Scene and heard

There are no holes on the block! None! The ‘workmen’ seem to like it here though, so they still have their stuff here. There actually is one hole at the corner, across the road. They are apparently keeping my block down to 2 lanes for old times sake.

Previously, 5 ½ months after re-starting work on this block – and I use the word work in the loosest possible sense – they started laying water mains. Odd, as the entire point of the digging was supposedly to do with water pipes.

This is the current condition of the road. They dumped tar on what used to be road and pavement by the intersection with 4th Ave, and made criminally pathetic attempts to smooth it over. I heard a couple of elderly women discussing how difficult it is to navigate that area. My mother, visiting from England and needing a walking frame to get around, has a hell of a time walking there and crossing the street.

It’s truly disgraceful. The corruption is there for all to see. I wonder how much money it has cost so far. And no doubt, within weeks of these people leaving, road workers will have to come and dig everything up and re-lay the road and pavement. At a cost of? And who pays? And which Brooklyn politicians accept generous campaign contributions while handing these shyster companies generous contracts without accountability or minimum standards! In some places, this wouldn’t be allowed!
Footnote: There used to be a drain at the crosswalk. Gone now. So when it rains, we have puddles. People should go to prison for this. I resent my taxes lining the pockets of crooked politicians and enriching cynical ‘businessmen’.

This morning, I put my uncharged iPod into my manbag – yes, I succumbed to the manbag as an alternative to a large workbag and the other extreme, the supermarket plastic shopping bag. The speaker wire was wrapped around the iPod. At work, I removed it from the bag to recharge it, and slipped it briefly into my pocket as I left the office.

How, I ask; exactly how did it get so knotted that it took minutes to untangle it? A couple of weeks back, the wire somehow attached itself to the cord of my camera case in a way that defied known physics.

So how do wires intertwine when nobody is looking? Why will a telephone wire automatically gravitate towards any other nearby wires making it so that one day, when you pick up the phone, it won’t even stretch halfway to your ear? It will of course be a really important phone call that happens with.

I wonder if anyone has ever considered attaching a little camera to several wires to see exactly how this happens when we aren’t watching. I don’t suppose it would be particularly exciting, but if a day’s worth of film was condensed into 30 seconds or so, I think it could fascinate a lot of people. I can just hear the eureka moments: “Oh! So that’s how that happens!”

In the meantime of course, nobody has ever invented a pair of shoe laces that won’t come undone. If only wire could be coated with shoelace material and shoelaces made of telephone cord, at least the right things would be knotted. Hell! You wouldn’t even need to tie your shoelaces. They would tie themselves!

I watched an NBC documentary about Sarah Palin. My mother likened it to what they do in England for royalty, so it was certainly sympathetic and respectful. But while I rarely have any time for conspiracy theories, I was rather interested when they talked about her 5th ‘pregnancy’. Nobody knew she was pregnant and after 6 months she went away on vacation. She decided to give birth in her home town, so flew back at the very end of her pregnancy - AFTER her waters broke!

What I remember from when my ex was heavily pregnant, is that doctors advise against flying in the latter stages of a pregnancy and airlines don’t take women for whom the birth is imminent. They just can’t take the risk of complications, which include mid-air birth. So unless there are different rules for politicians, did an airline really allow a heavily pregnant Sarah Palin to fly? Was it her that was pregnant?

Let’s give her the benefit of some reasonable doubt and say that it was her who gave birth to a Down’s Syndrome baby who had health problems. She went back to work 3 days later! Does this show a great work ethic or absolutely no maternal instincts or even Human instincts, come to that! What mother feels like working so soon after birth? After a difficult birth? After a difficult birth of a sick baby? When I asked the first question, my son Sean responded “the kind of mother who has a 17 year old unwed pregnant daughter.” I should add that none of us are prudes.

But for those who may not be able to figure out what he meant for themselves, a woman with zero emotion or motherly love – and she surely could have neither to leave ‘her’ 3 day old sick baby in the hospital while she goes back to work - could only possibly be an unloving and lousy mother. Perhaps one of those modern parents who mistakes saying yes for being a good parent. These people are responsible for a lot of the teenage monsters in the world. Now while I certainly am not calling Sarah Palin’s children monsters – I don’t know anywhere near enough about them to make any assessment at all – they clearly missed out on what I would call parental love.

Of course though, maybe she didn’t give birth at all, in which case she isn’t a monster, just a damned liar.

Now, supposedly, Bristol Palin is 5 months pregnant, while baby Trig is 5 months old. I'm going to go out on a limb and make a prediction. Bristol's baby will be born very small, either when she is due, or a short while after. And there's a strong chance that the birth will be induced due to 'lateness'. Maybe I'm a little too suspicious, but nothing quite adds up.



I just had to copy a couple of sentences and a photo from this article: http://www.babble.com/CS/blogs/famecrawler/archive/2008/08/30/bristol-palin-pregnancy-is-sarah-palin-s-baby-really-her-daughter-s.aspx

Palin's daughter Bristol who attends an Anchorage high school, was reportedly absent for what would have been the last 4 -5 months of her mother's pregnancy, claiming to be suffering from a prolonged case of mono.

Sarah Palin's water broke while she was attending a conference in Texas. She then proceeded to give a 30-minute speech before taking an 11-12 hour flight home to Alaska to give birth.





Supposedly, she was almost 7 months pregnant here. If you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you.

If you are thinking of signing up with a personal trainer, you should know that Professional Fitness may be an easy option, as they might have a presence in your gym, but ultimately, as I will explain, the only fitness that is really important to them is that of their bank balance. You, the customer, are of no real consequence to them other than as a source of income. This is how I reached my conclusion.

I signed up for 2 sessions a month on an annual contract, at a cost of $80 per month. It seemed reasonable at the time, but for half hour sessions, it isn’t.

I had a trainer who seemed decent. He was certainly a nice enough guy. But people complained about his aggressive tactics in signing up new customers, and he was let go after I’d had 3 or 4 sessions.

I really liked the next guy who trained me. He was much better than the first one and I felt physically stronger. But after a few sessions with him, he had a dispute with the company over hours – they wanted him to work longer hours, but it was a second job for him and he was happy to keep the arrangement he’d had for a couple of years. But they made things difficult for him, so he left.

Onto number three. This guy had been with the company for as long as I had been at the gym. He was the only one who had lasted the 5 or 6 months, so I chose him rather than the person who called me at home, didn’t understand a word I said, and then got threatening when my vocal expression showed that I was clearly upset that I had been called at home by someone who couldn’t understand a word I said. No, I didn’t want that guy as my personal trainer..

Guy number three was very good – the best of the bunch. After I got back from Boston, I had a couple of sessions a week, as I hadn’t used any while there or on the East Brunswick assignment which preceded it. And he was helping – enough that when he told me about a special ’20 for 20’ deal, where if I paid up front, I could get 20 sessions for $400, I signed up. But I still wanted more.

So I signed up with a private person at the gym who goes by the name of Franco. I always saw the condition of the people he trained, and it was much better than the people trained by personal fitness. The only reason I didn’t sign up with him sooner is that if you see the guy, you know he is at the top of his field, so I thought he would be really expensive. But he sells 3, hour long sessions, for $100, or 10 for $300.

For 3 weeks, I saw Franco once and the other guy twice and the results were the best yet. Then Professional Fitness ‘suspended’ trainer #3 without warning. I found out when I went for my session. I hadn’t started using the sessions from the 20 for 20 deal yet, as I was still playing catch-up on the original contract. So I wrote to them at the beginning of August, cancelling the auto-renew on the original contract that I was supposed to know about because everyone reads small print and companies such as this one always tell you stuff like that, and requesting my money back from the as yet unstarted contract. .

I have been having two sessions a week with Franco ever since. Damn! What a difference! I’m in the best shape of my life! I’ve got muscles! Big ones! Even new ones! Yes, my tummy is being a bit stubborn, but it has got smaller and is quite firm.

Last week, I saw a charge for $80 from Professional Fitness against my bank account! So I called them. No apology offered, but they will refund that money. However, they could only refund the $400 if I had cancelled within 3 days of signing the contract or on medical grounds. Forget that they have basically fired 3 trainers already and I have no confidence that they will not do so again. Forget that none of the people who currently work there are as good as the last of their employees who trained me; and sure as hell none of them are a patch on Franco. Forget that I only signed the contract because of the last trainer they had me working out with. It is not their policy to refund money. So I eat $400 or I train with an inferior trainer perhaps once a week.

Since that phone call, I have heard from the other trainer. 6 weeks on, he’s still suspended and they are threatening to fire him if he keeps calling to find out when his 30 day suspension will end. They have informed him that he will have to go to a different location. So screw all the people who signed up with him. We don’t count.

Anyone who might have read this to the end, who is actually considering personal training, forget about this lot and find someone who works for him or herself and who looks the part. Check out their other clients. Talk with them. You might be surprised about the price and you will probably be happy with the results.

I'm really not Barack Obama's greatest supporter, although I sure as hell hope he wins in November, but I don't believe that his pig wearing lipstick comment was about Sarah Palin. I do believe that he sometimes says things that he hasn't quite thought out.

However, after you read this,

http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/sarahpalin.asp,

you might just agree that she really is a pig wearing lipstick. A truly nasty piece of work!

He apparently doesn't listn too hard to himself:

http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/325.html

Republicans hypocrites? Nooooooo! Watch this clip from the Daily Show of various commentators and politicians and their short memories and (I want to say unbelievable, but it is actually highly believable) ridiculous double standards.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=184086&title=sarah-palin-gender-card