Aim High Sweetheart, Aim High

Beach Muscles

What are beach muscles?

The look good on the beach but...

I used to teach my brother about having them too.

Branching Out

I'm playing in my first competitive chess tournament next month. It's a big tournament.

And yes, I'm playing in the lowest division (which is high, U1200) alongside my son.

I'm not afraid of having to play him - after all he beats me 50%-60% of the time now.

But I am petrified of embarrassing myself - losing all my games, losing to Asian girls less then 4 feet tall, etc.

In life it's hard to do new things - excuses not to branch out, not to take "risks" can be formidable opponents.

Yeah, this isn't really a RISK or a wild adventure....but I agonized a lot over the decision to sign up.

I know. Pathetic.

Wanna Get Depressed?

Then watch this movie - CLICK HERE.

It is very, very well done. though.

Peaking Too Soon!

Check this out, Carrie Underwood singing with that *government school* 5th grade choir from Staten Island (NY):

I don't care what any of y'all say....Carrie is freakin' HOT, off-the-chart HOT.

That little dude who got to sing with her didn't even get a hug???

He could have, and should have(!), moved in for a smooch. I myself would have and perhaps even planted it on her lips!

Still it's pretty cool to get to sing with her like that.

Though in all likelihood the poor kid has hit the apex of his life at the ripe old age of 11!

This happens a lot in life too.  Think Al Bundy, Biff Loman, and most of the high school jocks you grew up with.

The Short Bus...For Parents!

What do y'all think about summer camp - all-day camp, for 1 week, for the princely sum of $175?

Oh wait, that's just for the "busing". Camp in the NYC-area is essentially $100 a day, $500 a week PLUS the $175 for the bus if needed. So it pushes $700.

PER KID!

Have three kids and the summer "babysitting" is 2k per week, for 7 or 8 weeks.

We've done more camp this year than ever before.

First they both did a 2-day chess camp.

Then they did a week of VBS (Vacation Bible School). That was only 3 hours per day and was free. (We donated $200 nonetheless).

Then I sent my son to a week of chess (and soccer) camp run by a Russian grandmaster (only 23 kids). He liked it so much I sent him for a second week. (Plus our normal chess coach has been unavailable. He teaches all summer at the famed USDAN camp (costs $800 per week) on Long Island.

My daughter did a large, multi-sport camp for one of those weeks. It was at best, "okay".

This week she is doing art camp for $475 (9 am to 3 pm). It's not really a camp but rather a small class 2-5 kids at a local studio.

My son was SUPPOSED to be doing Cub Scout camp this week starting today. We were there at 7:25 am waiting for the bus with another family....only the bus never came!

So I got a raw deal out of that. I had not only my son all day today, but also the other family's boy instead of the day-off I was supposed to enjoy! Incidentally, this Scout camp is pretty good. It's all day at the Reservation, and only costs $350 for the week including the bus. My son absolutely loves it; he's outside all day long; so we pretty much have to send him.

The short bus?

For the most part that's what camp busing looks like. All summer long there are these little buses zipping all over the streets. In the morning and then again at the end of the day. The prestigious expensive camps will have their names on signs in the bus windows. Some even have all the kids' names written on the windows. Whatever.

I believe that most of these camps suck. The summer is ideally for free time and most of these poor kids have already been overscheduled and harried all year long.

These camps are glorified, expensive babysitting. They are staffed by 19 year kids for crying out loud.

But if both parents are working....camp is of course a necessary evil.

On the other hand, there are PLENTY of parents that are home all day long who do nothing (order out, have maids, etc.) and still ship their kids off to camp all summer long.

Camp was not such a big thing when I was a deprived child (think "Angela's Ashes"!) growing up in Worcester, Massachusetts. My siblings and I, when we got older, did maybe 1 or at the most 2 weeks of summer camp. And I don't remember it being so prevalent up in Boston when we lived there from 2005-2010. But then again my kids were much younger and I may have just not noticed it.

For sure though, camp is huge here in New York.

While waiting at a major intersection this morning for the Cub Scout bus...

I counted no less than 100 other short buses that went by!

On the 100th one and 40 minutes past the scheduled pick-up time, one I decided to cut my losses and take the kids home.

Dumpster - Day 1

No demolition of the basement yet.

First we have to declutter the accumulated junk from my wife's family (50 year span!).

That pic doesn't do service to how much crap I pulled out already. Many of the larger things aren't in the dumpster yet because I need lifting assistance.

There were tons of old tools. Large wrenches, 50 chisels, 25 hammers, innumerable coffee cans full of rusty nails, etc. Two massive desks that had to be disassembled to fit out the narrow doorways. Steel shelves bound by stripped rusty screws that also had to be taken apart.

I was so filthy yesterday....by boogers were black!

We will fill this thing up in no time. Junk is still all over our attic, the garage, the shed, and the yard.

Still haven't decided what to do about the demolition. The contractor's $4,500 seems steep.

It looks like there are few neanderthals on Craigslist who claim they will, "beat any estimate."

I'm thinking more like $2,500 for a demo. I will call the cavemen either tonight or tomorrow after I finish emptying the basement.

Verizon wants $135 to move our internet connection upstairs. On the phone I told them to, "go eff themselves." Not really.

It's bull$hit. We pay them nearly $300 a month for cell phones, color TV, a house phone that doesn't work, and internet.

And when we had it installed originally - 3 years ago - they had the stones to charge me like $450 or something. I'm pretty sure I blogged it.

I was in shock. Cable installation was FREE every other place I lived. After all, they are going to get over $1,000 per year back from a new customer.

But I think this is one of those typical NYC-are jam-jobs. Verizon figures you live in NY....so they can charge you more. This crap really pisses me off.

Everytime I call a service or contractor for a price the first thing they want to know is, "What town do you live in?"

They pulled the same crap up in Cohasset, MA when we lived there. Some maid service wanted $1,000 to clean the entire house!

How much does FiOs installation cost where y'all live?

The Human Zoo

Here you are:

The Food Stamp Program, administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is proud to be distributing this year the greatest amount of free Meals and Food Stamps ever, to 46 million people.

Meanwhile, the National Park Service, administered by the U.S. Department of the Interior, asks us "Please Do Not Feed the Animals." Their stated reason for the policy is because "The animals will grow dependent on handouts and will not learn to take care of themselves."

Hah!

Much thanks to O'Jabroni for that one.

Do My Own Basement?

Our basement is in desperate need of being "re-done".

It's already finished....but there's mold and nastiness throughout.

But the problem here on Long Island is that these contractors sodomize you, in terms of price.

They are rude-a$$ mofos to boot!

I mean how much do you think it should cost to demo, reframe, rewire, put up sheetrock, hang a drop ceiling, and paint a basement?

I'm curious what some of you in flyover country would pay for this.

Personally, I don't think it should cost more than $10,000.

But you watch, they'll try to charge me 50k!

That's why I'm sort of thinking about trying to do it myself. Well I checked out some book on how to do it at the library anyway.

I can demo it, right?

I just bought a reciprocating saw for $60 on Amazon. A dumpster here costs $350-$500.

I'm a little nervous about cutting into a pipe or wire - but I think I can handle that.

One guy, a contractor who told me he could get me a dumpster for "only $800" (!) said that the problem with demo'ing your own place is "controlling the dust."

I'll bet I can figure that out.

I'm seriously thinking about trying to find someone who lives 100 miles away to do it. They can sleep here. I'll help.

Doing any of this work myself would, of course, amount to a complete waste of my time in the long run.

But I don't think I can stomach a bunch of criminals coming into my house and robbing me for a few months or however long they drag it out.

Lawyers - In Every Nook and Cranny!

I'm afraid to even Google what it is!

Aloha, Golf Update

I played only one round of golf in Florida this winter - over 5 weeks!

And I've played only two rounds of golf here in New York in 2013 - warm-ups for my 5 day tournament down on the Jersey Shore....which I did play in back in early June.

But that's it!

No rounds at Eisenhower (get in line at 3am)....no rounds at Bethpage Black either.

I beat a ton of balls at the range in the spring, probably more than ever. My ballstriking is really getting better. But my short game is still, well, an *opportunity*. Screw that, it SUCKS.

The problem is that I still simply have no access to legitimate putting and chipping greens. This is New York. Country clubs cost $$$$$$. And no public courses have decent or available practice areas.

So I'm frustrated that I don't have the resources (time/money) to focus on my short game. But whatever, I can't complain too much. Ultimately I'm sure I'll figure out a way to overcome this obstacle - I always do. A putting green in my backyard??? A few neighbors have them. $5,000???

My wife is planning a trip to Hawaii, a family trip in the winter. She asked what kind of car we should rent and I said, "One of those Sebring convertibles or whatever everyone rents there..."

I said, "The only problem is that they are small and might not have enough room for our suitcases and my golf clubs."

But I was, of course, joking. I had no plans, not even any thoughts about playing golf over there. That's how fast golf is fading on my priority hierarchy.

However I married a fine woman. She declared that I was to bring my clubs (renting a minivan), and I was to play....no matter what the cost ($200-$300 per round).

So I just started Googling Big Island golf courses...

That's where those pics are from.

I still may skip the golf and override my wife. Probably get zinged for extra luggage to the tune of $150...plus the green fees.

We'll see.

The best thing about these trips is never the trips themselves. Getting there is always an anticlimactic bummer.

It's really the hype, the months of anticipation that make them worthwhile, sort of.

I Accidentally Watched This

It depressed me but did the job.

It reminded me why I don't follow all that crap and should keep me away for some time.

I'm still procrastinating on getting the gun my wife wants me to get. (6 month waitlist for a permit in my county!)

Not for nuthin', but you got to try to shoot a *perp* in the leg, first.

A New Rush!

Over the past year I've done quite a bit of SAT/ACT math prep.

Not for me, but for a bunch of kids who are hopelessly hellbent on the *credentialing* route to life success (i.e. college).

You see every 20-30 points on the math SAT score does indeed make a big difference on one's college prospects.

But how does a student significantly improve a math score that's already 700 (out of 800).

It's not easy to do. A 700 might only be 3-5 questions wrong on the whole exam. And oftentimes these are simply silly mistakes.

Of course I know precisely how a student can do it but quite frankly most kids won't put in the required effort - or they started so late they simply don't have the time.

Nonetheless I wrote this book/problem set of about several hundred Hard SAT questions aimed at this niche market. You see the conventional prep books might only have 5-8 hard questions in them.

(There is only one hardcover book out there, one guy who did something similar. But I can easily out-market him, out-deliver, under-price,...and I have a few other tricks up my sleeve - that is if it seems worth my time to get aggressive.)

The other day a woman who runs one of these enrichment/test prep centers was bugging me for a copy of my book to use in her summer class.

So I stayed up all night editing, emailed it off to a printer, and they should be here in a day or so.

They cost $5 each to print and bind and I will sell them to her, generously, for $15. My first 10-lot will net $100, cash.

No biggie, right?

Oh but it is.

I've never really made and sold anything like this. I've never enjoyed passive income before. I've always had to trade my time for money. (Or gamble in financial markets.)

I was really surprised at how good I feel about it.

Still Breathing

The video above is pretty cool.  Unreal dancing!

Apparently the song - which I hear on the radio these days - is 3.5 years old!

Here's the new version:



So what have y'all been doing since I checked out of this blog?

Just watching the financial bubble and the tyranny of American gov't expand, I guess.

There's nothing for an individual to do really. I mean watching and reading other angry people talk about it is a waste of precious time.

Over the last 12 months I've been teaching and tutoring math a lot. Basically Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays on top of occasional weekday nights.

So I'm homeschooling educating my own kids outside the system all week long and then teaching in all my scant spare time on top of it!

Not only have I had no time to blog here on Morons, I've had little time to work on HomeschoolDad.com or, more importantly, the larger scale infoproducts I've been trying to put together.

But I have managed to put out two small ebooks on Kindle - and I'm just about ready to publish another ("Hard SAT Math") which has more potential than the first two.

This week both kids are at camp(day) so I finally have some uninterrupted PC time. The Princess is at a multi-sport camp (only $100 per day!) and the Prince is at a chess camp.

Interestingly, I found the chess camp because some random guy came up to me at a chess tournament and said he recognized my son from the internet - probably from this video.

Anyway the guy was very impressed with my son's math....although not with his chess! He introduced himself as a Russian Grandmaster. We talked about chess teaching philosophies a little and he mentioned he ran a summer camp nearby...

I'll try to check in a few more times this week.

'Old Coot' Parents, A Font of....

Despite 40 years of experience and an athletic background, my father is a terrible golfer - a 29-handicap!

But that's what happens when one never practices, never studies the golf swing, won't experiment, etc. And now old age is afflicting his game too.

He told me that he recently bought new clubs. Yeah, that will help!

He ordered the clubs you see above from Amazon for $700.

Say what?

Why is he spending this much money? This is the same guy who won't turn the heat on in his house (bedroom record low is 43 degrees!) - the same guy who wouldn't so much as buy a pack of gum for me and my siblings to split.

I told him he had no business spending that much on clubs and that mine, top-of-the-line Titleists, pre-owned, and 6 years old cost me only about $180.

Then it got ridiculous.

He claimed that he *got screwed* because the irons came and bore a price tag of $600.

I asserted that he was not passively screwed, that he in fact SCREWED HIMSELF for not shopping around.

Obviously, someone is acting like a reseller on Amazon. They are advertising things marked up from where they know they can buy them....and hoping for suckers that don't know how to Google!

I did a 2-second Google on my cordless cellphone and found the same exact set for $350 (see above).

But I could not, I'm sure, make a dent in his staunch belief that he had been victimized.

Changing the topic, slightly, I proceeded to berate him for ordering clubs online that he had not tried out first.

In his mind, after 40 years of golf, he maintains that it's impossible to try out clubs before you buy them. Now, understand that due to its 5-month golf season, Massachusetts does not exactly have many golf stores with indoor practice ranges. There are some, but very few.

But his lack of resourcefulness was appalling. I told him that when I was driver shopping, I simply scanned the range for people with decent looking clubs....and I asked if I could take a few whacks. No one has ever said no. Of course pro shops let you do this too. They put tape on the club, you try it out, and then go buy it somewhere else where its cheaper.

Oh....what are you going to do. My parents pinched every penny for years and now that they have a little they spend it like it's water.

What I've realized is that there are 2 categories of cheap people.

In the first are people that are cheap by necessity - i.e. they don't have any money.

And in the second are those that are cheap because they appreciate the value of money.

(Probably a third category of mentally ill misers too....)

The problem inherent with income-strapped pinchers is that they also get used to spending nearly 100% of what comes in. So new money (Social Security, mortgage paid off, inheritance, etc.) simply burns a hole in their pocket.

Worthwhile Screed

Thanks to reader,....let's call him "AnotherSlab", for this one!

Stealing My Original Ideas, Again!

Long-time readers will recall that it was in fact me who:

1) Starting calling old people, "fossils", way back in the early 80s.

2) That I was the one who came up with the idea for the "scoopable Tostito".

3) That it was my idea to for a male cologne that smelled like the Beach.

4) Etc.

And now this - dumping the BMI for a simple physical length ratio?

My college buddies will concur, that 20 years ago I coined and utilized constantly what should most certainly have been, a Pulitzer-Prize-winning metric very similiar to this...

But I called it the "T-A ratio" instead.

And the higher the ratio....the better!

I Can Blame Everything On Schools...

Hah! A "bully".

I don't know who Cruz is, but he appears to be some upstart whom the thugs will most certainly smear, relentlessly to the point of Marginalization. This is what they do with any potential rival. And quite frankly, they seem to be undefeated thus far.

Calling people "bullies"...

I've had thug-supporting, eco-pagan socialists call me that before in arguments, political arguments. (I was insisting too much on facts, logic, etc.)

Remember how they, and I mean Big Media constantly referred to GWB?



Why isn't that a form a bigotry? Why is it okay to impugn frat boys?

All this, and I've said it before on this blog, I believe goes back to *school*. That's where the jock/nerd divide begins.

And guess what, I believe it's 100% artificial. I believe it's manufactured by the system - even if unintentional.

Yeah, and as if confiscating people's money, jamming through legislation, and buying off whole constituencies with said money isn't bullying...

Money Tree

This old mulberry tree in our backyard has been ravaged twice by storms in the past few years - most recently by the post-Sandy snowstorm. It's time for it to go.

I do have that new chainsaw (16 in?) and have thought about felling it myself.

But do you see all those wires behind it?

Plus I've never done anything like that before.

AND it is technically illegal to cut down a tree in your yard (yes!) in our town.

In fact one family begged to cut down a tree in their yard, for years, but the town wouldn't let them

Guess what, it crushed their house during hurricane Sandy! They are suing, naturally.

I imagine if I tried to do it myself and took out the power lines for the whole neighborhood....I'd be in a heap of $hit - or possibly dead in a non-figurative sense!

Question for y'all - how much do you think they charge to cut down a tree like that in a Wall Street town? In a town where math tutors make $100 an hour and plumbers charge $150...

Asian Invasion!

I'm not talking about Queens, NY either...

Do any y'all know what those are?

They are bamboo shoots - from my backyard!

There's a shut-in/hoarder diagonally across from our backyard. Anyway, her yard was so overgrown that the town stepped in and cleared it out. She's still there though, collecting, amassing, etc.

But from her back yard into all of her neighbors' has spread this bamboo. What's scary is that I chopped it all down and yet it's coming back.

In fact I read that bamboo is an *invasive species*; that it's the fastest growing plant on earth (but not as fast as Big Government!); that it has an underground root structure that is resistant to weed killers; and it can only be eradicated by a compelete physical removal of lots of soil - so much that you will have to bring new soil in.

Yikes.

And apparently this has become an epidemic in this area.  Towns are passing ordinances banning residents from planting it.

Of course it's likely too late for that.  And it reminds me of that Nile Monitor Lizard problem in FL which was probably introduced by pet owners.

Anyone else ever have this bamboo problem?

iMorons, Multiplying

Hah!

At Easter my 10 year old niece said to me, "Hey you have the same phone I have!"

And she did.

The phone only cost $70....to buy, though.

She had a full data/email plan on it.

I remarked that that cost $30 per month. Figure at least another $10 per month for the phone and this little girl's annual telecommunication budget was pushing $500!

MoneybagsSIL - Oh,...I wouldn't even think about the money.

CaptiousUncle - What if she loses it?

MoneybagsSIL - That's what insurance is for!

So she pays for insurance too.

Of course the other daughter has one as well...

Everyone today is so nuts, retarded, and addicted with their phones, I quite frankly don't know what to do or how to deal with it.  Can we escape Earth somehow?

I mean really, was everyone just as dumb and just as loser-ish before cordless cell phones???

The Next LeBron???

14 years young?

Wow!!!

Slave Shuttling

Hah!

But I don't think it's necessarily the commute.

It's more accurately the *slavery*.

Because....what do slaves do to alleviate their misery?

They eat junk, smoke, and engross themselves in the mindless faux drama of others via color TV, spectator sports, and the God-awful *news cycle*.

Of course NO ONE teaches kids to think long term.  No one warns them that they ought to figure out how to avoid the grind - no less that they CAN.

Oh yeah, it's the *sitting* too.  Sit on a train or in a car....sit all day at a desk.

NYPD - Now Accepting Applications!

But the pension deal ain't as sweet as it used to be (a mere 20 years)...

The police may have guns, but they aren't the only ones.

Look how careful the two of them were until back-up came.  It wouldn't have taken much for that to erupt into an ugly riot.  I mean the only reason everyone hung around was to harass the cops, no?

When I worked in Manhattan and lived in Brooklyn (8-9 years ago) I used to dread getting on the train home when *school* just got out.  The kids were in packs and always trying to impress each other with unruly behavior.

Boston Blows

Longtime reader and content provider (via his antics) DrMark was .75 miles (yes, racing) from the finish when the bomb blew.

Biologically, I may even be related to him.  But I won't admit to that in person ever, or again on this blog.

Hearing of the bombing, my son asked, "Is DrMark dead?"

At which point I assured John that he was okay.  I pointed out that there was NO WAY DrMark would be nearing the finish in 4 hours!

Furthermore, I told him that DrMark had 'built-in bomb protection' in terms of his corpulence.

Yes, I kid you not.  Fat guys can run marathons! - though technically he didn't finish this one...

I did read/hear that initially Obama wouldn't  call the incident *terror*.  Figures.  Not that I really care.

I mean some dippy broad yesterday told me she was extremely anxious to see what the President and other politicians would say.

WHY????!!!!!

The terrorists don't need to attack us....we're already goners if the public is at all like her.

So what happens next?

Well Boston is going to at the same time, change NOTHING about their naive geo-political stances and they will likely make a huge, perennial deal about this attack in terms of memorials and whatnot.

They will, of course, blame Bush and other preferred bogeymen...

Time Flies

Thanks to PrivateCaller for this one.

If this doesn't make you feel old....then wake up from your nap, wipe the drool off your face, and think about it for a second.  Do the math...

Alternatively, you can go look for your glasses.

Why Couldn't It Have Been LeBron???

Sorry.  Celtics fan here...

You'll Shoot SOMEONE ELSE'S Eye Out

Anyone who knows me, knows that I am VIOLENTLY against video games - that I won't let my kids near those dumb, abused kids who are fiddling with handheld game players at parks, at restaurants, in cars, etc.

I'm not afraid of the content so much as I'm afraid of brain cell murder.

Anyways, check out this decent, interesting article I just came across - On School Shootings - The Huffington Post Doesn't Want You To Read This.

Beware The Warmth of Spring!

Hah!

I just saw this on Drudge - "200+ Teens Storm Philly Streets".

As someone who spent many years in the original City of Bro Love, it was just yesterday when the temperature hit 80 degrees that I remarked, "I wouldn't want to be on the streets of Philadelphia today - the first warm day of spring."

That's how it's always been.  Once a buddy and I were caught in ungentrified North Philly on such an early warm spring day.  We were driving back from a round of golf in his *gay* little Alfa Romeo convertible, two UPenn students,...

Well we tried to take a shortcut over to Broad St and well, we practically pooped our pants.  In fact we started running stop signs and red lights because we were petrified to stop at populated *corners*.

Bracket Buster

Did ya'll see that kid's leg snap in the NCAA Tournament yesterday?

Well now you have!

You are most welcome.

You know there was a time when I could name the starting fives AND the benches of almost all the top 30 college basketball teams.

But those days are long gone.

In fact before this weekend (I watched 3 games) I couldn't name a SINGLE player in the entire country (outside of Lawrence Funderburke and Jeff Lebo).