Kids Say the Darnedest Things

Every now and then, I get a warm fuzzy from one of my sons. It is a kewl feeling because it indicates that perhaps, as a parent, I did actually influence them. Note, I didn't say I did something right. The jury is still in deliberation on several counts before the final tally comes in. The other night while watching the news, as our highest nationally elected official, was commenting about the possibility of pending "civil war" in Iraq, my eldest son, Primo says, "Dad, I wish I believed in God." This part made me cringe, cause I do believe in God and Primo's atheists believes may in fact, one day get me struck by lighting. The next part was awesome. He continues to say," Because then I would know that these assholes would be going to hell." What was really kewl was the tone of his voice made it clear he had a complete grasp of all of the assholes including the politicians, capitalist, religious zealots and terrorist ones.

Wooo Hooo!!!, see I did it. My eldest knows right from wrong.

PS just a bit on the religious thing. I'm not a Sunday worship dude. I just believe that a whole lot of things in nature are just right. I think no matter how long things took to evolve there must have been God behind it all. I also can see that there is a fucking whole lot of demons and evil shit hanging around. If good then bad, If heaven then hell. Yada yada

Amtrak - The Neglected Sunset Limited

Howdy sports fans,

G-daddy is back home, but I need to catch y'all up on the last 2/3 of the "desert trip 2006". First, the Amtrak Sunset Limited. OMG it fucking sucked @#!$ Here is a bit of an history lesson; Amtrak owns no rails therefore, every Union Pacific freight train and its Burlington Northern freight hauling cousin has the right of way on the rails. I have never seen sooo many freight trains in my life. I bet we were passed by four or five consecutive freight trains. All of Arizona and New Mexico was passing or getting passed by freight trains. In the middle of nowhere, the tracks are three wide with a pull over section. I swear it took 10 hours to go from Tucson to Demming AZ just a small piece down the rail. Then because of the delays, we were late getting into El Paso. The engineer just stops the train. RR engineers can only work continuous 12 hours max. I think airline pilots and truckers have this same restriction too. So, the dude stops the train in Willcox AZ and we have to wait till an new engineer is driven out from El Paso. Arrrgh.

We must have passed all of the cool desert scenery at night, cause I didn't see any during the day. The water color inspirations for G-daddy the artist, were limited at best. But if anyone ever gets to Willcox there is a very cute run down white house with a backdrop of the biggest, fullest, dark rich, evergreen trees. It is located across the tracks from the train stop (no station in Willcox). The "stop" is literally the section of track between the Dairy Queen and the Circle K store. The house has a corrugated roof with a wide rust streak, cause by the flue stack. The paint is faded and peeling with an almost light baby bluish teal trim. I think I'll try this one, on acrylic and larger than my normal post card fair. If that isn't lemonade I don't know what is?

The moral here is: If u wants to take the train; get a connex, pimp it out and make it comfy, then ship yourself as freight. You'll get there on time as freight, cause if you take Amtrak you'll be late. The train was twelve hours late. It was scheduled to arrive at San Antonio at 10pm and it arrived at 10am the next day. Pretty sad when the French, Germans and Japanese all have 100 mph screamers and we have Amtrak. Needless to say, I did experience the dining and lounge cars to the fullest extent. The dining car food was a plus.

Puter update, the trusty laptop is still suffering. I am waiting for an elegant solution via divine inspiration (perhaps a lightening bolt). However, I think I'm in love with Linux. The relationship is still young so I don't want to jinx it. Tomorrow's episode is San Antonio

San Diego headin East

OK all here is an update to the travels of G-Daddy

After a fun filled week with my college buddy JP in San Diego. (did I ever tell U bout da time we ran for student body President and VP at UAF?) NOTE - Lesson learned, don't fuck with ur computer and drink an entire bottle of scotch with ole college buddy. Oban, 14 yo, west highland, for those interested. The laptop is basically a travel weight at this point in time because, I optimized some stuff while really blind eyed drunk. Funny thing is I knew that drinking lesson (scotch and puters just say no) from past experiences but alas some lessons need to be revisited. Yes, it wasa long way to say it, I'm out of e-mail range for a while. Anyway the drinking was boss. We caught a rock show at the CASBAH in downtown SD, Saturday night, 4 bands for 8 bucks.

Now it is time to head east. sooo tomorrow I take the Amtrak Pacific Surfliner to LA then the Sunset Limited to San Antonio. The Sunset "limited"is just an econo class section of the Texas Eagle, For some reason they just can't call it an Eagle with cheap seats??^$$. The plan is to see Christy and her girls, old man Al is back on the slope, then go camping with Sue Grooms and Nicole. Yes, I have been inspired again and have one painting almost done. Hope fully the dessert ;-) train ride will give me another moment or two of inspiration.

Oh yah, the biodiesel conference, it was kewl. It was geared toward 20 million gallon a year plants and other producers, growers and f fleet managers operating in that order of magnitude. Nobody was talkin WVO, these dudes were talking soy beans to diesel fuel with no cooking in between. At this point in time, I would like to bestow some conference wisdom on those interested. Next time U plan to attend a conference with an exhibit floor - just pay for an exhibit pass, once U get a pass just go to any conference session you want....nobody ever checks. pls the Biofuel Conference exhibit pass still cost $275.00 plus I bought a $100 text book (geek).

Folks our next episode finds our super hero pondering, either buy a diesel car, get a job or, hangout for another 3 months. See y'all next week for our show titled, " Boy, I look like Samuel L Jackson in this car" OR " It is 82 Degrees F again, u gotta love workin in the South Pacific"

TTFN