Mar 042014
 

…and my new hero is an 18 year old high school dropout.

His name is Jhaqueil Reagan and he lives close to Indianapolis, Indiana.  He may be a dropout, but we need more kids like him…LOTS more.

Jhaqueil is a dropout because he quit school a couple of years ago so he could take care of his brothers and sisters after his mom’s death.  Right there I got past the fact that he dropped out.  As far as I can see, that wasn’t dropping out, it was prioritizing and making the right decision.

From what I read, his leaving school didn’t mean leaving his education behind as he finished his secondary education before he would have graduated in the first place, getting his GED.  Second prioritization choice, second good decision.

Ya know, though…a dropout with a GED who has younger siblings to care for also has their stomaches to feed…and that takes money, which means getting a job.  Now, I may be wrong, but a dropout teenager might just find it hard to find work.  He might decide to take advantage of our wonderful nanny – state giveaways and suck off the state, the taxpayer’s money tit.  After all, everyone knows when the job market is tough the thing to do is suck off of someone else…you know, like the 20 – somethings, perpetual students that move back into their parent’s basements and go play in the streets at Occupy Wall Street style protests, all planned out on the iPads their mommy’s

English: Photos of Occupy Wall Street on Day 2...

and daddy’s bought them.

So this kid Jhaqueil can go suck the government’s welfare tit, right?

Um…no.

Jhaqueil heard about a job opening at a Dairy Queen across town.  10 miles across town.  And it was snowing and icy and windy and CLOD…but what the hell…Indianapolis has municipal bus service, right?

Not for Jhaqueil, at least not until he gets a job.  He cannot afford bus fare, so do you know what he does?

He walks.  He needed a job, he heard about a job, so he went to try to get the job.  Its simple, really.

The freezing weather didn’t matter,  Nor did the ice and snow or the wind.  Jhaqueil had good, simple, linear thinking:

Need a job>>hear about a job>>go apply for the job = Get the job.  That simple, and anything between the first and last of that  equation is simply an obstacle to be overcome.

But he did not get the job, demonstrating an obvious lack of management’s good judgement at the Dairy Queen.

That’s OK though…Jhaqueil got a job.  He had stopped at another restaurant along the way to ask directions, and the owner had asked why he was out in the bitter weather, walking.  Jhaqueil explained about the job and his lack of bus fare…then kept walking.  Art Bouvier, the owner of Papa Roux Cajun Cooking, the place he stopped for directions, saw him later when he went out on an errand, still walking.  He picked him up to take him the last mile, and got his name and phone number before the kid got out of the car.

Art Bouvier’s judgement is better thanthat of the Dairy Queen’s management.  He recognizes character when he sees it.  He can see beyond the school dropout, beyond a poor kid who doesn’t have bus fare instead of walking 10 miles in a blizzard, who simply sees something that needs doing and does it and apparently doesn’t have “I can’t” in his vocabulary.

Art Bouvier knows a good employee when he sees one, even one who hasn’t asked him for a job.  He called the kid that night and asked him how the job search went.  When he found out the Dairy Queen hadn’t hired him, hadn’t hired a kid willing to walk 10 miles through a blizzard to apply, he hired him right then.

Good catch, Art.

Now I have a new hero…two9, actually.  A kid who just does what has to be done, and Art bouvier, one Coon Ass I’d like to meet.  Indianapolis ain’t that far…I just may eat some Cajun food soon…surely they serve red beans and rice with a couple of links of boudin.

PS:  I don’t normally do this, but this is an exception.  After finishing the article I called Papa Roux’s.  Great folks and, I’d bet my last nickle, great Coon Ass (Cajun to you uneducated folks…LOL) food, too.  If you are ever in or around the east side of AIndianapolis, grab a bite to eat there.  Call ’em for exact directions at 317.603.9861.  Tell ’em Bob sent ya.

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Bob@HayleStorm Interactive

Bob comes to us with a skeptical attitude and a full cup of Cantankerousness. He also writes about homesteading and yurts over at JuicyMaters.com and rants about politics at Common-Sense-Conversation.com Most of the time, though, you'll find him at HayleStorm.net, cranking out great websites for clients OR writing tutorials teaching them to build their own sites.

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Mar 042014
 

I don’t trust emotions.

I keep them on a short leash, ignore their outbursts and refuse to acknowledge their urgings, In spite of my efforts however they continue to disrupt my life. I call their influence evil because I can’t discern their intent or manage their force. They pay no attention at all to reason and logic.

I know that I’m supposed to go all weepy and sentimental about emotions. After all, love makes the world go round but I can’t- I resist with every fiber of my being. I won’t let them get the upper hand. Yet, still they root around deep in my being and mess up my well-ordered life. A pox on emotions!

Emotion is driving the bus.

Emotion is driving the bus.

Looking back, I can’t find any point in my long life where emotion did me any good. Letting emotion lead has always made things worse, not better. It’s the curse of being human. Clear thinking and logic are invariably subverted by muddle-headed, headstrong and erasable emotion. Primal needs trump logic every day and I say enough. Lizard brain, be gone.

Now that I’ve got that off my chest, I feel a bit better. Somehow, it seems that God messed up creating mankind. Why give us a clear and logical mind that can analyze, parse and plan and then undermine it with an emotion-driven engine that steers it’s own course. Maybe God, in his infinite wisdom, knows what he is doing but it is hard to find any justification. From my perspective, on the front line, it looks like a curse-not a blessing. Continue reading »

Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

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Feb 152014
 

I’m livid today. I have seen something I never dreamed of and it demonstrates the terrible peril our great country is in. California has a competitive race for governor this year. What this means is that regular Californians have noticed how bad things have gotten and are thinking for a change. The evil cabal of union thugs, political hacks and public employees that runs California is scared for a change. It is just possible that they may get whacked. But like any resourceful parasites they won’t let go- until they kill their host.

I’m infuriated at the party in control of California but my contempt for the challengers is even greater. Those losers haven’t done any better and yesterday they proved that representative government in California is dead. Both political parties sold the people of California down the river yesterday when the second of the debates between the candidates for governor was held- in incomprehensible Spanish.

There wasn’t much hype about this second debate – except that one candidate fired a wetback who had lied about being a legal resident. It shouldn’t be an issue – anywhere but California where 20% of our voters can’t be expected to understand English. So how to resolve the problem? How about a campaign debate on a Spanish language television network conducted entirely in Spanish with no translation. No, of course the candidates spoke English but we weren’t allowed to hear what they said because a Spanish translation was piped in. I have no idea what they said and my only recourse is the interpretation of the Sacramento Bee. Like I can trust them!

I don’t have much hope for California. The number of thinking voters who aren’t on the public dole – or the government payroll shrinks more each year but when both political parties will pander to citizens of another country in a foreign language who inexplicably seem able to vote and are valued by the political hacks of both parties, California might as well be dead. The economy is dead. We are poised to legalize pot and speakers of Spanish carry more weight than English speakers. It is all over! Let’s cut our the pretense. It won’t matter who wins the governor’s race this year. California is headed for third world status where voters are pawns for the politicos to play with.

If you don’t live in California, this is no time to be smug. California is the canary in the coal mine. If you care about this country then look at what is happening in your state and wake up before it is too late. You too may be speaking Spanish.

Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

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Feb 152014
 

The “let the nanny state take care of me” crowd has a tendency to use zero tolerance as a way to protect themselves when they turn their brains off. That would be 99% of the time. Let’s look at just what zero tolerance is.

Back before zero tolerance became the politically correct method for demonstrating your stupidity, it had a very limited use, and was usually enforced only by the local old maid librarian. Most of them had ears like a directional microphone, and were pissed at the world because they had never been kissed, and used that super hearing mostly to punish highly hormonal teenagers.

I’ll swear, the librarian back home could hear you if you picked your nose, and would throw you out. For the library, the upside was it kept boogers off the bottoms of tables and chairs.

Don’t look at me like that! Where else are you gonna put a booger in the library, inside the back cover of a book?

Anyway, these days any little self appointed dictator uses zero tolerance to 1.) Give them an excuse to exercise what little power they have as often as possible, and 2.) Allow them to save energy by not having to think. For some reason, while it seems to be used by everybody with just an itty bitty bit of power, it rears its ugly head most often in our schools.

• A couple of years ago in Cobb County, Georgia (a part of the metropolitan Atlanta area…naturally) a little girl in, I believe, the seventh grade, who was an A + student, was expelled for the balance of the school year for bringing a weapon to school.

The weapon? A plastic 6 inch long Tweety Bird keychain that had the door key to her home on it. Now, if you have at least three active brain cells working at the moment, you have to be asking yourself, “Self, how in the hell can a plastic keychain be a weapon?” Well, a brain dead (and zero tolerance loving) principle, followed Georgia law to the letter and decided that a keychain with a key on the end of it (where else would you keep the key?) fit the legal description of a “flinging weapon”, and kicked the honor roll student out of school.

The principle was thinking along the lines of numbchucks. Personally, I think numbskull is more appropriate.

• Along about the same time in Gwinnett County, Georgia, (yet another suburban Atlanta county)…

Stop right there. I don’t wanna hear any crap about Georgia. Atlanta might be in Georgia, it might even be the capital of Georgia, but it is not Georgia. Atlanta might be 10% Georgians. Everybody else moved in from Yankee land.

Anyway, in Gwinnett County, Georgia another 10 or 11 year old little girl took a very small 1 ounce bottle that had a purple liquid in it to school and told her classmates that it was communion wine. One of her classmates told the teacher, who took the little girl and the bottle of “communion wine” to the principal’s office . The principle opened the bottle (drinking on the job Mr. Principle?), discovered the “communion wine” was actually grape juice…and expelled the little girl for violating the no alcohol policy. He said that even pretending that it was alcohol put the little girl in violation of the policy.

I suppose that means that if two of the boys in school were standing at the water cooler and started joking about getting a drink of beer “on tap” they would be expelled as well.

• Not to be outdone by it’s confederate neighbors to the south, a high school in Spotsylvania, Virginia has expelled another straight “A” student for shooting spitballs in class. Not suspended… expelled.

As a totally irrelevant aside, who the hell would name a town Spotsylvania? Every time I hear that name I get an image in my head of a cross between a spotted Dalmation dog and a vampire, and I don’t even do drugs like our regular reader Hansi.

OK, back on topic. The school has taken a portion of the Federal Gun Free School Act, which mandates that schools expel students who take “…weapons, including hand guns, explosive devices and projectile weapons, to school. “, and has decided that a spitball is a “projectile weapon”.

Based on the three examples above I think my own personal definition of “zero tolerance” is fairly accurate. My definition? I’ll express it in the form of a math problem:

Zero intelligence + zero judgment = zero tolerance.

Bob@HayleStorm Interactive

Bob comes to us with a skeptical attitude and a full cup of Cantankerousness. He also writes about homesteading and yurts over at JuicyMaters.com and rants about politics at Common-Sense-Conversation.com Most of the time, though, you'll find him at HayleStorm.net, cranking out great websites for clients OR writing tutorials teaching them to build their own sites.

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Jan 072014
 

** editors note, I don’t know what is with wordpress sometimes….this post is now 24 hours into trying to be published.  I hope it is this time**

When is it time to say enough is just e-freaking-nough?? (Sure the language is not as cantankerous as possible but we have to have some family decorum.  Like it or don’t.)

So I am on today about people who push themselves to be “Guru’s” in their field.  Now I know that this is the idea behind muchof the business we are in with blogging and product creation.  We have to make people respect us and want to pay for our opinions on things.  That is fine, go forth and create.  Just don’t fill us with bull crap along the way.

Now, this will make my wife mad but here is what has been bugging me.  Jillian Freaking Michaels.  Now it doesn’tmatter what her real qualifications are, she has set herself up to be the know-all, be-all of fitness and training.  Now I am not saying that this necessarily a bad thing.  That is what we are trying to do.  But there are extremes.

Ms. Michaels is just about EVERYWHERE now.  She is on 2 TV shows, has food supplements, a web site, a ton of fitness equipment and video games.  All geared toward making you feel bad about yourself.  I mean getting a person to lose weight because in her world, if you are not like her, you are a fat pig.

I guess what has really gotten me going about her is the smug, airbrushed, windblown poses that grace every product she puts her grimy name on.  I was listening to one of her radio show podcasts at the insistence of my wife and there was a caller who was on saying how she worshipped Jillian Michaels and how she was the best ever and how the sun rose and set in her pants, blah blah blah.

This is the problem I have with “guru’s”.  People get so star struck with the “big” names that they forget to be their own person.  That is a future Coots lesson by the way.

My biggest issue, just sticking your name on anything associated with your niche is not necessarily a good thing and tends to dilute credibility.  True cantankerosity comes when you can say, “Screw it, I am doing what I want and you can take all of this superfluous crap and shove it.”

Take hold of your stuff.  Make something great and quit trying to prove how great you are by branding everything you can think of.  The first Jillian Michaels jock strap that I see….somebody dies.

Now, go do something useful.

-Justin

Justin

Justin is the young Coot with a Cantankerous Soul who continues to be educated by older, more cootish Ralph and Bob. His Cantankerosity is his own.

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