Dumb-Ass People

On a friend's recommendation, I went to the website for The St. Louis Arch. The site doesn't make it easy to find the Riverboat Cruises that they run on the Mississippi, but I found the cruises, their schedules, their prices. I bought 2 tickets for the May 31st Blues Cruise on the Becky Thatcher.

They gave me a choice: Print your tix at home, or pick them up at Will Call. I printed them at home. Across the top of each ticket it says "THIS IS YOUR TICKET." So far, so good. Boarding time is 8:00, set sail at 8:30, dock at 11.

Our friends Rick and LaVerne drove; we parked on the riverbank. They had chosen the WILL CALL option, so we stopped there so Rick could get their tickets, which were little yellow tickets marked "Very Important Passenger" in a white envelope. Then we all went to the boarding area. I checked my watch: 3 minutes until boarding time.

But we see passengers already boarding. Guess we won't have our pick of the best seating on board, I thought. Oh, well.

Judy and I presented ourselves and our "THIS IS YOUR TICKET" documents to the boarding area ticket-takers. We were refused admission.

Their THIS IS YOUR TICKET document, as it turns out, is not really the ticket you need to board the boat. The ticket-takers were sending all of us having such documents back to the window where the WILL CALL tickets are held. To get, no shit, a white envelope containing 2 little yellow tickets marked "Very Important Passenger."

What a joke! The TICKET is not a ticket. Printing at home served no purpose whatever, except to deceive and delay the Very Important Passengers who will then tell their friends.

Stupid Management. I'm telling my friends.

So we got the yellow VIP tickets and went back to the boarding ramp. Between the ticket-taker and the boat, there was a photography setup where a group photo was taken. We were encouraged to smile for the camera. My smile was not forced at all - quite genuine.











































It was not me who purchased the photo, but now I'm kinda glad to have it.

I'm still pissed.

The Saddest Thing

According to one Internet source, Ken Burns’ The Vietnam War documentary reached some 34 million viewers. That’s about 10% of the U.S. population.

It took me several months to slog through the many hours of misery contained in the 10 episodes, but I can now count myself as one of the 34 million viewers.

I think I can guess who most of the viewers were: People like me who were directly affected in one way or another. Median age of the viewers had to be >60. 

An excerpt from The New York Times’ review: 

The saddest thing about this elegiac documentary may be the credit it extends its audience. “The Vietnam War” still holds out hope that we might learn from history, after presenting 18 hours of evidence to the contrary.

I see no evidence that the present or future leaders of this country learned one goddamned thing from all the boneheaded blunders made by leaders past. Credit the NY Times for sifting through all the myriad, deep, and enduring sadnesses to name the worst.

If You Google "futility,"...

When my brother Charles ruptured his left quad tendon in 2017, he went to Christian Hospital for out-patient surgery. But then he had an infection in his leg and needed additional surgery as an in-patient. He spent several days in Room 1021, Bed 2, the one closest to the 10^th-floor window.

When Charles had a stroke on April 4, 2018, he landed in Christian Hospital again – Room 1021, Bed 2.

It seemed to me a freak coincidence that he would be in the same room again, and I poked around the Internet to gain some perspective on Christian Hospital. Turns out they have 220 “attended beds,” so it’s a little weird, but the 10^thfloor is neurology, so maybe it’s not quite so weird. Other than the fact that his 2017 stay didn’t seem to have much relation to neurology.

But the Internet dragged me much further into its web. Christian Hospital is part of BJC HealthCare, a “non-profit” group of 15 hospitals and “multiple community health locations.” With over 31,000 employees, they claim to be “one of the largest nonprofit health care organizations in the United States.”

So I Googled “biggest non-profit healthcare groups in USA.” I looked at a list of the top 32 non-profits and did not find BJC HealthCare on the list – although, at #32, East Texas Medical Center Regional Healthcare System (Tyler) has only 7 hospitals.

At #1 in the list, I found Ascension Health, another St. Louis-based hospital group, with an astounding 76 hospitals. Ascension’s website provided precious little information about revenues, and a plethora of info about all the good this Catholic organization does for the world.

Speaking of revenue, BJC HealthCare’s “net revenue” is listed at $4.8 Billion. When I Googled “net revenue,” I found that it means “gross sales minus the cost of sales, including cost of goods sold.”

Christ. I’m sorry I asked. What I was trying to find was how much profit BJC makes – but of course they don’t make a profit, because, by definition, they are a non-profit organization.

Conclusion: Stay the hell away from Google. You will only be confused in the end.

Motivational Speaker

"We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too."

- JFK, September 12, 1962

Americans walked on the moon a bit less than 7 years later.

I believe that feat was directly attributable to JFK's words on that September day.

I know that the concept of doing something because it is hard is one that was slow for me to internalize, but ultimately accounts for some of the things I have done.

Two Years in the Making

Last post was 2 years ago. What happened? Why have I not been writing?

Basically, it is because people weren't reading.

Two Thumps, One Chump

I heard two thumps, very close together. Sitting on the deck, I turned toward the sliding glass door. On the deck near the glass was this small bird ---

-- and his identical twin. The only difference between the two was that the one in the photo was not moving. His twin was in the same pose, but twitching.

I should put the poor bugger out of his misery, I thought. It would be the merciful and kind thing to do. End his suffering. Let's see, a gun. No, that's overkill (yeah, pun intended). Knife? Ice pick? While trying to decide on the right execution method, ...

... an opposing argument formed in my head: Leave him alone. Maybe he's only stunned, and he will recover and fly away.

The opposing argument won. Let nature be nature.

When I turned to look after a few minutes, Frick had abandoned Frack and fled.

Frack has been moved to the flower bed. It will be dark soon, and, nature being nature, Frack will be gone in the morning.

A Seinfeld Episode

I picked up a “loaner” car, a 2015 Acura TLX, from the Acura dealer today. Why, you ask?

Because my 2010 Acura TSX is being repaired. Why, you ask, did it need repairs?

Because it was parked outside in a hailstorm. Why, you ask, did I park it outside in a hailstorm?

Because I was employed as a local election official for the April election, and that meant parking outdoors at an elementary school. Inside, we heard the thunderstorm, then hail on the building roof. No way to protect the cars outside.

Why, you ask, did I seek work as an election official?

Because I make about $150 for a 15-hour workday. That’s big money for a senior citizen living on Social Security. Also, I get some satisfaction from fixing elections.

And where, you ask, is this story going?

Well, two places:

1.    My deductible on comprehensive insurance is $500, so it cost me a net $350 for my 15-hour workday. That’s big money for a senior citizen living on Social Security.

2.    The loaner car, being 5 years newer than my then-state-of-the-art 2010, has some technological advances. I had to study the instrument panel for 3 hours to figure out how to turn the radio on. There is no key, no keyhole. No gearshift lever. The navigation system switches screen displays capriciously every few seconds. Etc. Before long, dealers will have training simulators, and a person will need 75 hours in the simulator to qualify as a driver for a new model.

Seinfeld was a TV show about nothing. This blog entry has been about nothing. Therefore, this is a Seinfeld episode.