dave

My friend Dave is a worker . He’s almost always working . He likes to work . He also has an active athletic life ; nowadays mountain biking is his passion . He is a machinist who has owned airplanes , raced bicycles ,hiked , fished , and hunted . He’s been around the world racing motor bikes . He’s one of those guys who’d give you the shirt off his back if he saw you needed it . He maintains on old jeep and when it’s working he’ll take people up on rough mountain roads in search of adventure . He’s passionate about all he does .

When I grow up I want to be just like Dave .

He’s a mild-mannered man ; he lets the frustrations of life go by like , as they say , water off a duck’s back .

Yeah . Until one Friday a few months ago. I saw him on Saturday and he was home on a workday , which is unusual . He’s usually working overtime Saturdays .

” I’ve been suspended ,” he said .

” Suspended or furloughed ? ,” I asked , thinking maybe it had something to do with Covid.

” Suspended .” So he told me the story .

Evidently some younger guy cursed Dave out as the two of them drove their cars into the parking lot at their factory . Dave is sixty-four years old and this guy is in his mid-twenties . Thinks he’s a tough guy . Something snapped in Dave.

” So I stepped out of my car , took off my jacket , folded it neatly and put it on the seat of my car with my keys ,” he said . ” Then I walked over . He was sitting in his car and I told him to get out but he refused. So I started punching him as he sat there , ” he said . ” He flailed his arms . Scratched me under my eye . ”

” Good story ,” I said . So un-Dave , I thought .

” Then three other guys from work got hold of me and dragged me away . This little punk got out of his car then and came up from behind me and hit me in the back of my head . I went down on the ground and got up right away a little dazed . “

” Then what happened ?” I asked .

” Then I went in to talk to HR . I was calm . This other guy was going crazy , threatening to kill me . Said ‘ You’re dead.’ “

” That’s a good story , Dave . Then what happened ?”

” They suspended both of us . HR called me later and told me to come in Monday to sign some papers . I told them Monday was out . They asked why and I said because I have a job interview on Monday . “

Ah . When I grow up I want to be just like Dave .

When I told Ada the story she was amazed , too . She wanted to know if he was suspended with pay and was it all videotaped and on the internet so she could see it . So I asked Dave later about the with pay or without pay question . He didn’t know and said he didn’t care . The company had security camera footage of the incident but no one else filmed it although there had been a lot of witnesses .

” His coming up to hit me in the back of the head while I was being held by three guys is what saves me ,” he said . They want to get rid of the young punk and they want to have me come back to work ,” he said . ” But I don’t think I want to go back ,” he said . ” They did me a favor ,” he told me , ” I have a few days off and I can get another job anytime . I don’t think I want to go back . Anyway , I’m tired of working weekends .”

As it turned out , Dave still works for the same place . He negotiated with the company after the incident. He no longer works weekends . He and a buddy ride mountain bikes on local mountain trails now every weekend. The younger guy still works at the company , too ; but he stays out of Dave’s way . Don’t mess with those old guys .

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Happy Thanksgiving !

Be thankful .

more random thoughts

” room prices begin at $358 for required two -night stay “.

I was looking at some suggested get- aways around southern California today in a short article from……..from…….. Well , on the internet . Someone sent me something from somewhere . Well , probably not accurate to say “someone” sent it to me . What are those things called ? An algorithm ? An algorithm probably sent it .

Maybe they got the wrong algorithm address . I’m not spending $716 for a couple of nights in a hotel . And , no doubt , there are additional fees , hotel fees , taxes , use the pool fees . A friend of ours spent a few nights in Las Vegas and the hotel wanted a fee to use their pool . Anything to separate a person from their money .

I was thinking about this while I was walking at the Los Angeles Arboretum today. It’s on land once owned by old Elias Baldwin who is forever known as Lucky Baldwin. I’ve heard that he hated the nickname , but so it goes . Well , he probably thought that he worked hard for his fortunes , and that luck had very little to do with it . But it won’t matter to him now , anyhow , since he’s been dead since 1909 . I think it was 1909 .

Old Lucky Baldwin built a lovely Queen Anne cottage on the property . He never lived in the cottage , however . Word is that he built it for a girlfriend of his , but that she passed away before she had the opportunity to live there . Baldwin , an extrememly wealthy man , lived in a relatively small adobe house that had been built by former occupants . He built a picturesque little lake and both the Queen Anne and the adobe sit at the edge of the lake although a few hundred yards apart .

The Arboretum is in the process of restoring the adobe house to how it was in Baldwin’s time . I noticed a trash pile of broken adobe nearby . There were a few whole adobe bricks , but it looked to me like the whole pile of rubble would be trashed . If it were me I would rescue those whole bricks and put them out somewhere on display . You know , for the school children. For the tourists . For the curious .

I would have grabbed one and taken it home if I thought that I could’ve hidden it under my shirt on the way out . It would be a historical curio that I would treasure . On the other hand , admittedly not knowing much about adobe , I suspect that it may actually be concrete and be part of a former reconstruction effort on old Lucky Baldwin’s house . It looks a lot like concrete. Maybe adobe does too . I don’t know .

Anyway , I was telling Ada about my inspection of the adobe rubble pile and my thoughts about the whole thing . An Arboretum employee had come across me viewing the heap of material . He seemed confused about what to do . He wanted to give me a dirty look or to shout at me to get away , but he resisted . I knew he wanted to , to show who’s boss , but he resisted . He decided not to address me at all , but he pulled a temporary barrier across the spot in front of the pile . It was a not-so-subtle message .

Hey you ! Leave our rubble alone ! You came here to see plants and peacocks , so get to it !

And that’s another thing . The Arboretum is a huge botanical garden , so what do they have planned for the next few evenings ? It’s called a festival of light . Technicions have been setting up portable lights for days . Electrical cables wind around the whole place .Now they are setting in place all of the artificial plants , florescent colors , fantasy blooms . Several stylized white lilies now float on the little lake . Other nylon plants look like they were borrowed from comic book pages .

Ada said oh I know what I’ll be reading in a blog post , about a pile of discarded adobe . As she said that I was thinking , rather , that I’d be writing about the irony of running a botanical garden and at the same time sponsoring a show of bizarre and fake plants . It’s a money-maker !

I was thinking about an article I’d read about stolen bikes , too . Evidently a group of homeless people living under a freeway overpass in Culver City have gone into the expensive bike theft business . The guy who wrote the article makes documentaries . He had three expensive bicycles stolen from his garage . He hunted around the local homeless camps until he spotted one of his bikes. The homeless man there told him that he had paid $100 for the bike , so the film maker paid him $100 and took his bike back . He was on his way home when he decided to go back to see if his other bikes were there , too . They were hidden under a tarp . He told the homeless guy that they were his bikes ( worth thousands each , by the way ) and that he was taking them and not paying for them .

He tried to make a police report but the local office wouldn’t let him in due to Covid restrictions . They told him to go to West LA station . So he did , but there they told him that he had to report it at his local station . He had spoken to the cop who patrols his area and the cop said that he’d investigate as soon as the matter of the theft was reported .

And that reminded me of my old beat-up Chevy that was stolen in the early 1980s when I lived in Hollywood. The officer at the desk told me not to report it , that all it would mean was that my insurance would go up up. I insisted that he take a report . He leaned closer to me and said , ” We have Mercedes and Jaguars stolen and we’re not doing much about them , so what makes you think we’ll do anything about yours ? ”

Well , at least he was straightforward . I continued to insist on a police report . And he was right ; they didn’t do anything. The car was eventually found abandoned on the street and was towed to a police garage . It was completly stripped , not only no tires but no wheels , no engine , no seats . The police wanted me to pay for the tow to the police garage and a storage fee per day . Ah , but they had to hold on to it for a few days because they hadn’t got around to fingerprinting it yet , and I was required to pay the added daily fees .

Not that I’m complaining ! Just relating the random thoughts running through my mind as Ada and I were walking in the Arboretum . Yeah , you don’t want to be in those brain recesses of mine when they begin shifting .

Maybe I need a vacation . How much was that hotel ? It’s a special deal , after all . And a two-night stay is good . Otherwise you are spending $358 not to be allowed in until late afternoon only to be kicked out the next morning . Hardly worth it ! I wonder if they have a pool.

the big one

Commercial airline pilots above LAX claimed to have seen a man with a jetpack fly somewhere near their aircraft . The FBI got involved and investigated but could find no jetpack guy . Their latest theory , in place of finding any evidence , is that the object spotted by the pilots could have been balloons or possibly something made up to look like a man with a jetpack and it could even have been attached to a drone .

Or it could have been those green creatures from Mars who have been seen from time to time . It’s pretty easy to find pictures of them . I’m not sure any pictures , none that I’ve seen so far anyway , have them wearing jetpacks . Seems to me that a jetpack would be , most likely , an obsolete technology for them to use ; but , who knows . Maybe they just want to drive the Earthlings crazy by doing that kind of a stunt .

Too late .

Or the pilots could be drunk ; been known to happen , I think . Oh , but I don’t really believe in that particular fear . I trust the pilots on my flights . When I’m 40,000 feet up in the air , what else can I do ! Maybe better a little drunk than high on meth ?

Maybe not .

A thousand or so people congregated in Dallas recently to await JFK and his son JFK Jr. but as far as I can tell from the news coverage those two never showed up . Neither of them . I think Elvis was there . I’m pretty sure I saw him in the crowd ; but he stayed incognito and apparently no one else recognized him . Most of the people were carrying flags or selling t-shirts and hobnobbing with one another , but there was this one guy who kind of kept to himself . Just as well , I think. Elvis evidently wants a little privacy , and why not !

Well , I hesitate showing my cards so early in the game , but I think this country better prepare for what we call in California ” The Big One ” before it’s too late . No , not a nuclear blast —– the once-and-for-all catastrophic earthquake . It’ll make the 1906 thing in San Francisco look like a minor event . It’ll make the Valdivia quake in Chile look like child’s play .

A friend of mine has a little shed dedicated to prepping for the coming catastrophe . In the shed he has water , food , flashlights , crank-powered radios , bandages , etc. He hasn’t said so , but I’m pretty sure he’ll have a shotgun in there, too. Just in case. The unprepared hoards may rampage the neighborhood looking for toilet paper . Oh , he put a shovel in there , too , in order to dig a latrine . He has a portable toilet , of course , with plenty of plastic ( don’t know if they’re bio-degradable ) bags to bag his poo . It will be poetic justice for dogs , I guess , when the guy has to bag his own poo .

Maybe you’re wondering what a California earthquake will have to do with the rest of the country or the rest of the world . Really ? Think about it .

California is the center of the universe , of course ! All ( well , most, anyway ) of the space aliens have settled here , started arriving in the 1930s if not before in their saucers , infiltrated society. When they are disturbed by The Big One , then watch out ! Who knows what might happen , but it’ll have effects all over the world . They don’t think like we think . Their reaction will be unimaginable but things will change . That’s for sure . Major upheaval of society with ripple effects throughout the country and throughout the world . Except maybe in Texas . Texas does its own thing .

I know , you were worrying about those other aliens who keep showing up at our southern border , the massive caravans of terrorist rapists carrying deadly diseases and lugging cases of CRT to infect our schools , and bags of ballots already filled out for Democrats , financed of course by pedophile elites financed by George Soros and Hillary. Well , as you know , it’s all been planned for a long time to destroy America . I’m not sure who planned it . Maybe Barack Hussein Obama . Maybe Nancy Pelosi . At any rate , when The Big One hits all of that won’t matter . So relax.

Half of the population will go insane immediately due to the knocking out of the cell phone towers . No internet , man ! No cell phones ! Yikes !

The Marty Lisa

Wasn’t life much simpler when all we had to worry about , really , were the Russians ? We could fear and hate that little guy Khruschev the shoe pounder . As kids we could practice safety against nuclear attack by climbing under the school desk and staying away from the windows as the air raid sirens blasted mid-day on Fridays . At least we were taking action . And no one was really checking under the bed for a Russian ; that was just an expression . The main thing , I suppose , was to be perpetually afraid and to have a clear and known enemy to be afraid of . That’s good enough .

Nowadays we only have everyone else to fear and to hate . I mean everyone else , because no one is going to share our set of beliefs in toto . In any case , most of them are evil and want to destroy America ; that’s a given . I should admit that I don’t know for sure about the vegans, though . I’ll have to do a little more research before I decide to hate all vegans as a group .

Send me money and I will explain more . Pay Pal and Bitcoin will do fine . Act today because tomorrow could be too late . Remember The Big One is on the way . I’ve heard it is financed by Shell and Exxon , by the way , but it could just as well be Microsoft , McDonalds , or General Motors . Personally , I suspect Disney .