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                                   The Education Crisis  September 28, 2010  NBC is focusing on the crisis in education that we have in this country. This is nothing new. Anyone who has had to deal with today's High School graduates for the last couple of decades knows that this has been coming for a while. They can't spell, they don't know the history of this country and it's not their fault. Somewhere along the line, schools have lost their focus on really educating students and started pushing them through just to make the numbers look better. If any of you have ever watched Jay Leno do JayWalking, you know exactly what is going on, or rather not going on, in our schools. Ask a person on the street why we celebrate the 4th of July, chances are they know it's to celebrate our independence. Chances are slimmer that they know from who and why. Ask the date of the signing of the dec...

Old Jarhead's story: Autumn : " It never ceases to amaze me that as soon as the official change of the seasons come, the very next day it looks like a crew went out during..."

 It never ceases to amaze me that as soon as the official change of the seasons come, the very next day it looks like a crew went out during the night and started to paint the leaves on the trees and plants with bright, bold colors. I have a love/hate relationship with the fall. On the one hand, I find the change of colors breathtakingly beautiful. On the other hand, I know that we are losing the light and the color from the world very shortly for another five months. It's sad, really, that something so beautiful can herald the coming of something so stark. I miss my sunlight and warm weather. I will miss hearing the birds sing every morning and seeing the sun reflect so brightly off of the lake and the trees. It's almost like mourning the passing of someone close. The diference is that I have the hope and the knowledge that I will see life burst forth, in all it's glory, starting in five months. If I could only close my eyes and sleep from now until then......

  I don't consider myself the most savvy computer person in the world. When it comes to being computer literate, I think that I am very close to being Illiterate! However, I know enough to be able to stumble around like a drunken blind man and eventually find what I'm looking for. If not, I can usually find someone who can help me.  I have a former co-worker, I'll call him 'Pete', who is even less knowledgeable than I am. Pete called me the other day in desperation and left me a unintelligible voice mail asking for help. What I got out of it was that he was having trouble installing a wireless router for the new Netbook that he bought.  Now, mind you, we are both retired technical people. We both worked for Verizon/Bell Atlantic/NYNEX/ New York Telephone (An AT&T Company)/New York Telephone Company for over 30 years. We basically were with the company from the two cans and a waxed string age right through the High Speed Broadband age... at least the start o...

Every morning it's the same deal. I'm up and at 'em at 05:30. It's amazing how one person can influence the way you start your day after only one day. My DI threw a large garbage can down the squad bay that first morning to wake us up at 05:30. That was in April of 1966, and here  I am 44 years later still getting up at this hour. It's all good, though. It gives me a little time with myself to see the world as peaceful before the reality of the chaos that we live with every day sets in. The world seems so fresh and new from the perspective of my sliding glass doors. With coffee in hand, I see a quiet, peaceful woodland. Even I-84, which I can see from the deck, is relatively quiet. This will change quickly in the hours to come.  Fall arrives today and my beautiful warm Summer will officially draw to a close. I dread the cold weather and the damned snow. I didn't mind it when I was working, but things have taken a turn since I had to retire. Oh, well. This, too,...