Daily Dose of BS May 30

In Wisconsin we are facing the recall of our Governor Scott Walker, the man who faced him in the 2010 gubernatorial election Tom Barrett is facing Mr Walker once again.  The polls show Walker leading Barrett by a margin of 50 to 45 percent.  There was a ton of effort going into this recall election from the people who stood on street corners collecting signatures for the recall, to yard signs, to door knockers, and automated robo calls, to people standing and picketing at different events, lots of time, effort and tons of money spent on political advertising.  Don’t you think that this is over kill?  If there would have been this much effort put forth the first time around that this would not be taking place today.  In the general election there was a turnout of less than 50% they are expecting between 60-70% out to the polls this coming Tuesday.  60-70% this is a lot of people but still not all the people who are eligible to vote.  Don’t you think that only the people who voted in the first election should be allowed to vote in the recall?  If you were too busy to be bothered the first time around why should you get a do over?  If you are not happy with the turn out of this election or any election maybe you should have helped with the original outcome and gone to the polling place and voted in November of 2010.  If the outcome comes back not the way you wanted this time around are you going to want another recall?  A recall of the recall?  This of course is tongue in cheek, but I am sure I have ticked off quite a few and they didn’t make it down here.  I think that you have every right in the world to vote, it is your right as an American.  Please take your responsibility to go to the polls on June 5^th and at every election after, don’t just make the exception to vote at this election because you either weren’t happy with the candidate or situation, please get out and vote in every election.  

Daily Dose of BS May 29

It has been over half my life since I have been able to legally buy beer.  I was up in Northern Minnesota this past weekend for the graduation party of one of my nieces.  Boy was it cold, when we left LaCrosse on Sunday morning it was 70 on the way up to a high of 96 heard from many that air conditioning was turned on for the day.  When we got to Two Harbors Minnesota it was foggy and cold, of course we dressed for LaCrosse weather, big mistake it was a high of 45 foggy, cloudy and damp.  What the heck were we thinking?  It is always fun though to get together and visit with family.  My nephew texted me on the way up asking me to pick up some beer since they were in Minnesota and you can't buy beer on Sunday, ah the joys of Wisconsin living, beer on Sunday and no 3-2 at grocery stores (at least that is what my 24 year old nephew thinks).   After hanging out at the hotel, my nephew who just turned 21, my 24 year old nephew, my sister-in-law and I went out for a beer at a local tavern.  It was the first time my 21 year old nephew was to buy a beer, I thought being the uncle that I would give him the money to buy the pitcher of beer I give him 9 bucks and said leave a buck for the tip, he proceed to leave a dollar on the table and then headed to the bar, I said no leave it with the bartender, he got the beer came back to the table gave me back my money and said that he didn’t have to pay for it, that they just put the beer on his cousins tab.   So he still never bought his first beer, I guess I will just have to go out with him again someday.  

Daily Dose of BS May 25

The next time you go to any store that sells cleaning supplies look around at the packaging for the soaps and cleaners, they are in colorful bottles, made with coloring that mimic power drinks and some of the bottles are in the shapes of pop bottles.  Why in the world would these companies do this?  I remember when I was a kid the Mr Yuck stickers were prevalent.  There was even advertising reminding parents to put the Mr Yuck stickers on the poisonous things under the counter, you would think that with how we have all become overprotective of our most valuable resource our children that we would continue with putting Mr Yuck stickers on our corrosive cleaning supplies and also work on packaging of cleaning supplies that did not looking like kool-aid. I heard on the radio this morning about in Texas so far this year that 71 kids had ingested the new Tide Pod laundry detergent because it looks like a piece of candy.  The people are Proctor and Gamble are now working on new packaging so that way kids don’t think of it as candy.  I think we should bring back Mr Yuck.

Daily Dose of BS May 24

This is it, my final day on the radio according to an email I got I am the winner of 1 million dollars.  I am going to pack up my stuff and hit the road.  How lucky am I, I never even bought a ticket.  All I had to do was respond with my social security number to the email and they will send me a check.  They promised.  People don’t lie and people don’t scam do they?  Heck it seems legit.  I wonder how many people fall for this?  I read a letter to the editor the other day about a grandfather getting a call from who he thought was his grandson asking for some money, the grandpa wanting to help withdrew the money and sent it to some foreign country to his grandson.  He ended up getting his money back because someone was paying attention and told him it was most likely a scam.  I wonder how many fall victims to something like this?  It is unfortunate that there are people out there taking advantage of the elderly and the socially inept.  As for me I am going to pack up my desk and am going someplace nice, after all I got a million free dollars coming my way.  

Daily Dose of BS May 23

It’s hard to admit I am getting old.  I take a nap daily, I can't stay out late, drinking doesn’t appeal to me as it once did, I have hearing aids and I sometimes hurt when I do things I am not used to doing.  I mention this because last night I went to a metal show at the LaCrosse Center.  I used to love going to shows the louder the better, it all started with my first concert with Motley Crue opening up for Ozzy back in 84, I have been going to shows ever since.  I first saw one of the bands last night back in 2001 Megadeth played at the Hollywood a few weeks before my twins were born.  In the past few years, not as many rock shows since there hasn’t really been any, I saw Korn and Disturbed last year, and a few lesser known bands since then, but none have been as loud and visually stimulating as the Rob Zombie show last night.  I found myself closing my eyes a few times and looking away from the stage because of the pulsating red and overabundance of things to look at.  I also hate to admit I was wearing hearing protection during the show, the nice thing is that my ears didn’t have any new ringing when I got home, just the ringing in my ears from earlier hearing damage from not wearing the hearing protection.  Today back to work, a bit tired, hearing aids in, glasses on and coffee grasped firmly in hand, I hope my memory isn’t going next, remind me when is nap time?  

Daily Dose of BS May 22

Have you ever been in the middle of your favorite TV show and had the weather alert go off and the weather guy come in over the best part of the show?  I am guessing we all have if you ever watch TV.  It was a year ago today.  Do you remember what you were doing?  I do I flipped on the TV in time to have Dan Breeden tell the other meteorologist that they should head to the basement.  If the TV weather guy is headed to the basement I had better do it too is what I thought.  Five of the six of us were home, my youngest son was at a friends.  I had called his friends mom to let her know that the kids should be in the basement, no sooner did I get the words out of my mouth a loud band and no electricity.  Thankfully the flashlights were right there and surprisingly they had working batteries.  The rain stopped, the sky color was a pale yellowish blue haze, things got quiet, the dog started barking and a weird eeriness was all around.  Pretty soon you could see it had cleared up, out the back door to see what had happened.  I was two blocks from the damage, the storm had blown out my back windshield of my car, and ripped some siding off my garage, but we faired really well.  I grabbed my recorder and camera, threw on my station shirt then headed out to check out the neighborhood damage, with all the trees down and the power lines down,  roofs off, damage done, it was amazing that we had no serious injuries, and no deaths in La Crosse, in Joplin Missouri they had a tornado on the same day, they weren’t as lucky as we were, 161 dead.   It could have been a lot worse, it is still weird to drive down 16^th Street with so many of the trees gone, I’m just thankful we didn’t get what could have been.

Daily Dose of BS May 21

It seems like more and more dropping their home phone lines.  I still have a home phone and am sure I will for many years as I have young kids, that and I have a great home phone number.  I have been running a business out of my house for many years and have had a business phone/ fax number for many years compliments of a magicJack internet phone, I am one that saw the late night tv commercial many years ago and thought what the heck, if I buy it and it doesn’t work I’m only out 20 bucks or so, I have had mine for at least 4 years and have been nothing but pleased, I bought a thin client so that I could keep my magicJack on all the time without running my computer, this worked well for quite awhile, soon after I got the thin client hook up, the folks at magicJack came up with the magicJack Plus, a device so that I could plug into my router and power and wa-la I would have phone, I finally broke down and got one, the only complaint I have is that I was not able to port over the pre-paid time I bought on my original magicJack, there is a $20 a year service fee for having the magicJack phone but for me well worth the fee.  Having a cell phone is lots easier, but if you need a fax number or a back up phone at your home, you should check out the magicJack.