Just A Few More Thoughts

When I was working at the airport we had a little Italian guy named Albert in the maintenance building that made homemade Pasta Vasul. God, do I miss that. I like saying that with that Italian accent
          ~ Pasta Vasul ~

 I wonder if the Shuttle crew can see things blowing up in Afghanistan?

      I’ll never understand how or why a guy will wear his pants around the bottom of his bottom. I’m sure you've seen that…. Someone told me they are called “Wanna-be’s. Whatever that is. I think its some sort of club. This trend was started in prison because the guards took away their belts. Someone should tell them it doesn’t help them if they need to run for their life. It would be unmanly to run pulling up your pants.

     My dad use to say, “Lorenzo behave yourself I don’t want to see any monkey shines” I have no idea what a monkey shine is……. I looked it up on Wikipedia and I’m not sure I like the definition.

        I think my Dad had a thing for monkeys…..At times when I would copy something or do things that other youngsters would do He would say, “Lorenzo, monkey see monkey do“……It could be why I like monkeys today……

      My grandfather, father and grand mother called me Lorenzo. My mother called me Lawrence. My aunt hung the Monika Larry on me…. Today most people call me Lar…Like life as you get older your name gets shorter..

      Every once and a while when I was young I would be upset over something trivial. My dad would say, “Lorenzo don’t make a mountain out of a mole hill”.

     When I was young…Somewhere around 3rd or 4th grade. I was the victim of a bully. I’m sure there are many of us that have had that kind of trauma happen…. I came home crying and my dad explained very carefully what to do when confronted with this behavior…..Keep in mind I was a shy quiet kid and found it very difficult and painful to be in that situation as I’m sure many of us were. My dad took me aside and told me when this bully started to pick on me and push me around to pretend to run away and when he chased me to turn quick and punch him in the nose…..He said, “The force of the punch with him running into my fist would cause his nose to bleed“. He told me that he would never pick on me again. I never got a chance to do that. The bully died 6 months later of a brain tumor. Years later I worked with his dad in the same building. It just happened to be in the building where the guy made the Pasta Vasul. I never mentioned that incident to his dad…..I’ll bet he thought of his son when he seen me……We were the same age…..

" Line from the movie "Out of the furnace".
Church ain't over till all the snakes are back in the bag.

The Wolf of Wall Street

    

I seen Matthew McConaughey in the movie "The Wolf of Wall street", which by the way I turned off after about a half an hour. Boy am I glad I don't pay to see these things. It was labeled as "black comedy" and it was horrible. Scorsese really went too far here. (For money and shock value I guess?) He should stick to crime movies. There was nothing "black funny", whatever that is, about it. Drug addicts, drunks and greed to the extent of a very serious sickness. Its like they glorify this behavior. Fiction yes but if you did the things they did in the movie you would be dead. Its like Scorsese is encouraging people to do this. Does he have kids? Does he realize kids will see this trash and try what they were doing in this horrible excuse of a movie. Believe me here, its not OK. You will die.. In the first scene, it looks like Mr. McConaughey lost so much weight he looked like he was very sick or had terminal Cancer. DiCaprio sniffing Cocaine out of a hookers rectum is just a little much. All though I'm sure drug addicts have done this. Its thinking about that insanity the next day that really messes you up... I don't know about the rest of this trash movie because I had to shut it off it. It turned my stomach. On Mr. McConaughey. Lose weight yes, I can see that. With all that weight inducing chemical fed live stock in the supermarkets and fast food, its like a poison. I believe people absorb this chemical or have allergy's to this stuff. Its the reason for all the 40 and 50 year old overweight people limping around in your local Walmart. I lost weight because I became a vegetarian. I lost it around my stomach but I don't look like death warmed over and lastly, it surprises me DiCaprio would take a part like this? Why would talent like him waste their time on this horrible loser film.

P.S. Tomorrow or the next day I am going to watch  "The Dallas Buyers Club" in which Matt plays an HIV victim. No matter what the part I would never subject myself to that just to make a movie.. Realism or not..But that's just me..

Capt. Chesley Sullenburger 5 Years Later

I was in the library reading Capt. Sullenburger’s book about his life as an a Air Force fighter pilot then as an airline pilot. This past week was the 5 year anniversary of that great landing in the Hudson river saving all those people. Lately I have been writing about some of my experiences working on the ground at an airport so guys like him could take off or land those planes….
 I don’t mean anything by that. I just loved my job. I always thought of it as a very exciting thing to do for a living. I mean who else gets to see from 50 feet away three F-100 fighter jets all turn on their afterburners at the same time and take off. Or watch a plane land up close with no landing gear. Or a F-105 fighter making a low 300 foot pass over the main runway at sound barrier speed. That’s around 600 miles an hour. Talk about earth shaking…You can’t imagine what that sounds like. You cannot duplicate that sound in the movies or with any kind of speakers.
       The air traffic controllers, flight deck personal and myself are called Penguins. "The birds that don’t fly" We just make sure that the pilots can. We get them off the ground or land them as safely as possible. I was reading an excerpt from Sully's book on how he diverted to another airport to try to save a woman on his plane who had a heart attack. She didn’t make it. He said, “She died as he was landing the plane“.
           I never told the story of the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) pilot who was landing on the same runway I was working on. I glanced up towards the approach of the the runway and in the distance seen that a Cessna Citation was very low and about to land.. (Picture of a new the version above) I never got a radio call from the tower. No one saying to clear the runway. Nothing. God was at my side that day long ago when I glanced up and seen that plane in the air coming towards us. I just cleared the runway in time as he touched down where my car was. I saved some lives that day. I saved myself and my helper, the pilot, the co-pilot and the people on that plane. I think I’ll write a book about that. I'll start with leading up to events that happened that day. I’ll describe how I got ready to go to work, not knowing how close I would come to losing my life. I'll say that if it wasn‘t for my quick decision making and experience the lives of a few people would be changed forever. I could write about how I followed that Cessna to the small air craft ramp and got in the pilots face through the cockpit window pointing my finger about a inch from his nose, telling him what I thought of the way he landed and to open his Damn eyes next time. I could describe in detail how I reported him and the tower personal that didn't warn me to clear the runway. Well, I don’t want bore you the with details…After all, I didn’t land in a river…….

History Quote

      “No history is mute. No matter how much they own it, break it, and lie about it, human history refuses to shut its mouth. Despite deafness and ignorance, the time that was continues to tick inside the time that is.” Eduardo Galeano

WELCOME TO THE 21ST CENTURY!

    I didn't write this I only wish I did..

    WELCOME TO THE 21ST  CENTURY!
    
    Our Phones ~ Wireless
    
    Cooking ~ Fireless
    
    Cars ~ Keyless
    
    Tires ~ Tubeless
    
    Dress ~ Sleeveless
    
    Youth ~ Jobless
    
    Leaders ~ Shameless
    
    Relationships ~ Meaningless
    
    Attitude ~ Careless
    
    Wives ~ Fearless
    
    Babies ~ Fatherless
    
    Feelings ~ Heartless
    
    Education ~ Valueless
    
    Children ~ Mannerless
    
    Everything is becoming LESS but still  our hopes are ~ Endless.
    
    In fact we are ~ Speechless
    
    And Government is ~ CLUELESS!!
    
    And our Politicians are ~ WORTHLESS!!
    
    So there it is.

    Welcome to the 21st Century!

"Real Paper Pictures Update"

    Some of you are probably wondering why I am posting old pictures on Facebook? Well, wonder no more. In this picture my father, his name was Joe is in the middle holding my Grandfather's arm. His name was Tony. To my dad's left is his brother Louie. The kid in front of him is Edward his son. The little guy in front with the soldier suit is me..  Now my sons and grandchildren will know who they were and what they looked like. One of the good things about the internet is you can scan and post old pictures. So if you think about it, what I am doing is making the paper pictures come to life instead of being in a box in the closet.  
In these days with all the rushing around there are no pictures on paper that you can save to see in the future, in say 10, 20, or even 50 years from now. Your kids and their kids won’t know who their Grandparents were, never mind what they looked like.. They won’t know who you were or what you looked like. They won’t have the precious memories that you have… This ever changing world and its odd society has even taken away your memories and your past.. Its almost like you are only here for a few years and believe me here, it only feels like a few, then we are discarded.. Its like you don’t count anymore and in a little while you are, if you are lucky, only a name on a stone. Soon after that you won’t exist…
      
        Since the digital picture age started a few years ago did you ever notice that there are no real pictures anymore? Do you remember, what they called a photograph? I mean the kind pictures that you keep for 50 years to hand down to your kids for the “Memories“. Well, those memories were triggered by those little pieces of paper...Yes, I agree, digital graphics are clear and it is faster than film but the real pictures on paper are missing. Remember pictures? The kind you had developed and put on paper. You took pictures with your little Brownie or if you could afford it, the 35mm camera that you bought in a "Real Camera Store". My wife Ann's grandfather gave me my first 35 because he was old and his hands shook and the pictures came out blurry…His name was George Guiel…You then took that roll of film to the local drug store and waited sometimes with anticipation to have them developed to see how they “Came out“. Then you knew that years later your kids could look in that box in the back of the closet to see what Mom and Dad did with you and your brothers and sisters or your wonderful relatives years ago.
         I’ll bet you didn’t know families did mostly everything together. Beaches, camping, picnics and they even visited each others homes almost every weekend. Mom and Dad visited Grandma and Granddad all the time and took pictures of them. Sometimes they bought little frames and put those paper pictures in them just to remember how wonderful their parents were…
      Some of my most fondest memories are when I see pictures of my Mother and Father. I remember what a wonderful people they were and how patiently and delicately they guided me around the pitfalls of this dangerous world.

         To this day I have a picture of my Dad hanging where I can see it every day…