You Go Monseigner Drennan....cool

We have this reaaly cool retired priest at our parish. He has got to be one of the nicest and positive people I have ever met. His sermons are always very up beat. He always can bring the gospel down to what you could persoannly do and what would Jesus think if you did it.

He had a good one yesterday. He was saying how Christians throughout the world were not losing the battle of Christ being taken out of Christmas. He mentioned how he overheard some people at the store wish each other Happy Holidays. At first he thought it was too bad that they were not wishing each other Merry Christmas. Then he put his normal "positive spin" on the situation. He said that everybody knew that the holiday season was about Christmas and although they may not say it......they knew it and were in fact, spreading the word.

Interesting way to look at it.

BTW

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Annother parenting issue....cool

My daughter sent me this video....Thankfully it was not a hint that I was being my normal knucklehead self. This is really good stuff.

Be a parent would ya......not cool

My customer service rep picked up call today. A mother was calling to complain about overdraft charges on her debit/credit card. A couple of weeks ago her son used his father's credit card to buy some stuff at our location. The inquiry started with the mother calling to tell us there were charges by us that were not hers. Only to find out....ooops my son did it. He was not supposed to do it....but kids will be kids I guess.

So what should any ass kicking parent do..???? Make the kid pay the overdraft charges and take away the car keys....right? Nope not this mom....let's call the vendor and tell them if they do not remove the charge and also pay her bank fees she is going to call the Better Business Bureau. And this knucklehead wonders why her kid would ever think to use her husbands credit card.


She must be related to the idiot who sued McDonald's over the coffee incident.

New Christmas Tree....cool?

Here goes on the trivial blogging!

So Denise has been bugging me for years to get an artificial Christmas tree. Yes the same Denise that has to cut a tree every year....because that's how "they" always have done it. Since moving to Missouri...I got closer each year to giving in on the real tree thing. This was due to the fact that Evergreens do not grow well in Missouri. Yes, they have tree farms...but when you have to spray paint the trees green....or pick out the best of the worst each year...it kinda sucks the spirit out of you. The other issue is that we have always had BIG trees. Even back in Colchester CY we cut 10-14 foot trees each year.

So last year Denise "gets" me to buy her the 12 foot fake. Of course it's after xmas so we can get a deal. It still cost a boatload of dollars....so much that I am embarrassed to tell people. It sat in the basement in three boxes until a couple of weeks ago.

A few things about these monsters...
They are heavy
They take an inordinate amount of time to set up....5-6 hours
You cannot lean the ladder into them to get to the top as you could with real trees....the branches are as flexible.
this leads to a very uncomfortable leaning experience

Now the good things:
They are Prelit......this will only be cool until those crappy little lights go out.....as they always do.
It looks real.....really

So our new fake tree is in place...honestly? it looks great. So does the real tree we had to go cut for the other room.....because as you can guess....we have to cut a tree still!!

Hard Time blogging.....not cool!

I have started this blog three times today. I am not sure what is holding me back from blogging away lately, but I think it's my over all desire to not get bogged down with all the negatives that are happening in the world. 20 years ago I gave up on network news and most newspapers due to their constant reporting of bad news. To be around bad news all day, every day sucks you into "their world" I'm not a big fan of negative people and try to keep them, along with bad news, at arms length.

I am finding, however, that the bad news is everywhere and it is not only corrupting me but everyone around me. The latest is this Bernard Madoff issue. I heard today on NPR that thousands of investors were taken over a 20 year period. I heard the number is 50 BILLION that this crook took from investors.

I then look for some good news in the paper this morning and I see the headline "banner year" So my eyes jump to the article only to find out that the article is about the banner year of bankruptcies.

We here at cable mountain continue to build our business. I only hope we can keep the bad news and thus the bad luck from our island.

All of this leads me back to the title of the blog today. I am going to try to find the funny side of life...the happy side of life and write about that. This day to day barrage of bad news is starting to bring me down\...or as my daughter tells me...."your killing me smalls"

One more thing about layoffs....not cool

OK- I wasn't the only one that thought the AB buyout to ImBev was crummy....but I knew that the "happy" crap about a great "merger" was just that ....crap.

I am not a fan of mergers. They are a financial opportunity for the few and mostly leave a mound of DEBT that needs to be paid back. Only two ways to pay your debts.....Bring in more revenue or CUT COSTS. I was amaazed at the number of people that thought that everything would be OK at AB. We were the King Of Beers remember!

Well.....the cutting has begun. The papers say there will be 1,000 people laid off in the next few weeks. I spoke with two AB people that confirmed that it will be more like 1,400....and that's just the first wave. They expect another 1,500 by spring.

In my opinion, sooner or later we will we spin offs of differnt companies or brands by Imbev. They will need to continue to raise money to pay off an enormous amount ofd debt. Maybe they will sell bak Rolling Rock to the town of Latrobe. I am sure all of the laid off workers would be happy to start up again. (Little ironic about Rolling Rock.....AB took them over and then closed everything, keeping just the name and green bottle)

Layoffs are hitting home....really not cool.

Over the years we have all read about thousands of layoffs. I never really knew a lot of people that had been laid off. This go around is different. In the past few weeks I have run into at least 5-6 situations of people I know that are being laid off. These are people that have 5-14 years of experinece, from sales to Vice Presidents.
It's interesting to see how each person takes the news. Some are not worried whereas others are totally devastated. I am sure these responses are due to the amount of warning the individul had about the impending change.

I can only pray that these families , friends of my family, land on their feet.
We can all try to make sometime to help these friends find a way to open a new door in their lives.

more and more cynical...not cool

It's hard to blog when you don't have a hero. We all want to cheer on the good guy. Politics has again reared it's ugly side....with the Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich issue. I don't care that he was a democrat. The issue is that "power corrupts". I think that's two governors in a row for Ill. They are not the only ones, the scandals throughout the political scene are too numerous to count.

The scary thing.....these people run our country.

Smoking...not cool...but who cares

Who knew that President-Elect was a heavy smoker? I knew about it. I also knew that the media never asked him about it....he never allowed them to take his picture while he was doing the nasty habit.....but now that the election is over and the press has their man in the White House.....now maybe they will go back to asking him the tough questions.

But Smoking? I cannot believe that anyone would of not voted for this guy because he smokes. Tom Brokaw interviews Obama and really "grills him" on this major issue. What a waste of 60 seconds on a news show. Who cares if the guy smokes.

BTW is Brokaw a drunk or what? Listen to him with your eyes closed....it's ridiculous this guy is in broadcasting.

30 Billion dollar loan......not so cool!

So they drove down to Washington to beg for 30 billion. Now we find out that it will be a 30Billion dollar loan. We also learn that Washington is telling them what they need to have in their plans. Here comes a warning....

Remember the 700 Billion....How they sold us on the idea that the GVT would purchase securities from financial institutions thus freeing up cash flow in the credit markets???? Didn't do it did they? Nope within two days Paulson says he may buy stock instead....may buy mortgages....now Congress is asking for some accountability for the money....really??? in less then a few months we now need to find out where the money is going? So no matter how they sell this next bailout....it's just a bailout....corporate welfare socialism at it's bets.

Next...they are now telling the big three how to make cars....maybe even tell GM and Chrysler they have to merge before they get the money!! This is even crazier. There sit congressman and Senators telling professional car manufacturers how to build cars....their kidding right? These idiots can't even dole out money in an effective manner.

Lastly, I am not a big fan of the Big three....but is the current situation their fault? NOPE...it's the Government's and our society at large for the most part. That's right...demand for cars is down from a 17 million run rate this year to 11 million. You cannot run your company on half the revenue without major surgery. Are people buying all those cars from someone else? Nope...they are not buying them. The credit mess is the culprit. The loosening of credit terms allowing for "stupid spending" along with the credit crunch has killed demand for high cost consumer items. Car manufacturing is complicated and capital intensive. We need to ensure these are LOANS with some personal Guarantees by the managment (this will never happen) We also need for Congress, most of which have never run anything but a campaign...get out the way.

Saving Money .....cool

Just saw a good coupon for all you Wal-Mart shoppers.
Sign up

spend $40 or more two times by Dec. 18th and get a $20 credit on your amex card statement. You need to sign up at the above link.

I called Amex and they said it was legit!

Spend $80 or so bucks and get $20 back...20% discount sounds good to me.

Gas Prices coming down...is that cool?

We went under the $1.50 mark for a gallon a gas last week. St. Louis has the least expensive gas in the country. Good for us right? I am really not sure if cheap gas is what we need in this country. My issue is our dependence on foreign oil. I would guess the reason we are dependent is that it's cheap. The free market dictates that given all things equal price prevails. Unfortunately "all things" are not equal. The American people however think they are.....We have again and again proved that buying American made products that keep jobs in this country are great....but not when I buy...I want the least expensive price for the best quality goods. Gas is in the same predicament. The amount of wealth that leaves this country everyday is unbelievable. The real scary thing is that the people the money goes to, are mostly not friendly to the United States.

There was discussion of having a floating tax on gas. It would work the following way; There would be an artificial floor price on gas. Let's call it $3.50. Let the markets work as they always do. Whenever the price went below $3.50, the price of gas would still be at $3.50 sending revenue to the Government to allocate to alternative energy. This may sound very strange from a right wing capitalist, but the energy issue is a complicated issue. We need to be "forced" to stand together.

By having an artifically high gas price, we would be forced ...or as I look at it, be given the opportunity to change our ways.

The news that brought this to mind today was an article in Business Week. Edmunds, the Internet based used car site, reported that searched of SUV's on their site have jumped to an average of 1.5 million searches last week as compared to an average of 750k a week for the past quarter. It's amazing how quickly the "ME" generation can get back in swing.