Several months ago, I had a nice simple fax machine. All it did was fax. It worked. I also had a simple photocopy machine. It made copies. That’s about all it did. I also had a laser network printer. It printed stuff. Then, someone downstairs decided that it was silly to pay three bills a month for three different machines, when they could order a gigantic monolith of a machine to do all three, for slightly less expense every month! What a brain storm! Not. Truth? It sucks big time. Here is me, walking down the hall toward The Machine From Hell. I have one piece of paper in my hand I want three copies of it. Simple. You would think anyway. But ahhh…..it is not anymore. First, I am faced with 7,321 buttons, keys, and menus on the machine’s monitor. More buttons than the Space Shuttle. It takes me ten minutes to get it out of FAX mode into Copy mode. Just when I am ready, some jackass down the hall sends a 45 page report to the machine using it’s network printer mode. I have to wait. And wait. And wait. OK, now I have to get it back in copy machine mode, and start to copy. But wait! Some sockwad is faxing a menu from the local restaurant. I have to wait for that piece of crap to come in. Eventually, I am ready, and hit the button frantically before the damn thing turns into a Teleportation device and Scotty from Star Trek appears. I slam the button down. Nothing occurs. Out of paper. Looking down the front of the machine, I see eight trays.Which damn tray is empty???  I yank them all out, and stuff paper in each one, of course, long way when it goes side ways, so when I make my three copies, everything doesn’t print on the page. I then have to change all eight trays, since I still have no friggin clue which friggin tray is the real one, and which are just designed to make my left eye twitch like a Caterpillar  walking across a hotcake griddle.

Just when I am ready to try again, another damn fax comes in. Then another network print job. Then my foot smashes into the front of the machine, lights flash on the monitor with fancy red symbols meaning something is wrong. I manage to unplug the machine, and with both my shoulders against it, push the damn Satan possessed device down the hall and eventually down the stairs, where it tips upside down on the stair landing and starts to dissemble quite satisfactorily.

I place a service request. and go to lunch. A long lunch.

It usually takes me to December before I get sick of the holidays. It’s just Thanksgiving weekend, and I am already sick of it. Of course, the "holiday" music started before Halloween! Also, the religious wars. Christmas music that mentions Christ has been banned in some schools and other places. The fighting is at a fever pitch already. It’s sickening.

People lined up outside stores Friday hours before sunrise. Outside stores! I mean, stores????

The food drives for the homeless has tripled. We were encouraged to help the homeless have a good Thanksgiving meal. What the hell about the other 364 days? How long is that meal going to last them?

So much of the holiday season disturbs me. It is like society is a sack of ants in a bag, and someone shakes it this time of the year, and all the ants go nuts. I mean, get up before dawn to wait in a line to get into a shopping center??? What the hell does that have to do with Christ? Well, nothing. There is nothing remaining of the "holidays" that has anything to do with Christ anymore. Assuming you are standing in your closet when you say "Christ", as any place else and you might offend someone. When the hell did the Constitution get updated to protect people from being offended?

Folks, if you offend easily, don’t read this blog.

The car dealership has massive Christmas displays, and Christmas lights. City hall is ablaze in lights and reindeer’s. No crosses though, God help us if we put up a cross! It might have some sort of "religious" meaning.

We wouldn’t want that now, would we?

The stores have Crappy Christmas Carols blaring through the entire place.

The parking lots are overflowing onto the sides of the road.

People are rushing and fighting and yelling and pushing. And thats just the churches!

Isn’t the holiday suppoes to be about love? Grace? Forgiveness? Peace on earth? Holy crap, this is the most non-peaceful time of the year.

And then there are the stinking presents.Why must we go through this present giving thing? I have people who have everything they ever wanted. One friend complains about receiving gifts that she will never use. Next year, she gets gift cards that she can use to buy whatever she wants. But, she complaints about that because it is a pain to go to the stores and find something to use the card on. Like a chore. 

I am lousy at buying gifts. I’m not cheap, that isn’t the case. I just hate the contests we get sucked into. Well, we have to spend X amount on this family, because they spend that amount on us. What is that, some kind of gift war?

I’m tired of the holidays already. As far as the religious aspect, I am a Christian every day of the year. I’m not obsessed about it. I don’t exclude everything else from my life. And I’m not legalistic about it either. Christmas is about Christ. So is every other day of the year to me. I’m not one to try to honor Christ one day out of the whole year. I try to do it every day. I fail most days, but I get back up and try again tomorrow. Thank God for grace.

And you know, there are times I am almost embarrassed to be a christian. There are some really, really un-christ-like Christians out there. I mean, some people who need to triple their medication if you know what I mean. 

This country was founded on religious freedom. And I still give that right to everyone. Yeah, I think my faith is the right way. But the part about religious freedom I get, is the part where you let everyone else choose their own religion. You can’t force faith onto people. It has to grow inside them.

But, back to the season greetings time. I don’t know why, but I am just sick of all the phoniness of it all. All the money, money, money thing of it. That is all the holidays seem to have become.

I’m cranky tonight. Lack of sleep lately, for a variety of reasons. I wish the holidays were more real. Less plastic. I mean, a car dealership having massive holiday display. Because they enjoy the season? Or want to sell more cars? Make more money?

Somewhere there must be a Christmas that is about peace on earth. And grace. And a lot less noise…

My wife and I went out where the buildings don’t grow and
the gas stations don’t sit. Where only God and His beauty flourish. We must
leave the concrete of Miami and Fort Lauderdale as often as we can, to go out
into the big blue sky place, where we can exhale the concrete and hassles of
cosmopolitan life, and breathe in the pure, clean beauty of nature.

This is a photo of me that my wife took, while I was taking a photo of her,
taking a photo of me taking…..you get the picture I think. Why, of course you
get the picture! It’s right up there! /\

I’m the guy in the background. Larry is the weird looking fellow .

My wife has beautiful nails, doesn’t she?  I love them. And her.
I am one of those guys who really enjoys all the stuff women do for
themselves, and I guess for men. The fine nail polish, the earrings, the
lipstick, the perfume. God, do I love perfume. I always try to sniff the air
after passing a woman. (A beautiful woman that is, not someone with their very
owe vehicle license plate. Ya never know what you might smell off of
those…..)

A woman came into my office Friday. Big black woman. Smelled wonderful! I told
her so. She was pleased with the compliment. Of course, she was an older mature
woman, who obviously had taste. The younger ones, or the fem-Nazis, you got to
look out for them. Tell them they have very attractive earrings and they will
have the PC police slam your face up against the wall and haul you in for
sexual abuse. Thankfully, most of the women who are serious about radical women’s
rights have such ugly faces that if they were my dog I would shave it’s ass and
teach it to walk backwards. But, I digress.

Actually, I’m not really sure I had a point to begin with, so maybe I
haven’t  digressed at all. Have you ever wondered what the hell "digress"
really means? I mean, really??? Well, the dictionary defines it as:

lose clarity or turn aside especially from the main
subject of attention or course of argument in writing, thinking, or speaking;

By golly, that was a pretty clear definition, wasn’t it? I think I lost clarity
after my first three words….

Anyway, I like women who have fine nails, lipstick, eyeliner, earrings,
perfume, dresses, all that stuff. There isn’t much more I like better than
that, except maybe thong underwear, but I best not get into that subject as my
beautiful wife, who looks like a goddess even without makeup, could possibly be
reading this and misinterpret what I mean by thong underwear.  (And all kidding aside, she does look
gorgeous without makeup!).

Well, if my point was to write a handful of paragraphs, which individually make
a sort of sense, but taken together only confuses and gives your brain gas,
then I’ve achieved my goal.

Peace out folks.

An article here reports that laser printers and copy machines are inserting tracking identification codes into every piece of paper. It is like a license plate, tracking that piece of paper back to the printer/copier it came from. Yet another way big government can watch our every move. The next time you print out some joke you received via email to share with certain people in the office, better be careful! Offend someone and they can track that piece of paper back to your printer. Of course, employers already have the right to own your work email. We lost that battle flat out years ago.   Your debit and credit card information is tracked. Cameras are everywhere. RFID will be here in a year or sooner.

We have lost the personal privacy war, without firing a shot. Of course, they can track the bullet fired now, and the gun it is registered to.

I’m not sure, but I think they are working on a fart analyzer that could trace the fragrance right back to the farter via trace DNA testing.

We are screwed.