with yet another project, I am working on a new blog that I will launch soon. It’s going to be based on cars, vehicles, transportation and everything that has to do with how we get around. I’ll announce it here on this blog when it’s ready.

Let’s Hear From You

So what have you done to reduce driving? Walking? Biking? Scooter? Bus? Train? Tell me. I really want to know. And the more details, the better.

It’s the post-vacation edition of Scooter Sunday.

Vacation Time Over

So on Saturday, our week-long rest/vacation (local, as it was) ended. I had two solid days of doing pretty much whatever I wanted [the first part of the week was working and doing what I could to make our visitors happy].

But if you remember from last Scooter Sunday, I had so many plans to write, read books, read articles in magazines and lots more. So let’s play catch up here and see what I DID and what I DIDN’T do:

DID

• Drink - And that I did… and I was very successful, thank you very much. I only made four kinds of drinks: gin and tonic, red bull vodka, Gumby [vodka, Midori, sweet and sour, Sprite] and dirty martini [drank from a wine glass]. But I had multiples of each one. I also had a couple of margaritas with dinner on Sunday night. I didn’t get trashed, but had a continuous buzz most of the time.
• Read Books - I took my copy of “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins with me. I read some of it, but didn’t get as far as I wanted to. The fact that I committed any amount of time to reading was a plus. I love reading, but I get distracted/interrupted, which breaks up my reading into wider-paced gaps of time.
• Read Articles - I took a couple issues of Vanity Fair and Playboy [yes, I actually do read it for the articles, too ] with me and actually got through several articles. I’m about half way through the last one I started, but will finish that this week.
• Tan - With the pool being major packed with kids most of the time, I got lots of sun time in. I used sunscreen on all but the last two days, where I limited my time in the sun to maximize my tan.
• Listen to Podcasts - Before the week started, I had hours and hours of some of my regular podcasts that I let build up. I am happy to say I got through at least half of them, which helped reduce the storage on my iPod nano 4gb. I am sure this will fill up pretty damn quick in the next two weeks.

DIDN’T

• Work out - I took my gym clothes with me and planned to use the very nice [and free] exercise facility they had at the Westgate. With the exception of getting my shoes out of the bag and putting them on [once], the workout facilities didn’t get a visit from me.
• Write - Blog posts didn’t count on this one. I am currently [and actively] working on two screenplays, a short film and two novels. None of them got worked on this last week. No worries on this one, but I did plan to sit down and plink out at least a chapter, a scene and finish the script to my short film.
• Movies - To my credit, I watched one: V For Vendetta. We took twelve. My wife watched two: V For Vendetta and Ladies In Lavender [Do you see why I only watched the one?] My Netflix movie I took up with me sat untouched in its envelope. Big surprise.
• Upgrade to Leopard - I took all of the neccsary items I needed with me to upgrade my MacBook Pro to Leopard [I'm still running Tiger for various reasons]. Because the PAY WiFi option was extra shitty [and a major pain in the ass to get the owner discount], I used my Treo 755p as a modem, tethered to my laptop the whole time. Judging from the fact that I would need to download a BIG list of applications, updates and what have you, I postponed the upgrade to this coming weekend, where I would have both work and home broadband connections at my disposal.

As an added bonus, there were also a few things I did that I wasn’t planning on that I was pretty happy about:

• Steam Shower - So the shower in our room had a steam option. You start it 5 minutes before turning on the water and getting in. You now have this walk-in steam room that did wonders for my nose [dry weather is never kind to the inside of your nostrils] and my skin. Only one day back and I miss that a lot. My wife informs me that the gym we belong to has a steam room. [hint hint, nudge nudge].
• Pumice my feet - I do this regularly at home, but the cement and pool bottom did more damage than I thought. Plus add the steam and a seat inside the shower, and scrubbing my feet was a lot easier. Ok enough on that before people think I’ve gone metrosexual.

Not too bad, considering I had a good time and spent some time relaxing. Maybe one of these years, I can accomplish each item on my list and not have to go into work any of the days I have off. We’ll see what happens next time.

 
 
More Lego Indy

My daughter saw this at the local Wal-Mart a couple weeks ago. Pretty cool. Lego is cool, regardless of what it is, but who can resist a Lego Indiana Jones? Hopefully all little kids will and obey the DO NOT TOUCH! sign so everyone can enjoy it’s awesomeness.

 
Olympics

As I mentioned in a Twitter message this last week, I’m really not all that hot on the Olympics this year. There’s a few bits of coverage that I like [all of the swimming and diving events are cool], but for some reason, I’m just not into it like I normally am. Whatever it is, it’s more time for me to accomplish the things I need to instead of being glued to the TV. We’ll see if this lasts throughout the 17 days of the games.

 
That’s All

And with that, ends another Scooter Sunday.

[*Slanderous Propaganda]

Obviously the above is not true, but it might as well be. And I’m sure after posting that title above, there will be a hundred Obama haters that add new blog posts, skewing whatever “facts” they need to to claim it as being true. I say, as long as he’s covered by the same health plan that also covers illegal baby rats under the age of 3, it’s all good to me.

Enough Is Enough

My political posts out here are few and far between, but after this last week, I had to speak out. I’ve been barraged by tons of emails, some from the same person, that will stop at nothing to trash and find anything and everything to disparage Barack Obama. Now I don’t agree with everything Mr. Obama has to say and I take issue with some of his positions, and as a politician, he most likely has some black marks that follow him around. I’m all for checking out a candidate, their background and qualifications. But these emails that I’ve received have a slant which supports a certain position, and proves that there’s a lot of people out there that have way too much time on their hands.

EMAIL #1: Obama Not Eligible for President

Here is the text of the email:

• Dear Friends,

  The following is an article from the July 7, 2008, issue #27 from “The American Free Press” Newspaper, an article by Assistant editor, Pat Shannon.

  “It now appears that Barack Obama is consitutionally ineligible for the office of president. John McCain’s eligibility was established in 1964, when courts ruled Sen. Barry Goldwater was eligible although he was born in Arizona when it was a territory, not a state. McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone when it was a U.S. territory.

  And, even as the controlled media continues to ignore the ineligibility of Obama, it will not go away. While few doubt that the Democrats will manage to pull off his nomination, all remain poised to view the legal performance.

  The first hurdle will be having Obama produce his birth certificate, which so far he has refused to do, and prove that he was born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961,as he has always claimed. There is speculation that his American mother may have brought him to Honolulu shortly after his birth in Kenya, but no proof of that has been shown.

  According to the law on the books at the time of Obama’s birth, the office of president requires that a candidate be a natural citizen if the child was not born to two U.S. citizen parents. Since he was not,should it be proven that Obama was not born in Hawaii, as claimed, he is ineligible without further debate. But assuring that he was born there, he has another problem.

  According to a legal researcher who has contacted the AFP, U.S. law very clearly states: “If only one parent is a U.S. citizen at the time of one’s birth, that parent must have resided in the United States for a minimum of 10 years, five of which must be after the age of 16.” And therein lies Obama’s new problem.

  Barack Obama’s father was never a U.S. citizen.

  Interestingly, there isn’t much paperwork on the marriage of Obama’s parents, and this has a few researchers speculating that it never took place at all. On page 27 of “Obama: From Promise to Power”, David Mendell writes: “Obama later confessed that he never searched for the government documents on the marriage, although Madelyn (Obama’s maternal grandmother) insisted they were legally married.” He also notes that Obama’s father apparently was not legally divorced from his first wife back in Kenya at the time, a point of contention that ultimately led to their separation. This also would suggest that there may never have been any legal marriage by Obama’s parents at all, but the Constitution does not ban an illegitimate child from the White House, as long as he was born inside the U.S.

  Obama’s mother was born in Kansas and was only 18 when Obama was born. This means even though she satisfied the citizen requirement for 10 years, she was not a citizen for at least five years prior to Obama’s birth. In essence, the mother alone is not old enough to qualify her son for automatic U.S. citizenship. At most, two years elapsed from his mother turning 16 to the time of Barack Obama’s birth when she was 18. His mother would have needed to have been 16 + 5 = 21 years old at the time of Barack Obama’s birth for him to be a natural-born citizen. Barack Obama was already three years old at the time his mother turned 21.

  Technically, Obama should have been naturalized as a citizen, but that, of course, would disqualify him from holding the office of president. If the allegations are accurate, America could install in January of 2009 a new president who is not even a U.S. citizen, neither born nor naturalized.

  It should be demanded that Obama produce his 1961 Hawaiian birth certificate.

  If he cannot satisfactorily do so, he should be deemed immediately ineligible to hold the office of president.”

Ok. First, here’s the link to the Snopes.com article: Is Barack Obama a natrual-born citizen?

I tend to check Snopes.com as they have done an incredible job of fact checking. Almost everything that I’ve checked out there, has been verified from fully-qualified sources that show the true facts.

Comparing the text in the email to the detailed response in the above Snopes.com link, it seems that Obama may actually be qualified to run for President. The perpetrated theories laid out in the email are debunked and explained, as the email author has labored the adding of ages, dates and “where his parents lived”, only to show that those specifics apply only to those BORN OUTSIDE THE U.S. Obama was born in Hawaii on August 4th, 1961, almost two years after Hawaii became the 50th US State.

Ok. I know many of you are just waiting to comment and tell me, “But what about the time of when he lived in Indonesia?” “But the 14-year rule, doesn’t that still apply to Obama?” Reach deep if you will, but the fact remains that Barack Obama IS qualified to run for President. Plus, do you really think that if he WASN’T qualified, someone would have caught this way before he started running for office? Seriously… think about it.

 
 
EMAIL #2: Obama Removes American Flag From Campaign Plane

Here is the text of the email:

• The plane that once had an American flag on its tail now sports the Obama “O.” “Change We Can Believe In” and the candidate’s website are splayed across both sides of the fuselage, making this 757 anything but inconspicuous.

  This means, of course, that the people of Afghanistan, Iraq, Jordan, Israel, Germany, and other countries will see a plane without an American flag — a plane on which the sole symbol is all about one man. Barack: Afghans and Iraqis won’t be voting for you in November. But they will notice that you failed to represent yourself as a proud American citizen while you are abroad. We’ve noticed too.

  As a patriotic American citizen, I am embarrassed that a presumptive presidential candidate would fail to display a core symbol of the United States of America.

  As a patriotic American citizen, I am deeply concerned that the Democratic party may nominate a candidate who is solely focused on displaying his OWN image and symbols rather than those of his party and his country.

  Not only is his plane’s symbolism unpatriotic, it is also narcissistic.

This one is mostly correct, but you must read the details at the following Snopes.com link: Barack Obama’s Campaign Plane.

As the Snopes.com article explains, the plane that Obama was using was chartered from North American Airlines. The flag on the tail of the plane is a company trademark. Obama (like his rival John McCain) customized his plane, adding his campaign logo.

I know some of you reading this and thinking this is just another “example” of how “unpatriotic” Obama is. And while the flag is a symbol of our country, agreeing that Obama should be held to a higher standard, removing it from a plane doesn’t undermine his patriotism or dedication to this country. The above email circulating around is just another red herring. Another avenue of finding fault with him. Anyone can hold up the flag and say they are patriotic, but it doesn’t always mean they are. How many cars do you see with a flag on it, tattered and weather-worn from traveling at 75 mph, ready to have another thread torn off of it? Is that respect? How many people never displayed a flag until after 9/11? Did they suddenly start caring about their country? Patriotism isn’t based on a piece of cloth. It’s what you can do to help this country and protect it. Enough said.

Oh, and there is still a flag there. The photo labeled “Modified Obama campaign version” in the Snopes.com article shows an American Flag on the airplane, as is placed on all American-based aircraft to identify what country it is from.

 
 
Stop The Slander

The distorting of facts to support one’s position against a candidate is not new. It’s been going on for decades. The internet just makes it easier for anyone with an email account or a blog to state their case as “the truth”. I’m not here to say Barack Obama is spotless. He plays the political game, like ANY OTHER POLITICIAN has done. But… these types of emails that go around making up shit and distorting the facts are JUST PLAIN WRONG! This is not creative. It simply shows that whoever creates this garbage is only interested in promoting slander. They are no more ethical than their exaggerated claims they make against the candidate they dislike. Do your part by checking the facts first before believing everything that’s sent to your inbox as the truth.

How do you feel about these kinds of emails? For them? Against them? Delete them and never read them? Do you see any against McCain? [I've yet to see one come into my inbox]. Let me know in the comments.

There are some photos that simply speak for themselves.

I hope Paul Reubens doesn’t come after me.

That was me in 1967. Way before Paul Reubens created his Pee-Wee Herman persona. And while most of us don’t remember what we did when we were 4 years old, looking back at a picture like this makes me wish we could.

Another Year Older

So today is my birthday - I know, shameless plug. But as each year adds another tick mark to my ticker, I tend to reflect back on my childhood. When my mom passed away in April 2006, I spent days going through all of the boxes of photos she had accumulated. I found all sorts of pictures [like the one above] that took me back to a place in time that I either didn’t remember at all or could remember vividly like it was yesterday.

And while I know the memories do fade over time, at least I can look at a picture and relive a brief moment of what I looked like many years ago.

Current Day

Today here in Park City, I am waiting for the sun to come out so I can enjoy my day. A day spent with my daughter, my wife’s granddaughter and of course, my wife. And 10 years from now, I will look at the photos from today and reflect back, bringing back those memories.

That should be interesting.

Wow. I’ve done 16 of these Scooter Sunday posts already? How time flies.

 
 
Vacation in Park City

“Hello pool… I will be visiting you soon and often”

We own time share at Westgate Park City. It’s a short drive from our house (under 30 minutes with no traffic up Parley’s Canyon) and it’s nice to visit and unwind without spending hardly any money or having to travel long distances. We’ve taken the week off to relax and just get away, without being too far from home. Of course, I always plan to read books, articles, get some writing done… try to use the time to unleash my creative abilities. In the end, I normally end up drinking non-stop, getting a tan at the pool and watching a few movies. We’ll see what this week brings.

 
Mötley Crüe

My daughter and I went to see Mötley Crüe this last week for their Crue Fest tour. On the bill was Buckcherry, Papa Roach, Trapt and Sixx:AM.

Nikki Sixx on stage with Sixx:AM

That’s Nikki Sixx on stage with his band Sixx:AM. This was the second time I’ve seen them [they opened for Korn here in Salt Lake last October]. What an animal… pulling double duty. And their sound, while much different than anything the Crue has done, works well live.

Front and Center - The Crue

This was my 4th time seeing the Crue live. And each and every time, they do not disappoint. With the exception of Mick Mars [he's 57], all of them are approaching 50 and show no signs of stopping. Vince looked great, compared to two years ago when he was a walking bloat bag. And even Mick moved around the stage more, showing that his spine degenerative disease isn’t slowing him down.

Off for now

Well, that’s it for this week. Today is my wife’s birthday, so I wanted to get this post out there early so I didn’t interrupt her day with me glued to my MacBook Pro. Well, that and we are on vacation.

Today, I am guest posting over at Secondhand Trypotophan… you know, Karl’s blog. He guest posted for me when I got married last month so I thought I would return the favor.

Check it out here.

Welcome to another edition of Scooter Sunday.

Efficient

Not a day went by that I wasn’t on my scooter. Which means that my car was parked most of the time [except for the days my wife took it to work instead of her truck]. The scooter holds just over a gallon of gas. When I figured my mileage last Thursday, I had ridden 110 miles since the last time I filled up [which was the previous Thursday]. I added 1.07 gallons to the tank. Doing the math, that’s 103 miles per gallon. My car, at best, gets 30 in the city. I normally use mid-grade in the scooter, which is $4.27 a gallon at this time. Unless gas really goes up, it will cost me about $5 a week to fill my scooter. The goal is to only have to fill the tank in my car once a month [which is now $55 per tank]. The weather should be nice through most of September to keep riding my scooter, and part way into October. Not only is that efficient, but it’s also saving me a decent amount of money on gas. Woo Hoo!

The Final Days

Mama cat - just a few weeks ago

Since Friday morning, we have been on cat watch. Our oldest cat, Mama [20 years old last month], has stopped eating and just lays around. It is now Sunday morning and she is still with us, but the time is fading. She has trouble getting up and will lay in the grass for hours without moving. She does not react to cat treats, tuna, milk or lunch meat. We check on her every hour or so, with the exception of during the night, checking on her before we go to bed and when we get up in the morning, although I got up at 5am this morning to get a drink and went out to check her status.

She tries to drink a little bit of water, but it’s all she can do to just stand up without falling over. It is sad to watch her in this state and we know she’s not comfortable, but we are doing what we can to make her last days as good as we can.

That’s all for now

It’s a short one this week, but time with the cat is more important right now. Will post later in the week.