Clear as Mud

I think I heard something about going through a financial crisis, I mean it is all over the news. Well anyway I was listening to a talk show on the radio and the host was interviewing a congressman who is on some finance committee. The host asked the congressman to explain what was actually going on. The congressman was trying to explain, when he said a certain thing is causing the problem and that he cannot explain what it is. And I thought that if this guy who is on a finance committee in congress and can't explain it, how the f--k am I going to understand it. Holy crap. And all they want is 700 billion dollars to make it go away. HELP!

Anyway here is a quick explanation about where the two parties stand. It is very clear.

The Imperfect Storm

For Sale:

25 sheets of plywood
35 gallon jugs of water
25 AAA batteries
25 AA batteries
25 C batteries
1 Honda generator
1 battery operated radio
1 row boat

Well hurricane Kyle was really something. Here on the mid coast of Maine it was horrible. With wind gusts in the 1/2 mile and hour range. And the rain it was just horrible, my shoes got completely wet. If you can't tell I am being facetious. We got nothing form hurricane Kyle, maybe a little more rain, but that was it. For the first hurricane to hit Maine in 17 years it was a bust. I guess it is good that the news programs paint a picture of worst case scenario. But they really make you feel the anxiety. Well,any who I am glad it did not come close to making land. Now what am I going to do with all this crap, open a hardware store?

A Hard Act to Follow

Fridays Spin

Friday-Spin class-Surprise-No Sandy-Oh Crap it's Evil-mouth drops open-realization-expect the worst-same routine as Monday-Evil says more standing-start class-Mary-Dede-Dolly-your pal-seated climb-6 minutes each-waiting for standing-no standing-come to conclusion Evil lying-sweat-leg ache-Evil smirking- still waiting to get off saddle-hard workout-much sweat-betrayal-your pal complaining-Evil said wasn't that a great ride-your pal-yes master-clean up-head home-rest.

Lottery Loser

Well I did not win the Power Ball again. I guess I'm not that lucky. Now I have to get rid of the four leaf clover, rabbits foot and am going to now, not step in cow feces any longer. Also I'll have to call the real estate people and stop the buy on that 5 acres on the bay. And then a call must be made to the architect and builder to hold off on that new home. The next call will be to the Porsche dealership to cancel that 911 GT3. Also I'll have to drop by the foundry and stop that complete solid gold outfit I was having made for myself. And no more life time supply of Snicker bars and the removal of the personal Hagen Daz ice cream maker. I have to make alot of calls or I can just wait till after the next drawing which will probably be in the 250 million dollar range. Maybe I'll get lucky. Where is that 3 legged rabbit?

A Special Comment on Subway

Nice Underpants.

Yesterday was such a beautiful day that I decided to go for a hike on Bald Mountain. The weather was so pleasant and on the way up to the top I passed only two people. I thought that now I was alone, because there were only two cars in the parking lot. So I was really surprised when I exited the woods at the summit and found there was someone else up there as well. And what surprised me more was that this man was sitting on a rock in his underwear sunning himself. All of his other clothes were hanging on branches surrounding him. Now all the times that I have been hiking I have never crossed paths with anybody in their underwear. Well you could have knocked me over with a feather. So I slowly made my way down the trail with out disturbing my under panted friend. All the way down the trail I kept thinking that this person was going to come up behind me and smash me in the head with a big rock and all the while he would only be wearing his underpants. Oh the horror of it all. So I was really startled when he suddenly appeared in back of me, fully dressed. Well it turned out his name was Remy and that he was from France and he was visiting friends in Rockland that he had met when he got involved in Outward Bound. He was a very nice person and we talked for about a half and hour. He just kept saying how he thought this area, the mid coast, was such a wonderful place to live. He said that the friends that he met on his Outward Bound experience were friends for life. He was a very nice person even if did like to set around on top of a mountain in his underwear. So don't make snap judgement about all the people you meet in their underwear.

How to Get a Brand New Corvette for Free

If you want a brand new Corvette for free you should head off to gum drop land where all the people eat candy all day and instead of walking they float. What I really want to tell you about, is the spin class today. It was one of Evils most horrific workout yet. It was 99 percent sitting, so there were no standup's to stretch your legs. It was six six minute segments. You start off on a hill and you add tension every minute for four minutes and then you release the tension a little and pickup the pace and after a minute you pickup the pace a little more. It was agonizing my legs were on fire and I was sweating like Michael Jackson at Chucky Cheese . And all the while I was clinging to life Evil, had this scary little smirk on her face. You could see she was all full of herself " Look at those bastard, wimps I tells ya. Why you couldn't keep up with my grandmother ( Nana Evil)." Oh, she was happy as clam today. Well you know what "BRING IT ON" I can take it, I think.

Saturdays Spin

Saturdays spin class consisted of a hung over Mary, who partied into the night on Friday. And Naomi who is a summer resident, a couple of interlopers. One of them was a man who took the complete class dressed in a sweatshirt and jeans. He must have smelled a little ripe when he got home. And last but not least, your pal. Missing was Dede who has come down with some kind of sickness probably passed to her from that new boyfriend. And Heidi who has suddenly gotten twelve more children to take to all kinds of sporting events. It was a Dan class and a good work out. Up next is Evil who has been really nice as of late, I think she is up to no good. You never know what she is cooking up in that dungeon in her giant mansion. We will wait and see.


Here is a song that Dan plays sometimes in his workouts from No Doubt

I Almost Won

Well I did not win the 176 million dollar Power Ball lottery, but I am going to try again. I came close though I had no numbers, not one. That is what usually happens when I play the lottery. I have been playing the lottery for maybe 10 years and the biggest payout I ever got was 52.00. If my calculations are right I have to win 2,028 dollars to break even. But I will continue to play every week, because someone has to win and with the odds at 1 in 147,107,962.00 I think I have a good chance. And watch out if I did win, I would probably be broke in a week. And if I did win I wouldn't forget all you little people. Like whats her name and him.

Here is a little Lottery clip from your pal.

Have a Ball

Here is some mindless entertainment from your pal.

I'm Confused

This was sent to me in a email from my buddy Barry. It is very interesting.


I'm a little confused. Let me see if I have this straight.....If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you're 'exotic, different.

'Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, a quintessential American story.

If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.
Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you're a maverick.

Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable.

Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well grounded.If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years 20as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any real leadership experience.If your total resume is: loc al weather girl, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you're qualified to become the country's second highest ranking executive.If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real Christian.

If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a Christian.

If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.

If , while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state 's school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant , you're very responsible.

If your wife is a Harvard graduate laywer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values don't represent America's.

If you're husband is nicknamed 'First Dude', with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaskafrom the USA, your family is extremely admirable.



OK, much clearer now.--

A Puzzle............have a ball

Here is a puzzle for your pleasure. It is a picture that a friend had sent me of her dog Kip. Have fun and go here .

Barney Get the Phone

I was reading today of a dog who dialed 911 when his owner was having a seizure. This dog and dogs like him, are trained to recognize the signs of medical problems and react. While I was reading this all I could think about was our dog, Barney, and what he would have done if I was in some kind of medical emergency. First thing would have been, to bark at the mailman and then grab the phone and eat it. And after staring at me for 20 minutes, would take a a crap in his favorite spot in the dinning room rug. Then top it off by barking for 15 minutes to go out while I slowly head twards the bright light. And I know as I lay there an decompose he would roll all over my stinking body. What a pooch.

Where is that music coming from?

Mondays workout was a killer as usual. Evil is in top form and for the workout music she used alot of grunge music, as this was for Dede's birthday, who is somewhere between 12 and 45 . I like this music alot, it has a great beat to workout too, but now I can't get the Pearl Jam song "Jeremy" out of my head. I know when I wake up tomorrow that I will be exhausted from singing it in my sleep. Thanks alot Evil, Dede and Pearl Jam.


I would give you the Pearl Jam song but they block it on you tube. So I will give you a song that you can have stuck in your head for a couple of days.

Help Out

Today after spin class, a women who has been taking the class for a couple of days told us all about her daughter, who has leukemia, who has entered a contest put on by Lance Armstrongs charity "Livestrong". Contestants from across the country uploaded original videos describing how they dared to make a healthy or positive change in their life or the life of someone else and posted it as a video response to Lance Armstrong's call out video on YouTube. Her daughter has been picked as one of the finalist. So if you want to help this women and her daughter out go to THIS SITE and vote for Casey Beaupres entrey. Thank you.

Selective Shorts

Sunday my wife and I bought tickets for a reading, at the Camden Opera House, of short stories, that are broadcast on NPR's program, Selective Shorts. If you have never heard the show it is wonderful. Most of the time the stories are read by celebrities. At this event one of the readers was the actor Keir Dullea, reading the Jack London short story "Make Westing". It was a great story of a sea captain that had a single minded task of getting around Cape Horn no matter how many lives he endangered. A great story, but the story that was most compelling to me was read by Isaiah Sheffer who is usually the host on the Selective Short program. The story called " The Diver" , written by a Mainer Lewis Robinson, had kind of a dark side to it. The story is about a carefree boating trip that turns into a surreal power struggle. It was a wonderful two hours. The one thing that I was looking for at the end of the evening was to ask a question of Keir Dullea. I wanted to ask him to repeat his most famous line from one of his movies "2001 A Space Odyssey.
"Open the podbay doors Hal"

It's I Got Nothing Sunday

Giant Burger

Last night we had gone out to a local restaurant, Cody's. A very nice casual place with good atmosphere and decent food. And I ordered a mushroom burger for my dinner. When it was brought to the table it was huge, about 6 inches tall. Trying to eat this burger is very difficult because the height. While trying to eat this burger, I picture myself looking like the python eating some large animal on the animal planet. The python has to unhinge its jaw to take in the large yummy treat. And that is exactly what I had to do to eat this giant burger. Needless to say my jaw hurts and because it is stretched so much, I had to attach a small skid plate to the bottom of my chin to keep from rubbing the skin off on the floor. Needless to say it is not a very good look for your pal.

Please Stop Protecting Me !

I can't take the cap off of the Balsamic vinegar, why because it has a plastic seal over it and it will not come off without using a blasting cap. The wonderful people who bring us our food and drug products are trying to keep all of us safe. But what they have done, is keep our citizens from doing something they enjoy, and they have caused us all to spend most of their time trying to open a bottle of aspirins . And have given us pulled muscles trying to open a cereal pack. In their zeal to protect us from every thing that could harm us in our life time, we now struggle with every day .

For instance, have you ever been in a home that has a toddler running or crawling around. Just try to open a cabinet to get a glass. Impossible, it would take MacGyver three episodes to open it with all the childproofing. And what about the resealable packaging. You just cut off the top and by pressing the two ends together it seals it like magic. But it takes about 15 tries and by then you just want to scream and find a Tupperware container. And what about twist off caps. These are my favorites. You grab the the cap and twist, only it does not break the seal ,instead the whole top of the bottle is spinning. That's when you get a knife and try to cut through those little bits that are holding the top on, but no you can' because the knife slips and cut your wrist and there is blood every where. And its off to the emergency room where you have to try to explain what you were really doing, trying to remove a bottle cap, and not trying to commit suicide.
Can't we all just live on the edge and make life's a little easier. I don't know how the people of my generation ever made it to adulthood, with easy open caps and cabinets that were always open. I guess we were just lucky.

A Visual for Mary

The picture is a little reminder for Mary when she is setting up the bikes for spin class. Today's workout was a good hard workout and what made it even better was that Jim did not go into cardiac arrest. You see, Jim has been away for about 3 weeks and this was his first time back. And you know what , he survived. Good for Jim. I like Jim he is a fine fellow. And one of the reasons I am glad he made it is that I would have had to get off my bike and see if he was still breathing. This would have brought my heart rate way down, and would have really turned me off. But he made it and everything went off without a hitch. Except for Mary giving my bike to the interloper. Bad Mary.

He's a Big Boy

Recently we had guests from afar, Staten Island. And the couple had two children, the girl was 12 and the boy was 9. Mario the boy did not look like a 9 year old, he looked about 12 years old. And I was wondering why the kids of today are so much more mature looking and you no what I came up with, nothing at all. All I kept thinking about was a hippopotamus in a clown hat for some strange reason. Hey but that's just how your pals mind works. Anywho I am supplying a picture of Mario and I on our way to the Lobster parade in Rockland Maine.

All is Normal Again

Mondays workout was great. Evil is back and is in mid season form. With great music and a terrific workout. Today the music for the workout was for Heidi, as it was her birthday recently. I don't know were Evil finds these tunes but she comes up with some beauties. Heidi's request was to have the music for the workout from each decade starting form the 50's. The first song was "What Ever Lola Wants" with a dance beat, it was great. Evil is a master at putting these workouts together. I guess all the time in her lair pays off. But the big news was that the Saturday spin class will be on. The people at the YMCA have come to their senses and have seen the light and there will be no change. The head of the department came into the class, and announced it. She singled your pal out for inappropriate comments I had written ,on a comment card, after learning they were going to cancel the Saturday class. What's the matter can't they take a couple of off color remarks, or couple of Hitler references. Lighten up, jeez Louise. So any who, the squeaky wheel always gets the oil. And our Saturday class was real squeaky.

I Hate Sumba

On Saturday at the Y our spin class found out that we were no longer having a class. The Saturday class is very popular as it is early, 730 AM. So you can get your days workout in and have the rest of the day to stuff your face. Well any way in their infinite wisdom the Y people decided to have a class called Sumba, sounds like gumba. Now this will be offered at 745 in the Am on Saturday morning. In the real world it would seem to you pal that anyone who took this class will probable be in the high teens or twenty age group, and that they would not want to get up that early to go to the Y and Sumba. The real kick in the crotch area is that the people who take the Saturday spin class are loyal and always show up to do the class. Some days in the winter there are not enough bikes for the spinners, so it is a real popular exercise.



I am now trying to figure out away that I can sabotage the class. One plan of attack would be to take the class in a hot pink thong. Or better yet the underwear that is pictured above. Coupled with my total lack of rhythm and a thong the class would last 2 days at most. It could work.

A Little Hypocracy

The Goddess has Emerged

Evil has returned from her lair to try to kill me once again. That's right the Evil Spin Goddess is back and she is on a mission. And that mission is to make my heart burst. It could be my fault for not doing any exercise for two weeks, but that would be crazy to blame your pal. Any who, yesterday workout was a killer and it was good to see Evil back rejuvenated and with a single mission, to kill all of us.

I did have a little scare yesterday during the ride. I kept checking my heart monitor, which was spending a lot of time in the upper level. But one moment when I looked down to check, it read 00. First thought was "Evil you have won" I am actually going to die. But it was a false reading and when right back to the 1000 beat level. So she has not won yet, but someday I know she will get me. I can see it in that evil little smirk on her face when she looks into my eyes, "Next time I'll get you".

Science It's a Gas

In school, preferably 8Th grade, for a science project I decided to explore the topic of my personal flatulence, that is what it takes to make the perfect fart and where do they come from. What kinds of foods and drinks induce the build up of gas. It was all very scientific. But the school administration did not have the same level of scientific curiosity that I did. My booth at the science fair lasted about 1 hour and I received a grade of F for all my hard work. I don't know if it was the subject or my greeting for visitors to my booth. Instead of a welcoming hand shake I welcomed people by saying "Pull my finger".

Spinning Once More

Back too spin class today after a two week lay off. It was like I had just started spin, it was really tough and my heart rate got to the top very quickly. I don't want to say that I had been away a long time but I had to be told that I was on the bike backwards. Now that's bad. The class consisted of your pal, Mary, Michelle", Dolly and two first timers. Victor was the instructor and is very good except he refuses to use the microphone and with my bad hearing it is not a good combo. But I make do and trudge on like the trooper I am.

Missing was Heidi who is probably working and Dede who is probably with that new boy friend of hers. Wait till I meet that guy I have a load of question for him. Well any who, all in all it was a good ride, and it was good to be back in the saddle again.

A Good Night at Tennis

Last night I played tennis with a group that I have been playing with for about a year. Most of the time I am a semi good player. This means that on one shot I look like the best player on the court and the very next shot I look like I just started to play a hour ago. But last night I played like I could give Rafael Nadal a good game. I just couldn't miss a shot. Every thing I tried on the court worked. It was some kind of miracle. I looked at it as finally reaching my full potential. So now I will be expecting to continue the find play but most likely I will revert back to the non consistent player that I have always been. So much for miracles.

Here is the 10 of the people that I play tennis with, I think.

Did You Miss Me?

Well how do you like it? I mean not having your daily shot of Willie's World, don't like it, do ya. Well maybe you will appreciate the trouble I go to every single day to entertain my pals. And maybe one day when I am not breathing anymore you will look back on this blog as one of the most enlightening and entertaining reads in your life time. Sorry I just got carried away a tad. Well any who my wife and I were in Joysey for a couple of days and my buddy, who has a computer , and is having his monitor repaired. I tried to blog with no monitor but that is very difficult. And all the while I thought I was blogging, with no monitor, I was buying a complete set of monogram towels with the initials FUG U on them and four thousand pounds of potash. Who knew! Needless to say they are both going back.

So I am back and you all can relax and take a breath because Uncle Willie is in the house once again.