The Other Drummer

This mural is on a parking garage near where I work. It’s pretty much the most hideous thing I’ve ever seen, or that anybody has ever seen, including people who’ve met Joan Rivers.

Recently I was walking by and noticed some additions had been made. My hopes soared as I imagined someone painting something new over it. Alas, my hopes were dashed as I realized they weren’t getting rid of it, but adding to it. Dang. The monstrosity was growing, enveloping space around it like a fat kid with a gift card to Krispy Kreme.

It looks as if we have these two women to blame. From what I can gather, they are raging liberal artists with poor taste in art. It also appears they may be the original artists, come back for more. Sort of a “Grudge 2″ thing, but worse.

So here I sit, wondering what I can do to stop the furthering of this little project. Maybe if I stuck a post-it note on it that said, “This is really ugly, please stop,” they would. Or maybe I should call the police and report it as vandalism. Ooo! I could encircle the site in electrified barbed wire and attack dogs. If you have any ideas, feel free to post them in the comments.

It was my birthday last week. I’ve decided it’s good to have a birthday at the end of the week because festivities carry through the weekend. If your birthday falls on, say, a Tuesday it kind of sucks. But if you’re fortunate enough to have it on a Thursday or Friday it’s really like celebrating a birth weekend which is how it should be.

Also, why do I get the presents and recognition? Shouldn’t my mom be getting all the praise? I didn’t really do a whole lot aside from scream a lot and pee on a nurse which hardly warrants the baking of a cake and giving of gifts. Then again, I’m not complaining because I got some cool gifts. Said gifts include a couple movies, a gift card, some accessories for our camcorder and (perhaps my favorite gift) a Happy Hat. I would explain what a Happy Hat is, but I think you have to experience something like that first hand.

I’ve been reflecting on my age. People are surprised I’m as old as I am. I’m not sure if I should take that as a compliment or not. I’m not quite old enough to want to look young, but at the same time I don’t want to look like I’m 40. Regardless, I’m now a year further away from twenty and subsequently a year closer to thirty. This is strange for me. I have to admit I have a bias against my thirties. I see it as ten years between being young and being old. It’s a decade of limbo. An era of lost identity.

Despite my cynicism, I’m sure it won’t be like that. We’ll have kids by then which means soccer practices, recitals and school performances. Help with homework, carpooling and Cub Scouts. A time of cleaning up many messes and changing of many diapers. The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced it will be a happy, but very tiring ten years.

I took this picture a few days back on the road up to Little Cottonwood Canyon. It got me thinking. I’m not sure how I feel about the war in Iraq. There are too many unanswered (or at least debatable) questions rolling around in my head.

Thus far, we haven’t found any weapons of mass destruction, which, as I understand it, was the primary reason for going in. The secondary reason was to relieve the Iraqis from the opression of a horrible dictator. The third (unspoken) reason was for oil.

The President says we need to liberate the people of Iraq, get rid of Saddam’s WMD’s, and root out the terrorists from the country.

On the other hand, the media blasts Bush for his foreign policy, and an expensive war (in terms of dollars and lives) we probably wouldn’t be in if oil weren’t in the equation.

How do you know how to trust? With the help of the media, things have become very polarized (of course, sensationalism gets the ratings, so news is governed by the almighty dollar): Bush is either doing the equivalent of liberating Europe from the Nazi regime, or he’s a warmonger who wants to ensure a steady stream of oil keeps finding its way to his oil buddies in Texas.

Who do you trust?

I see-saw in the issue of us “policing the world”. Perhaps we should let countries work out their own problems in their natural course. Or, maybe we have a moral obligation to try to pass along the freedoms we enjoy to others less fortunate. After all, people join the military of their own free will, many to do just that: ensure basic human freedoms. Then again, if we’re worried about other’s freedoms and protecting our own, why aren’t we invading North Korea?

Regardless, I still support Bush over Kerry and Clinton for many reasons, the greatest of which is his stand on the family. Maybe that’s the problem: there’s too much emphasis being put on the dramatic things of the world, to the detriment of the strengthening of the family.

This article from Popular Mechanics talks about a man who gets about 100 mpg on road trips. He put some solar panels on the roof of his Prius to keep the batteries charged and…ta-da. The article asks, “If this guy can to it in his back yard, why can’t automakers?”

Perhaps it’s the conspiracy theorist in me, but I think the question isn’t why CAN’T automakers do it, but why WON’T automakers do it.

Which brings me to another irksome question. Right now, the gas prices in Utah are well above average. All throughout the press you read about how gas prices are falling. Twelve cents here, five cents there. The prices in Utah? Down maybe two or three cents. The explanation? Three of the five oil refineries in Utah (that refine the oil we use in Utah) are shut down for repairs, so output is still low while demand remains the same.

My question is, if we’re getting our oil refined here in Utah, why did our prices skyrocket after Katrina hit?

I think the whole thing is an unregulated mess, and I lean toward the opinion that if Bush weren’t in office with all his oil company backing, maybe things would be different.

It looks like GM’s whole “Live Green, Go Yellow” campaign centered around their flex fuel vehicles is a bit of a sham. The fuel itself is nearly impossible to come by, even in the corn-rich Midwest. So these supposed environmentally friendly machines are chugging along on the same amount of gas they always have been.

Why the big push by GM to promote these vehicles that, in most circumstances, aren’t any different than a regular gas-guzzling SUV? According to TreeHugger, “It turns out that the Government gives GM a bonus in the average fuel economy standards, whether or not the pickup truck or SUV ever sees a drop of the stuff. Some purchasers don’t even know they are driving flex-fuel vehicles.”

What? Corporate America treating environmental reform as no more than a PR stunt? Sounds familiar. And the U.S. auto industry wonders why they’re slowly going under. Here’s a tip: do something good, for the right reason, and you’ll come out ahead.