Nice work, now go out & fight!

You won the nomination, gave a very good speech, now go out there and tell everyone the failed policies McCain wants to implement and how your plan is better.

We need this election bad, the nation is doing not so well. It's time to run a very effective campaign!

Nice job, Hillary!!

That's the best speech of your life (& you couldn't have picked a better time to give it!) We need you & Bill this fall so that Obama wins in November!

I truly enjoy watching the Republicans fall all over themselves at Hillary Clinton. There motivation is as transparent as quality glass. If they keep flattering her, they will keep certain voters away from Obama. Look at last night. After Hillary hit a home run with an outstanding speech last night, the conservative pundits were saying, "Wow, great speech! Gosh, I just can't see why Obama blew it and didn't pick Hillary. You know if I had voted for Hillary, I would be upset after that speech!"

These days, Republicans and conservatives have been blowing a ton of smoke up the asses of Hillary's followers. Most of them have finally seen the light and are joining the ranks of Obama's campaign. (Thank God). But cameras go searching for jilted, bitter Hillary supporters and it's not very hard to find them. So the coverage has been hanging on their words, and McCain's minions are putting their arms around them and trying to get them to vote Republican in November. & some of them actually will. What idiots! As Hillary explained, voting for McCain doesn't help Hillary, it doesn't change the direction of this nation and in my opinion, won't help the country.

One of the reasons I didn't vote for Hillary was b/c, other than Ted Kennedy, no one gets the Republicans angrier and more unified like Hillary Clinton. I actually think if elected, she would have made a good president.
But it's amazing! You have a convicted WAtergate felon on talk radio talking about a good way to literally BEAT Hillary UP PHYSICALLY and his followers love hearing that. The experts knew that if Clinton had won, the Republicans would have galvanized next week much stronger than they will now. Republicans still and will continue to have problems getting the Evangelical, conservative wing of their party to back McCain. Had Hillary beat Obama, there would have been no problem at all getting Evangelicals to back the AZ Senator. Hillary is anathema to conservatives; everyone knows it.

& let me tell you something. If she was the Democratic nominee, they wouldn't be praising Hillary the way they are now. Hillary would be depicted as the Antichrist and the very being that St. John wrote about when discussing the beast of 666. If Hillary had won, the Republicans would have been courting blacks and telling them about how Obama got "jobbed in the primaries". Anything to divide & conquer.

our future First Lady!

GREAT SPEECH TONIGHT, MICHELLE! KEEP UP THE EXCELLENT WORK!

some encouragement on my hobby

I really am interested in getting more information about rock n roll onto Wikipedia. It's basically a 2 step process. You have to join one of the subgroups in Wikipedia and if you develop a consensus, your article will stick and stay there.

I really think it's fun and important to write/contribute in Wikipedia because thousands if not millions of people may read it. After I joined Wikipedia, I was told that over 7,000,000 people have joined. So you know a lot of people read Wikipedia!!

My 2 contributions are on these 2 websites:

The entries are at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mick_Taylor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jagger/Richards

My big point is that the entries relating to the Stones should use more of Mick Jagger's Rolling Stone interview of 1995, and they should use more of Steve Appleford's book about the Stones songs. So where you see the Rolling Stone article footnote, that's where I contributed with the help of another guy from Jamaica.

Saturday morning not as fun for awhile

I used to absolutely, positively love Saturday, b/c it was the one day I could linger in bed until about 10:30. NOW, I can't do that anymore until the 2nd Saturday in Nov. My son is in the community flag football league, and he has practice on Saturdays from 9-11.
So this was my 1st Saturday not sleeping in, and it wasn't pleasant. I thought that maybe his practice started at 9:30, but when I checked this paper, I was wrong. Ted was about 15 min. late to practice. He didn't play much of the scrimmage that they had (he was sick the last practice and since he was coughing at the start of practice the coaches probably didn't think it was a good idea to play him much). Ted's team got their buts whipped 24-6 in the scrimmage. I wish Ted would have played some defense. The other team realized that his team had no way to stop a right side sweep, and they ran that play on them over and over and over. They scored 3 out of their 4 TDs on the right side sweep.

aftermath of yesterday

It's funny how you feel and act completely different when you are no longer upset. Then you look back at when you were angry and wonder if it was all really worth it. The fact is I never lost my cool around the co-worker that left.

I knew for certain that she was friends with the other 2 co-workers in our little office. In fact one of them criticized her, and I think she was trying to get me to say something worse about her. But I didn't take the bait. I just agreed and kept working.

Another point that I find very interesting is that once the co-worker was gone, then the other 2 workers talked more to me and initiated more conversation with me. We actually ALL felt like we were in the same group. It was no longer "The 3 Young Clerks and the Older Guy". We were given extra assignments b/c she had left and I volunteered to do one of them. So, the hope is that we will continue having good times working among ourselves, and that soon they will get more help.

glad she's gone, damnit!

I am glad that a clerk at our law office left yesterday. She was nice, very smart and did her job as clerk well, but I couldn’t stand her personality. She basically acted like I wasn’t in the room. She never spoke to me, but at the same time would speak for hours to the other 2 clerks in our small, little office space. Of course, the other 2 clerks were about her age, and I am old enough to be her father.
Still, that’s not a good enough explanation on her part. We had clerks here that would talk to me, in fact some of the clerks became good friends with me (but not so close that we maintained a friendship after they left, which is fine).
I know that at work, you’re not supposed to be there to socialize, but to be excluded like that on a regular basis was tough to take. Also, bear in mind, I only teach them how to be clerks. I am NOT paid to be their supervisor or be their mother hen. & I won’t do that except in only the most extreme circumstances.
There was also an incident between her and I that really pissed me off. She would share her Werther’s Carmels with her other 2 clerk/friends. I really like Werther’s so I asked her for a carmel one day. She stood up and practically threw it at me (all the while glaring at me).
I felt like saying to her, “BITCH! I WON’T ASK YOU FOR ANOTHER FUCKING THING IF WE WORK TOGETHER 40 YEARS!” But, of course, I didn’t do that. & I am very happy I won’t be working with her another damn minute!

absolutely, positively funny

Ok, stop and think about the following ? right now!!

What is the funniest music video you ever saw? All you awesome people who read this blog and never comment, I want your "Comment" on here too. Ok, if it's easier to just e-mail me w/ the answer I guess you don't have to leave a comment. But I really want you to!!!!

The funniest video is about a subject that isn't very funny and has often led to sadness, heartbreak and all sorts of bad things. Henry Rollins (lead singer in Blag Flag) when he went solo had a song on MTV back in the 90s called "Liar". It's funny, he starts out that he is all nice and friendly and would love to be your friend & he especially wants to be your friend b/c you're lonely and need someone.
Then the scene totally changes instead of wearing something nice and respectable, Rollins is nearly naked except for shorts and is all painted (especially the face) GREEN. He's jumping around and screaming and saying how much he likes hurting the person he lied to.
But then he changes his mind and notices that you're hurting and promises to never lie again.
ALL OF THE SUDDEN HE'S LAUGHING, 1/2 NAKED, & PAINTED ALL GREEN AGAIN. (This is the part where I laugh really hard) Part of the humor is that it was shown on the old MTV show "Beavis & Butthead". When Rollins starts screaming, they are both shouting a very high pitched, "Yes, yes!!!!" to everyone of his shouts and rantings. The video is so incredibly outrageous that how can you do anything but laugh.
The other part of the humor is that anyone who is an awful, manipulative liar like the one depicted by Rollins wouldn't be quite so honest. In "Liar", Rollins explains that he feeds off the negativity the sadness, the disappointment that the recipient of lying suffers. No liar will ever be so upfront as to tell you that.
Good video!! Go to Google with the key terms and you can probably download the video.

Blood pumping in the morning

I wasn’t all that alert this morning until someone wrote an e-mail, sent it to a bunch of people (including me) about politics. My name here relates to how I feel politically.
The e-mail was very sympathetic to the other side, so I wrote a very spirited e-mail to return the favor. I have some very strong views on the subject.

I do think that more people should talk about politics, and don’t necessarily agree that it is one of the "3 taboo subjects" (for those who don't know, the saying goes, "Never argue about sex, politics or religion" But it's ok if you mix all 3 together and have a participatory discussion) . It’s easy to see why arguing politics is not so great: one is often pretty emotional about their political views. Even w/ someone who doesn’t give a damn about politics, they are still interested in some of the issues (abortion, Iraq War, taxes, gas prices)
I think there should be more discussion about politics b/c it has benefits. For those who debate it gives clarity to your views and you have to think, crystallize your views and put it into words, then debate and counter the other persons' points. That’s a lot of thinking going on! It sometimes stimulates your own interest as if you want to know more about a topic (so that you can win the next debate or win by a larger margin than the last time) you will sometimes take the time to learn more. Now this may not happen too many times, but it still does happen to some people.

One of the bigger problems in politics is too much apathy. Americans’ are notorious for not participating in politics as much as their European counterparts. It’s even bad where I am president. As I noted before, I am president of a condo assoc. There are over 250 people living in the condo. There were a lot of people who didn’t even vote when we voted on levying a special assessment. Can you imagine not voting on an issue that so directly affects your money? How stupid!

I love my boss

First a little background, a little exposition.

I work at a law firm. No, I'm not a lawyer (so no "kill all lawyers" jokes). I'm a paralegal.

The way a law firm is set up is as follows:

The highest on the ladder are the partners. Partners own the law firm. They make the most money, they make personnel decisions, some partners do other work, but it varies. Many (if not most partners) insist that you do not call them by their first name. After all, they are "higher" than "you". I have never called the current partner "Allan" only "Mr. B______" I have to leave his name anonymous in case some employees (ex or otherwise) read this blog.

Next are the lawyers. They are the ones who work on the cases. One of the lawyers work on files before they become lawsuits. My 2 bosses are lawyers.

Then there is "support staff": paralegals, clerks, helpers of the office manager, secretaries, special projects people. At one point, I am above clerks as I am their teacher. I am 20 yrs. older than these clerks as they are law students wanting the experience of working at a law firm. Also, I am not just any support staff person, because I train the clerks, produce my and clerks' schedule to the partner, tell the partners that they better get going and hire a lot more clerks as I am doing now b/c we have 3 clerks leaving by mid August.

Of special note is the office manager. An office manager is definitely below the partners. But it's iffy where his level of power is among lawyers. (& obviously he is above support staff). I don't see our office manager higher than the most senior lawyers. But I definitely see him higher than the lawyers w/o much experience. It would be tricky for him to be lower than those lawyers that came after Nov., 2006, but it's possible if they bring into the firm a ton of money due to settlements and won trials that they could be, I'm not sure. I don't sit in on those types of meetings. I do hear them talk but that's only limited information.

Anyway, I have 1 boss that I don't know too well b/c he just got out of law school. I'm old enough to be his father. He is very excitable and enthusiastic. So far so good.

The other lawyer has been a lawyer for at least a few years. Like me he is sad because he is unhappily married. We sometimes commiserate. He is a wonderful boss. He praises me when I do well (which is "usually") and doesn't yell at me when I make mistakes. (NOTE: IF YOU HAVE A LITTLE TIME, COMPARE THIS POST TO THE FIRST POST I EVER MADE WAY BACK IN 2005, THERE ARE OTHER POSTS ABOUT THAT "BOSS-FROM-HELL" IN 2005 AS WELL) . He is great to work for and working for him makes me want to work harder for him. He even said to me (GOD BLESS HIS SOUL!!), "Vince does not work for me, we work together!" That was the same way it was with Adam (my ex-boss of 2006&7) and Brad (ex-boss of 2007 and early this year).

Adam taught me a lot and was simply a great lawyer. He left to start his own firm.

Brad was great. Brad left a few months to start his own firm, too. When I got sued he was my lawyer for free. He didn't have to do that; he just said he wanted to do that for me. Also, Brad was very forgiving of my mistakes. He just never got mad at me. If I was with a client and accidentally shot them b/c we were looking at a gun, the conversation would go like this.

Vince: Brad, I accidentally shot one of our clients

Brad: Really? (wouldn't even ask how it happens). Well we bettter go appoint a special administrator and keep the case going.

Brad was remarkably unflappable. Maybe the most unflappable person I ever met.

I like my firm b/c I have worked for 3 great bosses and only worked for 1 who gave me a tough time.