An Open Letter to Whoever Runs the Equipment at the Dairy that supplies Milk to my Grocery Store

You probably don't get a lot of communication. Most of the time, you just do your job and people take it for granted. Well, this week you didn't do your job. And now you're going to hear about it.

Let me introduce myself. I am the consumer. I purchase your product. I am the reason you have a job. I buy a lot of milk. Not for consumption. Heaven's no. That's disgusting. Its a time honored beauty secret to regularly soak in milk, and I do. Not every bath, just once a week. I like to bathe in skim milk. Its thin, yet contains the same curative powers as the other grades. It doesn't leave the same sort of milk fat residue. It takes a lot of milk to do this, so I buy a lot of milk, far more than the average consumer.

This week, I was shocked to discover that the milk in the skim milk container was not, in your parlance, skimmed. I could tell immediately it was not skim. It was significantly whiter, like the Elmer's glue they actually use in Cereal commercials for the cameras and the fact that it is too thick to make the cereal soggy. I could tell immediately as I poured it out and noticed its creamier texture. Gallon after gallon, all the incorrect kind of milk. No, I don't know what kind of milk it is. I don't think its whole milk as I didn't quite float it, but it has some percentage of milk fat in it uncountably times more than than the zero I was promised when I selected skim. Did you think I could not know?

Maybe you are one of these activists. You think 2% is better and the skim drinkers of the world who are depriving themselves of the 2% in an attempt to achieve nourishment without corresponding calories need a little dash of milk fat in their lives. That if they are exposed to the product they will like it so much they will switch, and it will somehow vindicate your feelings that what you like is the correct thing to like and everyone should like what you like. Probably, you are smugly thinking, "You're welcome."

Well, I did not say thank you. I am not saying thank you now. I am demanding your job be sacrificed. What if I were one of the children with an allergy to milk fat but without the discerning eye I possess? What then? How many children are hospitalized, and dead because of your malfeasance? Probably unemployment is insufficient punishment. Probably some kind of trip to the dark corners of Dick Cheney's mind is justified.

You did not get away with it like some bitter waiter who puts alcohol in the drinks of customers who insist on virgin ones because they are sobered alcoholics and they know that is the secret phrase to get alcohol without the judgmental visages of their friends and as long as they keep silent they can pretend like their sense of taste is so dull that they don't even know, even though that sweet nectar is a blessed release and they show you the gratitude you require with an overgenerous tip which you crumple in your sweaty palm, while muttering, "You're welcome."

You did not get away with it like the same bitter waiter who leaves hidden meat in the dishes of customers who insist on them without because they are pompous vegetarians and love to believe that their chosen path, for religious reasons, or otherwise somehow makes sense in the evolutionary path of mankind all the while believing it somehow makes them a better person, lauding it over their less enlightened friends, insisting that there is nothing, no taste at all missing from their lives, because their dish is just exceptional, perfect even without the meat that is actually there, and they don't tip well, because after all they are sanctimonious vegetarians, and they think their smile and some zen koan of appeasement is of much more value but you know better because you've taught them a lesson they will never learn, but was really nothing more than as before, complete inaction on your part, passing on the very least information possible to fulfill the order.

You are just a lazy fool, which is why you have the job that you do and can never even aspire to something better.

And now with this letter, your employer will more than likely remove even this humble task from your possible aspirations, leaving you nothing, which is what you have made of the raw materials given unto you that we call life.

Good day.

Race for the Cure - October 4, 2008

All -

As most of you know, my sister Renee found a lump on her breast last December, on her 35th birthday. She was diagnosed with breast cancer a few weeks later, shortly before Christmas. After a quick lumpectomy and an aggressive chemotherapy schedule, she is currently in the process of finishing up her last couple of weeks of radiation in Washington, DC. I thank God every day that she was lucky enough to find her cancer early and has responded well to treatments and I'm looking forward to the celebrations we have planned for when she completely finishes her treatments.

I am planning on participating in this years Race for the Cure in Houston on Saturday, October 4, 2008. While I am participating on a team for work, I would also like to see how much money I can raise for this cause on my own. If you would like to help me out and donate under my participant name, please use this link.

As always, I hope you have a wonderful day!

I Kissed A Girl

The very next weekend after the PVGP, an acronym I love to say as quickly as possible, Jacob invited me on another tryst to Akron, Ohio. I can't even begin to defend such a trip. In the first place its Ohio, home to such cities as Cleveland and Cincinnati. Can you believe, just last night, an economics doctoral candidate was trying to tell me that he had just passed through Cincinnati, and its waterfront area seemed pretty nice. I wouldn't hear it, and I told him so. On top of that, this was Akron. I swear, while there, a dirty, dirty, Puerto Rican boy in our party insisted that it was pronounced with a hard A.

Anyway, Akron is famous for really only one thing and that was the reason I was there, the All-American SoapBox Derby. First of all, I found the title grossly misleading. There were several teams from other nations, so its really not All-American is it? An interesting fact about the Soapbox Derby is that during its heyday in the 50's and 60's it was one of the nation's top draw athletic events with as many as 70,000 attending. Thankfully, there were no where near as many attending. I despise crowds, and to be honest, the "box" seating a person of my status requires was little more than a roped off section at the finish line.



This is a view from our seats looking up the track.



And here is one with a couple of cars barreling down the track.

Anyway, as some sort of guest of honor, its traditional for the person in my position to bestow a kiss upon the winner in these sorts of races. Of course, the winner was a girl, Krista Osborne, and a cheerleader to boot. I was not a little disappointed that she failed to mention me in the article and the kiss with which I favored her, as primary motivation and inspiration for her victory, to speak nothing of the very model of perfection I deliver each and every day. But I suppose I will just have to get used to not being mentioned specifically. Ahem.

There were all sorts of precious details to this trip, I couldn't possibly begin to delineate them all. But I will share a couple. While there, I toured around Kent State University, and let me say with conviction that it is very possible that the Kent State massacre may not have been the fault of the Ohio National Guard at all, but a sudden seizing of opportunity by several students only wishing to end the misery of their lives at Kent State.

Finally, there was a funny man running around all afternoon. I couldn't dare to take a picture directly of him, but I did snap a picture of ze Germans with him on the left side of the frame.



I don't know if you can make them out, but take a look at his shoe. Isn't it precious? Its a veritable bowling shoe in its brashness.

Bigfoot Revisited

It wasn't that long ago in a rambling and nearly impenetrable post about my identity and relationships and sex, that I compared a stable relationship to the eastern bigfoot and it seems now that not only is bigfoot real, but the first evidence of it comes from Georgia.

No, I know its confusing with the war and everything, but I mean our Georgia. The one in the Southern United States. Where they don't even have real mountains, just ridiculous and dimensionally inaccurate tourist attractions.

Here is what I'm going to do. If this evidence of a bigfoot, and eastern one that doesn't even live in the mountains pans out, I will in fact acknowledge the existance of a stable relationship and no longer publicly seek the dissolution of the marriages of my fairer friends to the brutes they have somehow been brainwashed into involving themselves with. If the evidence does not pan out however, then all the dainty damsels must offer up an hour per week of mute meditation on the deficiencies of their jack booted oppressors and the hobnails under which they suffer.

Failure to comment grants tacit agreement.

Catalog and Classify

Its been a whirlwind of traveling for me lately, and frankly I've had no time, no time whatsoever for the unwashed masses. Or you, dear readers, who are washed, of course. Its been weeks, but Jacob did whisk me off again this year to the Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix. That was in July. I think roughly a month ago. I know. I've been that busy.

A few of you, and I won't name names, although I am perfectly capable of doing so, doubted my trip last year. This year I took a few pictures of my own, although in review, they are horribly disappointing. I couldn't possibly take a digital camera, so I just used the one on my threeg. You might be surprised that my special phone lacks any sort of zoom just as yours does. I know, its totally unacceptable. I promise you Stephen has received quite an earful about this even though he his on his deathbed. People just don't survive pancreatic cancer especially not through homeopathy.

This little roadster was such a nice color, virtually identical to the pants I proudly wear while performing my sport of choice. I know some opinions have been expressed about the pants, but to put it as crudely as possible, when you are as callipygous as me, sometimes you like to show off.

This one was exactly the rosso corsa color I've been looking for for so long. Ironic it was raced by a Canadian team.

I don't think you can tell, but there's a picture of Marylin Monroe on a pink corvette.

I guess I got a little overzealous because of the race and ran down this zipcar sign. I found it wonderfully ironic if a poor reflection of my driving ability.