1968

1968

• Richard Nixon is elected President.
• The 1st class postage stamp raises to 6 cents.
• Robert Kennedy is assasinated in California. Sirhan Sirhan is apprehended on the spot.
• Johnny Cash records "Live at Folsom Prison".
• Martin Luther King, Jr. is assassinated at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. Riots erupt in major American cities for several days afterward.
• The musical Hair officially opens on Broadway.
• The soap opera One Life to Live premieres on ABC. The show featured Tommy Lee Jones and Lawrence Fishburne.
• Saddam Hussein becomes Vice Chairman of the Revolutionary Council in Iraq after a coup d'état.
• The White Album is released by The Beatles.
• The film Oliver!, based on the hit London and Broadway musical, opens in the U.S. after being released first in England. It will go on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture.
• The Zodiac Killer is believed to have shot Betty Lou Jensen and David Faraday on Lake Herman Road, Benicia, San Francisco Bay, California.

Cheerios

A 5 year old and a 4 year old are upstairs in the bedroom.
"You know what?." says the 5 year old, " I think it's about time we start swearing." The 4 year old nods his head in approval. "When we go downstairs for breakfast I'm gonna say 'hell', and you say 'ass', Ok?"
The 4 year old agrees with enthusiasm.
 The mother walks into the kitchen and ask the 5 year old what he wants for breakfast.
"Aw, hell mom, I guess I'll have some Cheerios."
WHACK!! He flies off the chair, tumbles across the kitchen floor, gets up, and runs upstairs crying his eyes out.
The mom looks at the 4 year old and asks with a stern voice, " And what do YOU want for breakfast, young man?!"
" I don't know," he blubbers, " but you can bet your ass it won't be Cheerios.

The ride in

The ride into work this morning provided more examples for me on a few subjects.

First, I noticed the students waiting for their buses this morning in the rain. And as usual none of them had an umbrella. They would rather stand in the rain at 6:30 in the morning and get drenched for the rest of the day than to be UNCOOL and use a freaking umbrella. This to me is another example of peer pressure and how we become sheep.

Then I stopped for gas and one of the few times in the morning I can breathe fresh air and stand outside and possibly clear my head to get ready for the day I now have the gas pump talking to me. As if we need more commercials or video or TV in our life we now have it on our gas pumps.

And lastly I go inside to pay the cashier and she is busy complaining to her coworker about the night before and all the hours that she is working. She never looks up or says hi or attempts to make any eye contact. Another example of how people get so self absorbed they do not even perform their basic functions while getting paid to do them.

Being sheep, video,computer and TV overload, and common courtesy and respect.
There you go, three quick examples within a short time span on the ride in on some of my major pet peeves.

Back to work

Ok, it is back to work...lots to do.  One of our biggest projects takes shape this month, the computer dispatch of Arpin dispatch.
We have been working on it for most of the year. Had to take a time out for the summer months though to concentrate on the busy season.

We all hope that the new system helps us all to communicate and share information. In today's business communication is more important than ever.

We also realize that no matter how sophisticated we get we are still about people helping people.

The computer is a tool. You will never replace the human aspect in this business. Too many variables.

Kinda cool where we are going though....stay tuned.

Labor day

For many Americans Labor Day is seen above all as Leisure Day at end of the last long weekend of summer. Cookouts and all that.

And no matter how long you have been out of school you probably still associate it with going back to school.

Still, let us remember that the day is meant to honor the nation's laboring classes.

Here are three things that I hope we can do in the very near future our economy and therefore help the laborer..

Raise the minimum wage.

Improve public education--  this one I rate as our most important challenge for our overall future-

The third is to push for public-infrastructure  projects in transportation.

Happy Labor Day

MUSIC UNITES

Last night we went to another live concert...The Zac Brown Band.

There is nothing like live music, rather it is one man with a guitar on your back deck or a full professional band - live music can take you away.
It can leave your troubles at the door step and allow you to put your problems or work to the back of your mind.
 It can transcend you to a time where you did not have so much responsibility or when you may have had more time for just enjoying your time.

It also unites.

Last night a few seats from us in the same row was a young family,  a mom and dad with their two kids around 10 and 12 years old. In front of us was a couple around 70 years old and in front of them were four teenage girls.... all standing up singing and dancing to the music.

Rather you are young or old, Republican or Democrat, in the 1 % or the 99 ...it does not matter.

For that period we are truly united. Just enjoying the moment and the music. Letting your self go and forgetting about your inhibitions and problems.

You gotta live LIVE MUSIC..

1967

1967

• Rolling Stone Magazine is founded.
• Communist China announces the H Bomb.
• Dr. Christian Barnard performs the first heart transplant.
• Albert DeSalvo, the "Boston Strangler", is convicted of numerous crimes and sentenced to life in prison.
• Human Be-In takes place in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco; event sets the stage for the Summer of Love.
• The Doors' first album is released.
• In Houston, Texas, boxer Muhammad Ali refuses military service.
• Jimmy Hoffa begins his 8-year sentence for attempting to bribe a jury.
• Elvis Presley and Priscilla Beaulieu are married in Las Vegas.
• The album Are You Experienced is released by The Jimi Hendrix Experience in the United Kingdom.
• Pink Floyd releases their debut album "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn."
• Jim Morrison and The Doors defy CBS censors on The Ed Sullivan Show, when Morrison sings the word "higher" from their #1 hit Light My Fire, despite having been asked not to.
• Love Is a Many Splendored Thing debuts on U.S. daytime television and is the first soap opera to deal with an interracial relationship. CBS censors find it too controversial and ask for it to be stopped, causing show creator Irna Phillips to quit.
• Walt Disney's full-length animated feature The Jungle Book, the last animated film personally supervised by Disney, is released and becomes an enormous box office and critical success. On a double bill with the film is the (now) much less well-known True-Life Adventure, Charlie the Lonesome Cougar.
• LSD declared an illegal by the United States government.