Month: October 2004

  • THE RETIREMENT PROBLEM ..... SOLVED


    Since I'm getting close to retirement age, I've been investigating retirement living.  Retirement when you are healthy isn't the problem; it's when you get older and more feeble and can't keep up the yardwork and the housework, etc. that you need to move into a retirement center.

    So, I've decided that when that time comes, I am going to get on a Princess Cruise Ship. The average cost for a nursing home is $200 per day.  I have checked on reservations at Princess and I can get a long term discount and senior discount price of $135 per day.  That leaves $65 a day for other things.


    - Gratuities which will only be $10 per day.  They will even treat you like a customer, not a patient.  An extra $5 worth of tips will have the entire staff scrambling to help you.


    - No need to cook or pay for meals.  I will have as many as 10 meals a day if I can waddle to the restaurant, or I can have room service (which means I can have breakfast in bed every day of the week).


    - No need to pay for extras like entertainment or things to do.  Princess has as many as three swimming pools, a workout room, free washers and dryers, and shows every night.


    - They have free toothpaste and razors, and free soap and shampoo.


    - I will get to meet new people every 7 or 14 days. This eliminates the need to remember peoples' names.  (I'm already having this problem with names and faces.)


    - TV broken?  Light bulb need changing?  Need to have the mattress replaced?  No Problem!  They will fix everything and apologize for your inconvenience.


    - There's maid service with clean sheets and towels every day, and you don't even have to ask for them. 


    - They give you great medical services.  If you fall in the nursing home and break a hip you are on Medicare.  If you fall and break a hip on the Princess ship they will upgrade you to a suite for the rest of your life.

    - Now hold on for the best!  Do you want to see South America, the Panama Canal, Tahiti, Australia, New Zealand, Asia, or name where you want to go?  Princess will have a ship ready to go.  So don't look for me in a nursing home, just call shore to ship.


    - And... when you die, they just dump you over the side at no charge.


     

  • VICKIE & MIKE




    Here are two (out of ten) good looking young people that make us proud to be grandparents. 




    Vickie is a junior in high school and was recently accepted to play violin in the Chicago Symphony's Junior Orchestra.  She takes the commuter train into Chicago once a week.




    In addition to being a very good pianist, Mike is playing for the freshman team.  This is his first try at football after several years playing lacrosse. He has scored five touchdowns in the last three weeks and thirteen so far this year.  This picture shows him scoring another TD. 

    Did I mention that my Irish bride and I are genetically linked to these two?

  • THE ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER


    OLD VERSION


    The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.


    The grasshopper thinks he's a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed.


    The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.


    MORAL OF THE STORY: Be responsible for yourself!





    MODERN VERSION:


    The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.


    The grasshopper thinks he's a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.


    Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving.


    CBS, NBC, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.


    America is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?


    Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper, and everybody cries when they sing, "It's Not Easy Being Green"


    Jesse Jackson stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house where the news stations film the group singing, "We shall overcome." Jesse then has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper's sake.


    Tom Daschle & John Kerry exclaim in an interview with Peter Jennings that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his "fair share."


    Finally, the EEOC drafts the "Economic Equity and Anti-Grasshopper Act," retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the government.


    The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while the government house he is in, which just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around him because he doesn't maintain it.





    EPILOGUE:


    The ant has disappeared in the snow.


    The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the once peaceful neighborhood.


    MORAL OF THE STORY: Vote Republican


  • FBI UNCOVERS POSSIBLE CACHE OF UNLABLED KERRY PLANS  by Scott Ott



    (2004-10-09) -- The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said today it has found what may be a cache of plans by John Forbes Kerry to address the crises in health care, the economy, Iraq and a host of other national traumas.


    "We were called in on the case after the plans had gone missing through two presidential debates," said an FBI spokesman. "I have to caution you, however, that it may take several months or more to translate these documents and discover whether they are, in fact, plans. It's still up in the air because the file folders in which we found them had no labels. Apparently, Mr. Kerry doesn't like to label anything."


    A spokesman for the Kerry-Edwards campaign refused to comment directly on the FBI discovery.


    "Sen. Kerry has said 'I have a plan' and we will leave it at that," said the unnamed source. "The FBI, at the direction of John Ashcroft, is on a fishing expedition to embarrass John Kerry just before the election."


    The source noted that "when Martin Luther King Jr. said 'I have a dream' no one demanded that he prove it. Why should Sen. Kerry be held to higher standard?"


     http://www.scrappleface.com/


     

  • THE HOMECOMING DANCE & SEVERAL OTHER THINGS 




    When Leanne and Curt left for Italy on Thursday, the Irish bride and I were given the job of looking after our three grandchildren, Melanie(15), Jake(12), and John(7).  After two and one half days I feel like a combination busdriver and air traffic controller.


    There have been five baseball games, one trip to the emergency room and the homecoming dance.

    Getting ready for homecoming!


    Hair looks good!





    Looking good from the back!


    The other side looks good too!


    The lucky guy!