Fat, Drunk, and Stupid

We are in the phase now of eliminating hot stoves to touch. And if someone wants to touch a hot stove, it is their right to do so without incident.

I was just thinking about hockey teams this morning. The Edmonton Oilers just won 14 in a row last night after a horrendous start. On November 12, they fired their head coach after a lackluster loss to the worst team in the league at the time, the San Jose Sharks. The Oilers were 3-9-1 at the time and had serious Stanley Cup aspirations, particularly after a decent season and run in the playoffs last year. And their team is top-heavy with offensive talent.

Surely any successful organization requires a professional commitment from the top to the bottom, especially as arenas and stadiums morph from functional seating to Disneyland-esque pleasure palaces. The ticket-taker and bathroom-cleaner aren't as important as the coach or the GM (let alone the players), but no team could function well without everyone doing his job.

The ice and arena need to be created/maintained. And, especially, no team could win anything without the people in charge of making travel arrangements.

And that got me to thinking. Organizations (particularly increasingly poisonous ones such as "higher" education") have dozens of make-work positions including "DEI" executives who are basically the equivalent of the old Soviet political officers who would always be looking over the shoulders of the captains and generals. This obviously siphons off funds for real tasks.

And so there is a point to all this. Travel is absolutely vital to a successful NHL team, or any sports team. And that means air travel. And if I'm GM, I would, of course, never hire any "DEI" thug or anything like that. And I'm not aware how deeply some teams have gotten into that, although in Canada there is every indication that they do at some level. The Edmonton Oilers are among the worst. Before games they have some idiotic "tribal" announcement where they basically say that where they are playing is land that once belonged to some tribe, blah blah blah. I notice how they never offer to give it back.

We see from recent events that DEI is replacing competency, especially now in airline travel. According this article, NHL teams all own their own planes and, to some degree, share them with each other.



My question is: Who is maintaining those planes? I seriously doubt that the NHL or the teams have the funds to maintain entire maintenance facilities just for a few planes. I'm guessing this work gets farmed out to regular airline crews. But either way, if I'm the GM of any team, as part of my travel team I hire someone in charge as sort of an anti-DEI overseer. He will investigate in regards to if these planes are actually being maintained by competent people. The fact is, you can win very few games if your team suddenly is killed in a fiery ball of exploding jet fuel, the Calgary Flames notwithstanding.

One suspects that the standards for these private sports planes may be a little higher. But if I'm the GM, I would be seriously looking into this aspect. Is "DEI" having a negative impact on the maintenance of my team airplane? Are the pilots there because of their ability to fly a plane or because of they have a preferred sex or skin color?

Don't wait until more planes start dropping out of the sky. But you read it here first. Don't waste time or money announcing to the world that your arena is built on land that used to belong to some Indians. Make sure your damn team plane isn't being maintained and flown by incompetents.

I guess DEI in hiring pilots is part of the leftist plan to keep Americans at home. I think I am like most Americans I want a guy or gal driving the plane who is competent and knowledgeable. I don't care about the sex, race, age or ethnic history, I expect skill. To openly announce that gender/race are mose important than ability for a pilot; is to announce that management is preparing for more plane crashes. For decades the NTSB has always defaulted to "pilot error" as the first cause of a crash. Given DEI in hiring that default position may be more true then ever. 

I have to throw another family member under the bus. But it's sort of a funny and instructive story.

My older brother stopped by for lunch. He brings his daughter in three times a week to a special school and it's convenient for him to stop in while he's in town. Good on him, for sure.

So we're eating lunch, watching To Tell the Truth (life in the fast lane), and he pops up out of the blue with the question: "Do you remember when I used to catch hell when dishing up my own ice cream. Dad always said I was taking too much."

"Well," I told him with only a slight smirk, "maybe the problem was you were taking too much."

I don't know where that question came from. And I don't have a problem talking about it because it was a question thrust upon me out of nowhere with the expectation that I would agree. And although my father could be strict (and quite often arbitrarily so), the fact is my brother has always had trouble controlling his impulses and I quite remember him taking too much ice cream.

But that's a kid thing too. A child is going to give himself a larger portion than his parents would. But in hindsight, the need for parenting is surely demonstrated. And we were a middle to lower middle class family. But we did okay. We wanted for nothing. But mom had to pinch pennies. And ice cream was never free and it was a treat.

It doesn't even occur to my brother that parents often need to enforce restraint, or that ice cream wasn't free. Or that maybe he was at fault.

I don't know why the Boomer generations (and those after) so readily adopted the idea that they were victims and that they should have whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted it or else they would hold their breath and turn blue. But it happened. And it has long been my belief (and I think this fact is rock-solid and obvious) that "liberal" or "leftist," to a large degree, is simply the refusal to grow the hell up and be an adult.

That looks, well, good and plenty.



My father had an old 1940's or 50's milkshake maker. We would occasionally make our own milkshakes. Those who think that McDonald's or any other fast-food restaurant is serving a milkshake is severely mistaken, although you can sometimes find them at small family-owned restaurants.

The machine was of this general type:

McDonald's used to make real milkshakes. Their ice cream machine, manifutured by Taylor, was the same as used by other restaurants and the shakes werer made on a multi-mixer 5 spindle machine. Most McDonald's had at least two of these machines and during rush periods one person spent the rush making shakes. Shakes were chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla with seasonal flavors at the operators discretion. For the fact that the ice cream was from a soft serve machine the shakes were very good. 

Now they pull some processed crap out of a soft serve machine and call it a milk shake--not. Just another example of how standards have deteriorated since Ray Kroc died.  One other example, Big Mac club section used to be toasted in a toaster, this added a crispness and distinct flavor of lightly toasted sesme to the sandwich. Now the club section is toasted on a grill. It is brown and carmelized but has no taste and is nothing more then a sponge in the middle of the sandwich. On the rare occasions I go to Mc D and get a Big Mac I always make a point of ordering it without the sponge in the middle. It kind of fun top see there entire operation come to a halt. If you really want to have fun with Mac go in during rush hours order hamburger fry and small coke. Sit down open your briefcase take out a scale, thermometer and clipboard and tke the meal apart. Then watch the manager go nuts.  

We have two Braums here in Fayetteville. One on the southside was known as a drug center in 04/05. It took a while but it was cleaned up. New management, staff and security officers for a while did the trick. I particularly like the cherry limeade drinks but the food is good and reasonable. It is the best place in NWA to purchase milk. 

I've never heard of Braum's ice cream. It looks pretty good.



For some reason this image of Spokane has always stuck in my mind. It's the America that should always be but perhaps will never be again.

Back in the late 70's I was helping my sister move to Spokane. She had a job lined up there after graduating from the University of Washington.

Memories are a bit dim, but we weren't yet moving furniture. I believe the point of trip was a reconnoiter. She had a list of places to check out in regards to renting. I do remember looking in what presumably is an older section of town...or maybe just a richer one. Wide boulevards. Green lawns. Old, perhaps Georgian-style three-story houses. And I believe it was in one of these houses where she first rented.

But in this section of Spokane, which must be a least a couple square miles or so, there was a corner ice cream shop. It wasn't part of a mall or attached to any other business. It was just set in a neighborhood all by itself. And it was like everything you've seen in an idyllic malt shop.

We probably had a milkshake or a banana split of some type. But I'm sure that place is gone now, replaced by the wasteland of mass-produced, commercialized mediocrity in the grocery-store aisle. But, oh, to be able to go back and visit that shop would be a treat right now. You don't appreciate such things until you lose them.

Where have you gone, Mr. Mom and Pop?
Our nation turns nostalgic eyes to you
Woo, woo, woo