This chaps my hide

If I wore panties, they'd be in a twist right now. Today has seen a lot of different things that have made me stop and reflect about life. On my way to lunch, I passed a car accident that had just happened. Police were already on the way, and nobody was seriously hurt, but I wondered if there was something I could have done to help out. But even that didn't get my goat as much as watching the husband of one of our hydraulic engineers walk into the office and deliver divorce papers for his wife. (Before I say the next word, please understand that I have actually been cutting way down on my profanity, but this word really fits the bill:)

Dipshit.

To the soon to be ex-husband: What kind of idiot who is dying of cancer pushes away his wife and children, just for the need of some time alone? Guess what buddy? You'll have PLENTY of time alone pretty soon here, just you and that 6 foot thick blanket of dirt that'll be covering you! I think that your cancer pretty much stuck a knife into both your wife and childrens' lives, but you seem pretty intent on twisting it around a bit. Seriously, if it was me, I'd want to have my wife and children with me when I leave this earth, not alienated and mourning from afar. I've made some pretty poor choices here and there down the road of life, but I think yours makes mine pale in significance.

One last bit of counsel for you: There is no "undo" button that will erase this choice of yours. You cannot erase the damage that you have caused in the lives of your children, all in the name of a selfish decision.

Moving right along...

I'm just sitting here in the office, eating some "Shrek 2" fruit snacks that my wife threw into the lunchbox today. I just picked one up where the ol' Shrekster is missing about half of his face. Probably some flesh-eating bacteria that he caught livin' in that swamp. The "donkey version" looks a little bit more like Pumbaa the warthog than Eddie Murphy's CGI persona. And there's another shape I can't really recognize. Maybe an amoeba from the aforementioned swamp. But I digress. There are worthier things to post about than artificial fruitstuff.

They come in threes

Deaths of famous people, usually. We had Chief Justice Rehnquist, now Bob "Gilligan" Denver, and I'm wondering who the third will be? Our secretary suggested that maybe one of the many hundreds of hurricane victims might count as the third, she being a little afraid to admit that number three might actually be one of our employees who has cancer.

On the topic of Hurricane Katrina, my heart and prayers go out to the survivors. I cannot imagine the tremendous upheaval in their lives as many of them have not only lost all of their material possessions, but loved ones as well. What the people need is help, not politics. I have put aside the "politics" part of my life, because all it seems to do is raise my blood pressure. But when I saw this, my blood boiled. Having followed a number of political blogs on both the right and the left for over a year, I know that the blogs represented there are actually the cream of the crop for their respective ideaologies. Meaning, they're the sites that get the most traffic. I could not believe the number of people blaming whatever they could on George Bush. One guy emphatically refuses to donate - even a dollar - to the hurricane relief efforts, and has this to say:

"You 60 million losers who voted for this loser open YOUR wallets. This president declared war on the poor long ago, and while some of us cared enough to vote for someone who gave a damn, you buried your heads in the sand, babbled about abortion and family values, and voted for the doofus."- Blunderford

This is why I am not a liberal, and never will be. The single most important thing I learned from reading all those poli-blogs over the past year is: The conservatives sometimes have a problem finding their arse with both hands, but the liberals can only complain while doing essentially nothing. Check out that page of the right-wing vs. left-wing blogs again. The conservative bloggers rolled up their sleeves and went to work......and the liberals? (crickets chirping)

I have given blood already, and will find a way to donate money when the next paycheck comes.

Okay, enough of the rant. I know I promised an entry or two over Labor Day Weekend, but as the name denotes, I spent most of the weekend "Laboring". I'm hooking up with two friends tonight to take a long look at this little blog. One friend is named "Illustrator" and the other "GoLive". We'll see over the next few weeks if there are any good results. But I will post a few pics tonight. Honest. I think.