Triumphant Return and the Dunce of the Month Awards

It has been a couple of weeks... or months... since I've been able to post anything, not for lack of material because I've had plenty to rant about during this time. Since my last post, my fiance and I have gone through about a dozen different wedding plans and have finally settled on a few ideas. At this point, everything seems to be falling into place and we're hoping it stays that way! (To those of you that have been through this before, I would really prefer not to hear you tell me about how stressful, difficult, and expensive planning a wedding is. Erica and I would like to stay in our happy little bubble for the time being.)

Also, I've returned to the Chautauqua Institution for another summer's worth of employment. This is my 8th consecutive summer returning to the bookstore and this year I got to take on a new and exciting adventure as the guy that sells lecture CD's. It is a great change of scenery and I get to be outdoors for eight hours a day. I get to listen to wonderful lectures every day given by experts in their respective fields. I also get the chance to meet people from all over the world. But... if you are from the Chautauqua Lake area, you have an idea of some possible drawbacks that come along with our county's seasonal tourist industry (and I'm going to leave it at that). Oh yeah... I also get to see every fanny pack that survived the early 1990's.

Now for some fun. I've decided that I'm going to try to keep up on some more current events besides things that happen in the sports (and Buffalo Bills) world. We've all heard about the so called "Oil Crisis" in the Gulf. I honestly do not see the need to refer to the situation as a crisis. I would refer to it as complete and utter incompetence with a side of disgusting British greed. Its absolutely ridiculous that it took them months to just "put a cork in it." With modern science and technology, it should have been done with days after the initial leak. But no... instead BP wasted millions of gallons of oil per day, killed countless wildlife, and showed just how much apathy a group of people with extreme monetary wealth can show. Boy, am I glad that the U.S. Congress brought their CEO in and verbally slapped him on the wrist for a few hours. That showed them (extreme sarcasm).

So I've decided to give BP CEO Tony Hayward my first "Dunce of the Month" award. Congrats Tony! You're officially the current biggest loser in my (rather small and insignificant) book of people that I think should play in traffic. Wouldn't it be poetic justice if he did actually play in traffic and got hit by a car carrying a full tank of BP gasoline? One could only wish!


In other news, the "Barefoot Bandit" has been caught. If you haven't been following the story, some punk teenager broke out of juvie and went on a crime spree across the western seaboard, breaking into houses and stealing small airplanes. I don't care what you happen to think about this kid, but I think he's an absolute douche bag. The whole situation is similar to the Bucky Phillips situation that we had here a few years ago. This kid had all sorts of people offering him asylum and giving him help along the way. Shame on all of them for thinking that this little kleptomaniac is some kind of hero. Check out his Facebook fan page, if you feel like a good laugh. It full of a bunch of little brats thinking that turd boy should get away with what he did because he outsmarted the cops. Bulls***! Lock him up and throw away the key. It's people like him and the people that build him up to be a hero that are giving my generation a poor image. Not to mention, the genius that started his fan page on Facebook writes like someone that failed 2nd grade grammar.

So my second "Dunce of the Month" award goes to the fan page author's teachers for failing to teach this moron any form of basic grammar skills and moral competence. Mr. or Mrs. Worst Teacher Ever, you get a gold star in my book of "People Whose Job I Should Have if it Weren't for Our Education System's Ridiculous Reliance on the System of Teacher Tenure"!