Ramblin' Thoughts....
I've been a little flumoxed this week.....so decided to just pass on a few thoughts. Flumoxed, I've always liked that word. It should be used more. I'm flumoxed for several reasons.
My partners and I have been working on a big project in the gas business for over two years and next Thursday we give our presentation to the board of directors of a major NYSE utility company who, if all goes well, will partner with us in the effort. The fate of the free world depends on this meeting. We'll, OK, the fate of creating a permanently endowed income for my family rests on this meeting. A really good income. So I've been creating a PowerPoint™ show of epic proportions for the event. Love PowerPoint™ and I've pulled out all the stops on this one. I've loaded it on my server so that executives in New Jersey who can't physically be at our meeting in Odessa will be able to follow along via the Internet during the teleconference we are running in conjunction with the meeting. Oh, and in addition to the meeting on Thursday, the managing director/energy of a rather large German bank will be coming on Tuesday to see about financing the project. We've been working on Word© creating a paper presentation for him. So....I'm rather computered out for the moment.
My second area of flumoxation, and one that has stuck in my craw all week, was our semi-usual political conversation with my Mother at lunch on Sunday. To summarize: she's a liberal.......she's gotten worse. In a nutshell I think that she still identifies the Democratic Party with FDR, something that I have not blamed her for. She lived thru the depression and he was her President for all those years. Her thought is that the DEM's help poor people. Nice thought from a rich lady. But, truthfully, her support of Kerry has gone beyond that. Like many of the sort, she really has no positive things to say about his plans or even about him personally. She just dislikes Bush. In fact on Sunday, she made her "liberalness" complete. While Julie and I were pointing out the many, shall we say, "discrepencies" in Kerry's career, my Mother got flumoxed herself and just blurted out...."I don't care I just don't like Bush, he's stupid". My Mother is not a stupid person herself, I suppose just brainwashed. Go to the links at right and click on "Dissceting Leftism" by John Ray. You'll probably find my dear Mother's picture there. Textbook case.
So much for areas of flumoxation. Here's a thought. Osama Bin Laden. This week I was almost ready to write an article stating that I had revised my thoughts and now believed that there was a fair chance that OBL was, in fact, dead or captured. We hadn't heard anything crediblly ascribed to him in a very long time. Being a media egotist of some high degree I thought his absence from the airwaves was a good sign.
But today Osama would have made me look foolish.....he's back. Ossie just couldn't let the U.S. elections go by without giving us his thoughts. Something, however, did seem different about his rhetoric. The bits and pieces of his screed that I caught didn't seem like the Osama of old. He talked about his corps being "freedom fighters" instead of Jihadists. He seemed to indicate that if the West would leave the Arab World alone the terror problem would be eased. That's a major shift from previous rants about the decadent West and killing all the infidels. It makes me wonder what's going on with Osama. Perhaps living under a rock for two years has made him rethink his religous fervor. Maybe he's getting anger management counseling in Pakistan. Who knows.....I'm just glad that he reminded us he's there. It helps in the President's campaign.
I've been a little flumoxed this week.....so decided to just pass on a few thoughts. Flumoxed, I've always liked that word. It should be used more. I'm flumoxed for several reasons.
My partners and I have been working on a big project in the gas business for over two years and next Thursday we give our presentation to the board of directors of a major NYSE utility company who, if all goes well, will partner with us in the effort. The fate of the free world depends on this meeting. We'll, OK, the fate of creating a permanently endowed income for my family rests on this meeting. A really good income. So I've been creating a PowerPoint™ show of epic proportions for the event. Love PowerPoint™ and I've pulled out all the stops on this one. I've loaded it on my server so that executives in New Jersey who can't physically be at our meeting in Odessa will be able to follow along via the Internet during the teleconference we are running in conjunction with the meeting. Oh, and in addition to the meeting on Thursday, the managing director/energy of a rather large German bank will be coming on Tuesday to see about financing the project. We've been working on Word© creating a paper presentation for him. So....I'm rather computered out for the moment.
My second area of flumoxation, and one that has stuck in my craw all week, was our semi-usual political conversation with my Mother at lunch on Sunday. To summarize: she's a liberal.......she's gotten worse. In a nutshell I think that she still identifies the Democratic Party with FDR, something that I have not blamed her for. She lived thru the depression and he was her President for all those years. Her thought is that the DEM's help poor people. Nice thought from a rich lady. But, truthfully, her support of Kerry has gone beyond that. Like many of the sort, she really has no positive things to say about his plans or even about him personally. She just dislikes Bush. In fact on Sunday, she made her "liberalness" complete. While Julie and I were pointing out the many, shall we say, "discrepencies" in Kerry's career, my Mother got flumoxed herself and just blurted out...."I don't care I just don't like Bush, he's stupid". My Mother is not a stupid person herself, I suppose just brainwashed. Go to the links at right and click on "Dissceting Leftism" by John Ray. You'll probably find my dear Mother's picture there. Textbook case.
So much for areas of flumoxation. Here's a thought. Osama Bin Laden. This week I was almost ready to write an article stating that I had revised my thoughts and now believed that there was a fair chance that OBL was, in fact, dead or captured. We hadn't heard anything crediblly ascribed to him in a very long time. Being a media egotist of some high degree I thought his absence from the airwaves was a good sign.
But today Osama would have made me look foolish.....he's back. Ossie just couldn't let the U.S. elections go by without giving us his thoughts. Something, however, did seem different about his rhetoric. The bits and pieces of his screed that I caught didn't seem like the Osama of old. He talked about his corps being "freedom fighters" instead of Jihadists. He seemed to indicate that if the West would leave the Arab World alone the terror problem would be eased. That's a major shift from previous rants about the decadent West and killing all the infidels. It makes me wonder what's going on with Osama. Perhaps living under a rock for two years has made him rethink his religous fervor. Maybe he's getting anger management counseling in Pakistan. Who knows.....I'm just glad that he reminded us he's there. It helps in the President's campaign.
