OK, I have zero tolerance for zero tolerance policies. 

If you think that this is a contradiction or something, re-read the sentence it is not.  I do not have a zero tolerance policy for zero tolerance polices.  That explanation of the obvious almost explains why I have zero tolerance for zero tolerance policies.

Zero Tolerance policies are only good for organizations that have no courage and are unable to exact a just decision or action on a regular basis when confronted with somewhat similar situations and facts.

I refer as example to a 10 year old girl that was recently arrested and cuffed and taken into custody for cutting her sack lunch steak with a steak knife.  Sure it was stupid and dangerous for the 10 year old girl to take a knife to school.  Yes, she should be punished, but cuffing her and taking her to jail is a bit extreme.

Not to mention there's something wrong about a grade schooler bagging a steak for lunch.  Why can't she eat cake for lunch anyway?

Tonight, I read about Food Lion.  They had a 74 year old man arrested here in North Carolina for stealing a steak. 

People must have steak crimes on the brain.

The man had shoplifted a single steak worth just under $4.  He then came back into the store some days later with the steak tag and offered to pay for the steak he had previously stolen.

The store had him arrested as they have . . .  a zero tolerance policy against shop lifting.

Well fortunately, they also had a few leaders that had some common sense.  The company had the charges dropped eventually.  The man had stolen the steak to make a steak dinner for his son. 

The man's home had burned down a few weeks earlier and he lost everything he owned at the age of 74.  He was staying with his son and wanted to do something nice for his son.

Yes, stealing was wrong and even a misdemeanor.  I'm not advocating shop lifting by any means.  However, by having a zero tolerance policy, food lion ended up wasting a lot of corporate money and tax payer dollars forcing the arrest of this elderly man in a bad situation.

If Food Lion had a more human policy, they could have empowered their store managers to consider an alternative in the situation.  Accepting payment from the man, possibly banning him from the store, might have been more human and saved the store and tax payers a lot of money.

I wonder how much tax payer money was wasted by the school with the zero tolerance policy for steak knives.

Let them buy books instead of paying lawyers next time.

The Hypocrite revealed

OK, so I am a hypocrite.  I have a zero tolerance policy for racists and resleeper beds.  The first is obvious, the second has to do with mattresses that are so uncomfortable that you have to sleep during the day to make up for the sleep you did not get the night before while laying in them.  I currently have a resleeper, but received a new foam mattress pad that seems to make it work.

Hi Everyone,  I've been traveling a lot this holiday season, driving about 2,000 miles so far with the family with another 1,000 to go.  I have fended off colds, a flue and a migraine and herds of deer.  I have only done some light or is it lite writing while I have been traveling as Santa did not bring an Air card (santa didn't want to deal with Verizon Wireless during the holidays and for good reason!).

I have also been listening to a great audio book series of which I owe some reviews on Story Addicts.  I have been four wheeling in the woods with my brother and kids and I spent a good deal of time last night getting the rebooting of the LinkyLoveArmy under way for sometime in the new year.  Plus, the work to teach/guru/ guide people forward into the problogging world (and $1,000 articles) is making progress as well and I'm hoping to have that firing on at least 4 cylinders within another week or two.

So in the mean time, I hope you are all doing well, having a happy and safe holiday and looking forward to a great New Year!

So today, I slept from 3:00 am until 7 am got up for 30 minutes with the kids, went back to sleep until 11am.  Got dressed and had breakfast,then went to Jiffy Lube to get the oil changed on the van (also new wipers and a couple other things). 

I was hoping to get a squeaky belt fixed, but they didn't do that.  I did meet a couple people working there that I think will be very interested in getting involved in the blogging movement.  One of them was from West Palm Beach, one of my old hang outs, and he's already involved in marketing in a couple other capacities. 

While I was coming and going, I've been leaving Christmas voice mail greetings to people.  I never can seem to get Christmas cards out, so this was the best I can do.  Plus, seems a little more personal than an email (without the fancy flash animation stuff).

Next stop was Pep boys for the thing that Jiffy Lube couldn't do.  While there, I walked over to wal-mart, picked up lunch and some cash for the road.

Now, I'm back at Pep Boys putting together a DVD (that i started at jiffy lube) for my grandmother, who is in rehab at a nursing home outside of St Louis.

So after all my trips to and fro over the holidays, when I get back, its back to business, back to work (not that I won't work while traveling) and then soon, we'll be listing our house for sale in georgia and looking for some North Carolina land for sale maybe a little homestead by the lake (or the muddy bank of what used to be a lake).

Do you recognize this woman?

She's kind of cute, has dimples and talks with a cutsie, flirty almost dirty spank me voice on your television every night.

She's the face of male enhancement supplements.  I think its extenze.

Note. I looked up extenze on Google and the site was down because they exceeded their bandwidth, which is ironic somehow.

You know those placebo pills that are supposed to boost your confidence by increasing the size of a man's certain something (hint hint - She is talking about your penis men).

This fine television commercial actress has her face plastered across cable working to convince men that their package is too small, could be bigger, would please women if it were bigger, and tee hee, would make her happy if she only knew that you were ordering her product to make your johnson bigger, that is enhanced.

Example of a Commercial (not her commercial but freaking hillarious but not for work or for kids)

Truthfully, there is no where to go but to go down after you have taken a gig like this.  She should fire her agent as she'll be lucky to get a gig featuring a farm animal as the second main attraction somewhere south of the border.

She's not a bad actress either.  I say this because she almost has me convinced that the enhancement stuff would work or that I might even need it (although I skipped using a remote control for years as I could reach the TV manually).

So anyway, I kind of feel sorry for the poor extenze girl.  Destined to have had her 15 minutes of fame looped in an infomercial word sporting male enhancement products.   With that in mind, I'd like to recommend her for a free car donation. 

I haven't found a charity out there yet that provides cars or work for down on their luck infomercial babes.  But I did come across car angel that does the opposite.  They accept car donations and use the proceeds to make videos and things for kids and teens.  Maybe if some of those on the fence teens get the right message, they won't get cast on the couch in one of these infomercials.

OK, I'm kind of cleaning out my camera flash card (closet).  I've been meaning to share a couple things, but just never got around to emptying the damn card.  Seems like whenever that happens, I end up just dumping a big file folder of pictures on to my hard drive and never actually share any of them.

So I'm doing that a bit now while I sit on a pair of bar stools that is cutting the circulation off in my legs, kind of a race to see if I can finish this article before my legs go to sleep. 

A pair, what do you have a really big ass?

No, ass on one chair, feet on the other.

First off I have a few pictures of cheese.

Whoa big deal that!  Stop the presses, be still my beating heart.  Why is this guy taking pictures of cheese?????

Back story on taking pictures of cheese

So we buy these frozen stouffers lasagna's from time to time and they taste about as bland as a waffle with marinara and ricotta cheese.

So I goose them up a bit.

I add a layer of sharp cheese slices on top, then poor some hunts tomato paste, sprinkle some oregano and Italian spices, then mixed grated cheese, then a layer of pepperonis, then more grated cheese and repeat until the top of the lasagna is about to overflow out of the aluminum pan.  (note I make a great home made lasagna but I'm lazy so this is my back up)

Well for some weird reason the sharp cheese on one of these must have exploded like a bunch of little volcanoes.  The cheese hit the aluminum cover and must have then fried in place as it dripped down.  So when I took the cover off, I ended up with this cheese that is hard but sticking up off the upside down aluminum top.  (kind of looks like fire, I like fire, so snap there's a few pictures!)

BTW in case you are wondering the cheese, tasted like . . . . Cheese!

I have been racing to wrap up some medium sized projects that have to be completed before I can begin some of the really big projects that a number of people are very excited for me to begin.

The thing is Christmas is about a week away (leaving town on the 21st).  So between now and this time next week I have to do about a months worth of work.  :)

Business as Usual

Yesterday, I began a lite reboot of a website called the Book of Medicine.  It was attacked (on one of its directories) by Google and I'm working to salvage the domain through the primary domain name and establish other domains.

I'm using some of those other directories to field a brand new project (a quick little beta) for some much bigger projects on many other topics with the LLA.  This is kind of a proof of concept there, as we work to deliver new money making options for bloggers in a post Googappocaliptic blogosphere.

I finished one of those last night, and tonight I'm hoping to finish another and then 4 more tomorrow.

Meanwhile, my wife and I can't figure out what to get the kids for Christmas, let alone what to get each other, although I think I'm going to maybe get some software

Pinnacle 11 video editing software maybe

or Camtasia

I've had my eye on both for some time, but hadn't until tonight had more than a half second to express the thought out loud.

I might have to get a new faster spinning hard drive for my laptop too.  I have plenty of RAM, but a faster spinning hard drive can do wonders for laptop performance.  That's a trick I learned from a friend of mine that works as a Baltimore car accident attorney.

If you follow my twitter (sidebar) you know that my writing has been a little weak today, hoping to be back on track tomorrow after a full night of sleep, but when I do a lot of programming, it is sometimes hard for me to switch gears and get creative with words without the assistance of 2-3 beers to enable a clean transition.

I tried to have a little fun today on Viral Grape Vine with

Document Shows 15 Other Questions the Clinton Camp Would Have Used to Attack Barack Obama

But truthfully it just didn't quite feel right.  Felt a little too mean to me and not half as funny as it should have been.  I guess without the mediocre or the bad the good stuff isn't half as much fun to find and create.

Michael Vick was sentenced to 23 months in prison today.  Since July I have been running a site called the Campaign to Sack Michael Vick.  I did not profit from the site financially that was not my intent.  Back in July it looked like Michael Vick would escape justice entirely.  A great deal has happened since then and it appears that justice has caught up with Michael Vick.

I have been looking forward to the day when this project might come to an end.  I felt very strongly about this particular situation and took the step to get involved.  Along the way, getting involved meant working with some very negative topics from the torture and killing of dogs to the murder of a man involved in the dog fighting ring who happens to live a few dozen miles from where I live today.

As I have covered Michael Vick and this case for the last 6 months, I have been looking forward to the day when this case would be over.  Unfortunately, even though Vick was sentenced today, the case still drags on in Virginia state court and in the murder investigation which was held up by the feds.

Michael Vick received 23 months and will have to serve at least 85% of that or about 18 months.  This means he will not play in the NFL next year.  After that he could go back to the NFL, which in my humble opinion is largely responsible for what Michael Vick did.

Now, I have to figure out what to do with the blog that I started.  When you make a blog, it is a bit of a creative endeavor.  You are building something and often times if you do a good job you can take pride in your work.

In this situation however, the blog covered a topic that was very negative and personal for Michael Vick.  In that regards, from my own creative perspective, I felt that I could not take pride in my work.  I could work to ensure that something closer to justice came about, but I could not right the wrongs.  At the end of the day, the total experience was draining.  I do feel it was necessary and important at some level, but I took no pleasure in the work.

I almost never sell or close down websites that I start.  They are a part of me, something I have built and I do not let go.  In this case, I think I will try and find some way to end this site.  I do not know how I will do that just yet.  I may donate some of the proceeds or I may not(I did spend quite a bit of money on the site over the last 6 months). 

I'm not sure if I should take some money back to pay myself for the costs or even my work, or if I should donate any proceeds.  If I donate them, I do not know who I will donate the proceeds to.  In this case, I was in a strange alignment with PETA, but I do not normally agree with PETA on many many issues.

I don't know.  As a person that creates things, I realize that in not selling my creations I am missing part of the steps that an artist normally goes through.  I do not sell my work typically, but fund parts of it with advertising. 

This makes the creation free to consume on the internet for my readers, but it also makes it easier for me to share because I do not have to give anything up.  I may force myself to sell this site, for the primary reason of gaining the experience and cleansing myself a bit from the nefarious world of Michael Vick that I wrote on for so many months.

I mentioned this the other day on Twitter,  This finch crawled into the inside of this bird feeder and couldn't get out.  Not sure if the finch wanted more food, or wanted to commit suicide by bird seed or if the finches are remaking the gluttony scene from the movie Seven.

I suppose comparatively speaking this wouldn't be so bad for a finch (if you ignore the lack of water).  I've stayed in discount hotels Las Vegas with smaller rooms and less food to eat.  Come to think of it, I think those same hotels might have tried to feed me a finch or two. . . .

Lest you worry yourself about the fait of the finch, the finch was released into the wild where it will have to commit suicide in some one else's bird feeder.

I have never worried too much about my feed subscription rates here.  This blog was originally started as a lark, and it eventually turned into one of my favorite blogs.  Since then I have rebooted it (lightly) a couple times, and somewhere along the way my feed subscription buttons got a little goofy.

SOOOOoooo, I finally got around to fixing them this evening.  Fixing the counter, made my subscription rate jump from 1 to 11,   Whooopy!

Seriously the numbers are not correct.  There are some readers that I know are subscribing and reading that do not show up in the feedblitz and feedburner results.  Based on the readers that come into my blog via rss, feeds, and email subscriptions, I also know that the number is a lot more than 11.

What I think is going on is that on any given day 11 of all of my subscribers on average access the blog that way.  I suspect that many people that are subscribed are actually coming by directly and not through their subscription feed.

Now, I could care less if anyone is subscribed or stops by the blog by the web address.  However, if you are taking the time to stop by, I do want it to be as easy as possible for you to get here.  That's why I fixed the buttons and hopefully that will make things easier for everyone.  If it helps, you great.  I don't need a cup of coffee for my efforts nor a Patek Philippe watch, just your pleasant company.

Since about July, I have been running a site named the Campaign to Sack Michael Vick at www.sackvick.net .  It started as an effort to thwart cruelty and the lack of justice and over the course of this blog, justice has slowly started to roll around, even though there are still many things that have not been settled, including a murder investigation and the potential for Michael Vick to return to the NFL next year.

Regardless of all that, I have learned that I do not like working a blog that focuses on something that has a negative topical focus. 

I also do not like coffee regardless of whether its Starbucks or Saeco.

I do not work to write negative attacks against Michael Vick.  I do cover what is going on and that is more often negative rather than positive.  Plus, I find myself defending the sites goal and my goal to see Michael Vick stay out of the NFL.  If you want to see why I feel he should stay out, visit the site, but let me summarize by saying that I do not feel he should stay out as a punishment for his past acts. 

This December 10th, he will be sentenced by a Federal Judge.  I am looking forward to possibly being done with this website.  There is a lot of other thing going on including a state trial next April and an open murder investigation.  (One of Vick's partners was murdered a few days after the Feds raided Michael Vick's home and made the dog torture and killings public.

I have not figured out how to end my involvement with this site yet.  I have never sold a website before, and I'm not sure if I plan to start with this one.  I may just let it fade away, or park it or something.  I don't know, but I do not want to continue covering the train wreck that is Michael Vick any more.  Its a bummer and that has helped me realize that I prefer to cover positive things in the world.  Covering negative events or issues is important, but its not something that I am probably the best candidate to do . . .