…, I have no intention of bashing our new president or even criticizing him until we see the end result of his works as POTUS.

However, I will do what one might call “semi-predict” the intended fruits of the incumbent administration.

First, as I mentioned in my last post, Mr. Obama has frozen all proposed Bush agendas pending “review” of each, rendering any prospective final legacies of the previous administration moot, including, unfortunately, bills effecting the Second Amendment rights of Americans.

Now, there’s this little nugget.

Vice President Joe Biden says the goal of a new White House task force is to raise middle-class living standards.

The goals of the task force are plums for the labor unions that supported Obama’s presidential bid. Those goals include:

– Expanding education and lifelong training opportunities
– Improving work and family balance
– Restoring labor standards, including workplace safety
– Helping to protect middle-class and working-family incomes
– Protecting retirement security

Yeah, I can see where the teachers’ unions and some of their fellow travellers might like the ring of those bells.

At the same press conference where he announced the Middle Class Task Force, President Barack Obama signed three several executive orders intended to “level the playing field” for labor unions in struggles with management.

“I do not view the labor movement as part of the problem. To me, it’s part of the solution,” Obama said, prompting applause. “You cannot have a strong middle class without a strong labor movement.”

Hmmmm….

The three executives orders Obama signed on Friday will:

– Require federal contractors to offer jobs to current workers when contracts change.

– Reverse a Bush order requiring federal contractors to post notices telling workers they can limit their financial support of unions serving as their exclusive bargaining representatives.

– Prevent federal contractors from being reimbursed for expenses intended to influence workers deciding whether to form a union and engage in collective bargaining.

The White House Web site does not define the term “middle class,” other than to call it “the backbone of the country.”

They’re working fast, friends, and what I semi-predict is, within four years, the combination of a liberal Executive Branch with Democrat majorities in the House and Senate will change the whole enchilada of the American existence, and I mean irreversibly so unless, on the next go-round, we elect another Republican majority and President who will do what our last such combination shamefully neglected to do: Their jobs, which are based upon remaining loyal to their voter base rather than their miserable, negligence ridden careers.

Too Something Too Late

The $64,000.00 question is why now, rather than a few years ago? Like, when they still enjoyed the trust of their conservative constituency…

The unanimous vote by House Republicans against President Obama’s stimulus plan provided an early indication that the GOP hopes to regain power by becoming the champion of small government, a reputation many felt slipped away during the high-spending Bush years.

I’m tired of voting for politicians simply because they are Republicans, or because they are the “lesser of two evils”. I mean, are they? We lost the majority on the Hill in November, 2006 because they abused the confidence vested in them by conservatives. Now they’re doing the right thing, but will this continue if we manage to regain leadership of the House and Senate, or will they simply return to their previous complacency and fat, butt-sitting worthlessness?

I’ll tell you this much; By 2012, we probably won’t even recognize our social and political landscapes, but whose fault is that?

I blame our own Republican politicians for screwing the pooch when we had the best of all worlds at our fingertips.

Wolf here.

First, I will say that the results of the presidential election have really surprised me, in the sense that I now realize that this country consists of a majority of people who are either unmitigated mullet heads or who haven’t, despite living for the number of years it takes to become old enough to vote, yet grasped the concept behind the success of America during its short 200 year history.

Either way, while I’ll never be ashamed to be an American, I am ashamed of the so-called Americans who contributed to the election of Barack Obama, that they have the moxi to call themselves Americans, putting themselves in the same context as those of us who cherish our liberty and our Constitution.

Second, and very important, at least for me.

I put my butt on the line for the better part of 36 years so that Americans, even those among us who voted for Obama, could continue to enjoy the right to vote according to their choice, even if that choice is just plain stupid; It’s still an American right to vote for whomever one chooses.

Having said that, unlike the lefties (the media, Democrat politicians, your average liberal, etc), I will not lower myself, as an American, to bashing our next president, no matter who he may be, when he is serving (or whatever it is he’ll be doing) in the White House.

By majority vote, he’s what we have to live with as POTUS for at least four years, and whether I respect the man or not, I will respect the office.

We saw the results of liberals going against the government, rather than supporting them, during the Vietnam war. Because of that, America projected itself to the enemy as a country whose people were not behind our government, and General Giap hung in there when he would otherwise have surrendered, waiting for our dissenters to win out over our leaders. As a result, we lost a war we were winning right up until we withdrew our troops.

During the Bush Administration, we have seen the same thing: Our lefties attacking POTUS at every opportunity, once again sending a message to the rest of the world that the American people didn’t support our government.

I served under presidents like Carter and Clinton, whom I viewed as the two worst presidents in my lifetime, but both were elected by the people, and I gave them the respect they deserved as such, no matter how much it pained me to do so. They were still my commanders-in-chief.

I hope that as conservatives, we conduct ourselves more responsibly over the next four years.

Attacking a serving president does not serve any useful purpose other than to show America as a divided nation, so while Obama is in the Oval Office, I will shut my trap and hope that the man comes to realize what it actually means to be the President of the United States, and serves accordingly.

Who knows? Maybe being there on the front lines, barrage after barrage of economic, security, global and the full gamut of other problems that are daily directed a president’s way will make him grow up and address the office in a responsible, America-first mode of service.

Wolf out.

This year, I decided to do my own taxes for a change, just to see how easy or complicated it might be.

Wow!

Tax accountants really have a good racket, though I won’t say that it’s an easy one — on the other hand, they do have the specialized knowledge that most of us non-accountants don’t. What we laymen (and lay-women) don’t have any particular training in is meat and drink to the accountant.

Now, I realize that lawyers and accountants in Congress bend over backwards to enact rules and regs that guarantee work for their colleagues and, once they return to the private sector, them by the simple expedient of complicating their respective fields to the point of requiring interpretation by said professionals, I also have to say that this practice is directly comparable to the steamy brown piles one encounters in your run-of-the-mill cow pasture.

The government already charges us for the privilege of earning money, why should we also be required to pay others to figure out how much we have to pay for the selfsame privilege of making a living?

So I get the 1099 from my brokers, listing all my trades on both the buy and sell sides (keeping in mind that I once worked back office on Wall Street, some 2-plus decades ago and learned to pluck liquidations from long lists, in actively complex accounts, of day trades, etc). I have a number of trades that involved averaging up from the original investments, that is, adding shares to already existing members of my portfolio because the original positions were notably bullish.

The problem is that the 1099 provides one list of buys and another of sells, and it’s left up to the client to match them up with the liquidations. Sure, this may sound like a no-brainer, but they don’t bother to include a breakdown of which added purchases belong to which positions, and the appropriate tax forms (1040, schedule D) demand only purchase and liquidation figures.

Do these extra 400 shares belong to this position, or that one? Do these 200 belong to this initial trade, or the other one in the same stock? Etc, etc…

I call my brokers, and they suggest that I ask my tax advisor. I call the IRS, and they give me what amounts to doubletalk — I say, “Look, I’m only interested in paying taxes on whatever profits I made on stocks in the course of 2007. I can present that figure to the dime.” They say, “You have to itemize each buy and sell, stock, dates and P&L.” and then get into the form numbers of the additional documents I’ll need to submit.

What a bunch of B.S.!!!!

Considering the hassle versus the volume of my trading, I don’t think I’ll ever buy stock again. If it’s absolutely necessary that I pay someone else to figure my taxes on same, then why should I? I already have to pay the government thousands of dollars in taxes, why should I also have to pay someone else to figure out how much I have to pay? Either they simplify the process, or stay at home!

Now, I have no objection (well, little objection) to paying taxes, since that seems to be a part of the scheme of things, but having the general issue complicated to the point of having to pay what amounts to an interpreter is beyond the pale! The 1099 includes the P&L for the year, yet the IRS requires that I itemize to detail what is already on the effin’ document (Line 1A) rather than submit the document {as someone who works for someone else would a W-2} with a single figure in a box.

My point is that if the a&&h@%%s want to collect taxes, they should take it upon themselves to make calculating the damn things a simple process for those who have to pay them, not a feat that requires a middleman (or woman) whose services require a secondary payment.

I can’t help but wonder what one of those folks dressed up as indians who participated in the Boston Tea Party would have thought of this…

…and I’m sitting in front of my computer, feeling satisfied that I’ve actually had the time to read at numerous other blogs and comment at several of them.

I just finished reading a small-but-fun book by Julia Gorin titled Clintonisms: The Amusing, Confusing and Suspect Musing of Billary.

The book is great, I’d recommend it highly to anyone who treasures clarity in the realm of mainstream political figures, especially one whose every agenda is directed towards killing off the success as a nation that America has enjoyed since its inception as would appear to be a Clinton goal.

From my speakers comes the In My Life album by Judy Collins. Suzanne, Pirate Jenny, Hard Lovin’ Loser, Sunny Goodge Street. Memories from when I was a kid living with then hippy parents, mother and step-father, in 1967. Echo Park, Los Angeles, and later Montecito Heights.

Since I ordinarily visit blogs in the alphabetical order of my blogroll, I was disappointed early on when I went to post some comments at AB Freedom, and was notified that AB had banned my comments. I don’t understand why this happened, as I have never posted anything offensive there, but that’s the way it goes. If AB finds something offensive about me, it’s his thing to do. Since this isn’t a mutual thing and I agree with his political outlook, I will continue to visit his site and retain it in my blogroll.

The most striking post into which I’ve run this morning has come from Mike’s America. If any Democrat voter can reinterpret that, he or she is politically myopic.

Well I started out on burgundy but soon reached the harder stuff
Everybody said they’d stand beside me when the day got rough
But the joke was on me, there was nobody even there to bluff
I’m going back to New York City, I do believe I’ve had enough…

– Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues (A Bob Dylan composition), Judy Collins cover

My schedule is kind of erratic, here I am in the wee hours, there I am in the afternoon or at midnight. When do I sleep?

Whenever it’s convenient!

Yesterday, I had a delivery from a local eatery called Sarpino’s Pizza. I ordered their average lasagna and ordered some meatballs on the side. I had the latter sent without sauce so I could heat them up later and have them on sandwiches with garlic mayo. Yum!!!!!!

Later is now. Yum yum, eatem up! So much for a conventional Sunday breakfast, LOL.

Tubewise, I recently bought the Stacy Keach Mike Hammer TV series and have been watching it at my leisure. What can I say? I’m a great fan of the late, great Mickey Spillane and Keach seems to have a grasp on things where the tough, two-fisted shamus is concerned.

Well, enough rambling for now… It’s time to chow down!

The last few days have found yours truly in a bit of a funk — while I haven’t felt much like posting, I have been making the rounds of other blogs, just commenting sparsely because I’ve been somewhat preoccupied with the current state of affairs and what it may all mean for our country’s not so distant future. Expressing my feelings on the subject in too many forums just now might only serve to intensify what I can only describe as a budding rage.

That John RINO McCain will get the Republican nomination is all but a foregone conclusion, which just goes to show that the liberal media still wields a lot of clout among Republicans who are too obtuse to have yet caught on to the fact that that the MSM is no longer about fair, accurate and balanced news, but that they have become a propaganda unit for the political left. Therefore, it strikes none of these fools as significant that the NYT and their ilk endorse McCain.

Next up, Israel.

Bar Kochba did a post over at Goat’s a few days ago that mirrored my own thoughts on the situation in Israel and what needs to be done about it, but in attempting to comment, I found myself just too frustrated and angry to type the things going through my own mind into a comment box.

I used to post a lot more on Israeli/”Palestinian” affairs, but more recently have realized that most of the problems the Israeli people continue to face regarding terrorism are largely a product of their own making — they allow a veritable menace to their society such as Ehud Olmert represents to remain in office (I recently read that among the Israeli population, the split between those who want Olmert to step down or be otherwise removed from office hovers right around an even split, a little over 50% for getting rid of the mutt, a little under 50% for allowing him to remain in office) and continue to give away the store. As a Jew, the existence and well-being of Israel are of profound importance to me, but it is up to the people who live there to decide how badly they want their nation (and themselves) to survive, and act accordingly. So far, there’s a lot of rhetoric over there, but Olmert is still in office and more confident daily that he will remain there.

So, I’ve been doing more watching than blogging where Israel is concerned, the old “hold your breath and cross your fingers” routine.

Moving right along…

Those of us who are more aware of what is happening around us than, say, a box of rocks is aware, understand that Islam is in the process, both militantly and judicially, of making its move toward subjugating the free world under the freedom-devoid umbrella of Sharia law. The United States and numerous allies are fighting a global war on terror. Our brave troops are battling terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan.

While our involvement in these two countries, Israel, Iran, North Korea and our own homeland security issues are considered matters of grave concern and are discussed “hither and yon” (I’ve longed for years for an excuse to use that phrase, by gum!), we almost completely ignore — and by this, I include the “news” media — the ongoing situation in the Balkans.

Essentially, the Clinton Administration got us involved over there with shouts of “ethnic cleansing!” The pro-Slick Willy MSM echoed the cry: “Ethnic Cleansing!” Forthwith, we went to war on behalf of the Muslims, who were doing a great deal of their own ethnic cleansing: Cleansing, wherever the opportunity presented itself, infidels. Somehow, we didn’t hear a peep from the media about the brigades of militant Muslims who were doing pretty much what Hezbollah and friends were doing in Lebanon a quarter century ago. We went after Milosevic on behalf of Obama Osama and his merry men, or fellow travellers thereof.

Basically, we were assisting Islamists in their loving chore of killing off or otherwise subjugating unbelievers. Exit Clinton (or should I be so Roman messengerly as to say, with great trepidation nonetheless, Clinton I?), enter George Dubya Bush.

The song remains the same: We still support the fine folks in the Balkans who want to abolish freedom and administer a high Koranic to all infidels everywhere.

“Wheah ya’ frum?”

“Me? Ah’m from Bendover, Massachusettes.”

Julia Gorin is probably the most expert blogger/columnist I read on the Balkans and she doesn’t pause in her reporting for such items as pulling punches or any pretense at political correctness.

Recently, she posted this excellent and majorly on-top-of-things article at JWR’s Political Mavens. It’s a lengthy piece, in terms of links and so forth, but is worth every second of the read for anyone who wishes to know the truth of what’s happening under the auspices of western governments, while the MSM ignores what amounts to our own government aiding and abetting the same enemy we’re at war with in other parts of the world, in fact helping that enemy’s rise to power in a strategically significant part of Europe.

No, Billy Bob, Albania is not a brand of Melba toast.

Back to the U.S.A.

Are our Second Amendment rights being taken seriously enough?

If you want a gun permit in Pasquotank, you can go to the new Pasquotank Public Service Building in Elizabeth City, but you must stand in line. The only problem is that you, a law-abiding citizen, may have to stand in that line with convicted sex offenders. That’s because if you’re there to get a gun permit, there’s only one line you’re allowed to stand in; and the sign at the head of that line reads, “Gun Permits/Sex Offender Registration.”

W, as they say, TF!!!!????

That’s right. In the county’s public service building, law-abiding citizens are forced to mingle and wait with some of the worst criminals in our society. As Bob Halbert, a 26-year retired Navy officer who was recently humiliated by standing in the line said, “I feel they’re putting me or a person coming in for a gun permit in the same category as sex offenders. If someone comes by who knows you and sees you, all it takes is one bad rumor and bam, you’re marked for life.”

Halbert went on to say, “A close friend of mine’s son recently visited us after his return home from Iraq, where he served for 15 months as a military policeman. And yes, he did put himself in harm’s way as I did numerous times in my career … with 26 years of honorable service to this great country of ours. But in Elizabeth City, we are grouped with sex offenders if we want to apply for a gun permit.”

Commenting on the sign that requires that the two groups mingle, Pasquotank Sheriff Randy Cartwright said, “I don’t know where (else) we would put it.”

Did they ever consider having two lines?

I don’t know how many readers receive and read NRA emailings entailing the anti-Second Amendment legislation they are battling against, state-by-state, on a never-ending basis as the anti-gun lobby never sleeps, but it’s nothing nice.

What the dedicated people at the NRA have committed themselves to makes the 12 Labors of Hercules look pretty easy. As fast as they address one anti-gun law proposal in one state, sixteen more pop up in a dozen other states.

And the rich?

What can we say about a guy who became the richest man in the world thanks, in major part, to our capitalist system, then, once untouchably rich, decided to denigrate capitalism?

Free-market advocates say the world’s richest man doesn’t seem to understand that the same system that made him wealthy can make life better for the poor around the world.

Bill Gates told the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last week that under pure capitalism, “the great advances in the world have often aggravated the inequities in the world. The least needy see the most improvement, and the most needy see the least.”

Gates said he was “impatient” with capitalism.

Yeah, he and George Soros, both. Read the entire article, some good points are imparted therein.

…And the global warming maroons have begun researching the enviro-perils of cow burps, which, in the Utopian world of the liberal, might lead to the vanquishment of steers and therefore the mandatory deprivation of beef — vegetarians shout it out! I can just picture me now, without legal access to a juicy, delicious, rare ribeye, going through perspiration-laced, spasmodic withdrawals as I chomp on a leek.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I promise I won’t become afflicted by McCain/Hussein/Billary Derangement Syndrome or anything like that, but I think I’m entitled, as a free thinking, conservative American, to be at least a little pissed off at and to feel somewhat betrayed by the very people we’ve elected to govern our nation. To that end, I blame both major political parties.

In a comment on one of my recent posts, Old Soldier made an excellent point: The GOP is now soliciting contributions by invoking the evils of a Hillary Clinton Presidency.

What, I ask myself with much chagrin, is the difference whether we have John McCain or Hillary Clinton in the White House?

Sure, the Republicans in Congress would be much more likely to fight the liberal espousements of a President Hillary than the same drivel emitted by a so-called Republican John McCain, but at the end of the day, we will surely see changes that we, as conservatives, will not like, even a little. The changes, because of our nation’s status in the world, will have global ramifications that will, as well, not be good for America or our friends and allies.

Not if we, as a people who enjoy the right to vote, continue to do so irresponsibly, thereby continuing to let the bad guys win…

The GOP now appears to have the same low degree of respect for the intelligence of its constituency that its Democrat opposite numbers do for their proponents.

John McCain, if he is elected POTUS, will change the course of U.S. politics: His doctrines will combine port and starboard so that both parties end up drawing our water from the same well, and it will be water polluted with the same socialism causing, sovereignty surrendering, lie-rich bacteria that the Democrats have been drinking for several years running.

My Jonesing, as William Teach so aptly described it in a comment in one of my last two posts before Mr. Inspiron passed away, has come to an end — I just received my new Dell XPS-M 1330 (a couple of hours ago, actually, but there’s all that set-up stuff you have to do, in which I’m still involved).

The reason for my relative silence these last couple of weeks is, simply put, that I can’t stand Internet cafes and library computers. I’m spoiled that way — ever since I first started blogging I’ve always done so from home or from hotel rooms, with my own choice of atmosphere (music, silence, whatever) — also, being a smoker, I prefer that option as well when I write posts or visit and comment at other blogs, something you can’t do at libraries or Internet cafes. They’re also distractive.

I seem to form these strange attachments to my computers: I don’t like other people using them, and I don’t like to use other peoples’ computers. I don’t know if this is merely a personal eccentricity or whether a lot of other folks are the same way, but that’s me.

The configuration of places to plug in cables, etc differs greatly from that of my Dell Inspiron, where all were located in the back. On this notebook they’re on the sides; The DVD/CD ROM drive is bay-style, you slide the discs in through a slot, and there is a touch pad above the keyboard that allows you to play, pause, control volume, eject and so forth without having to maximize and use the controls on the media site to do everything.

I haven’t had much chance to explore yet, so I have no idea whether or not there will be any difference on my part where the Windows Vista operating platform is concerned.

I’ve owned three computers in my life, one desktop, my Inspiron and now my second notebook, and this one is by far the fastest — according to the folks at Dell, it’s their best model currently in production. I have 2 gigs of memory, so I don’t foresee any problems there, and once the carrier I ordered arrives, I’ll be able to use my old hard drive as an external and put a lot of stuff from the late Mr. Inspiron’s lifetime into the new computer.

I have a few more set-up related items to deal with and a veritable 18 wheeler load of emails to deal with, after which Ah’ll be bock!

…a second post on the same day, it’s great to have some time on my hands.

Given my history of general contempt for the French (they’re now spared the “spit”), I was impressed enough by a) their rejection, as a voting mass, of the ultra-socialist EU constitution served up awhile back and then, later, b) the election of a right thinker and former interior minister named Nicholas Sarkozy as the successor to America-hating leftist president Jacques Chirac, to travel hopefully on the future of French-American relations.

To go further, I also see that the French government now has a realist at the helm, a realist who will hopefully guide his country along a path that both extracts France, to some degree, from the morass of the socialist EU and brings her into both a stronger economy and more positive relations with the United States (it would be nice, since our fearless leaders — right! — insist upon continued membership in the U.N. — SPIT!).

I am, in fact, beginning to wonder if maybe George Bush and all of Congress should consider employing Sarkozy as a consultant.

The National Assembly approved tough new restrictions on immigration yesterday, completing a major step in President Nicolas Sarkozy’s program to roll up a famously well-trodden welcome mat.

The bill, which still needs Senate approval and a second vote in the Assembly, requires would-be immigrants for the first time to demonstrate a knowledge of the French language and cultural values.

When my grandparents arrived in N.Y. from Russia and Poland in the late 1920s/early1930s, respectively, they came with the sole intention of becoming Americans, as one with our heritage, language and social customs. Today, we are becoming inundated with immigrants who have little or no desire to assimilate into our society — they flee one system, but feel no loyalty to the system that takes them in, provides better opportunities to prosper and allows them freedoms they didn’t possess back in the old country.

Bravo Sarkozi!

“For many of our countrymen, immigration is a source of concern,” said Immigration Minister Brice Hortefeux upon introducing the bill. “They see a threat to their security, their jobs, their lifestyle. We must understand the … hopes of this silent majority.”

However, the bill has roused a range of critics, including leftist politicians, scientists, human rights groups, the Vatican and even French police and members of Mr. Sarkozy’s own party and government.

Some argue that would-be immigrants, if they cannot enter France legally, will simply do so by illegal means.

“The desire to go to Europe is very strong,” said Catherine de Wenden, an immigration specialist at the National Center for Scientific Research, a Paris think tank. “And the tougher the policy, the more likely it will lead to illegal immigration.”

That last bit is so very typical of liberals/leftists — “If we pass a law against it, it will lead to people breaking that law, so we shouldn’t pass it or we might have to enforce it.”

And these people want to govern — excuse me, micromanage western civilization?

“Lawd”, as they say, “have mercy!”

You Go, Sarkozi!

I just had a couple of interesting days where my computer is concerned. Earlier in the week, I had a trackback from a site called “Federal Government” something, and clicked on the URL link to see what the site was about, and… BAM!… my security system regalled me with a small, red-bordered banner proclaiming that I’d just opened the door for a virus about which it could do nothing.

The next 48 hours saw everything deteriorating; I could rarely send any emails, pages took as long as 5 minutes to load and drifted, looking as though they were underwater, or simply shot up or down at will. I could hardly ever get into my music library, and when I did it froze up before I could play anything.

Control-Alt-Delete indicated a false CPU usage of 100%. I tried running a security scan — it lasted 5 hours (3+ hours longer than usual), found no discrepancies and then didn’t even show up under the “last scan” date and time.

This is my first notebook, I’ve had it for about 27 months and it’s been not only my home & office computer, but also my travelling companion. I was getting desperate, concerned that the powerful virus had doomed it, and actually considered buying a new laptop. For me, that would have been the equivalent of trading in a beloved brother or sister for a new model. Had I been one to panic, I would have panicked.

HOWEVER…

Trend Micro 2007, forever searching the Web for new viruses, trojan horses and types of spyware, etc, and downloading updates as they find them, must have run across the virus elsewhere and figured out what to do about it, because it suddenly ceased to be…Mr. Inspiron was abruptly back to normal. My automatically scheduled Friday scan was the usual and exposed no unwelcome entities of any kind. Yay!

The pox on Internet vandals!

Unfortunately, this has left me with a long list of emails to answer and a lot of reading to catch up on, as well as some catch-up on a work project I couldn’t continue while the accursed virus was munching away in my computer. And I do mean munching, as things were indeed deteriorating from hour to hour.

The only silver lining, as regards my work project, was the time I had to do some supplemental research in the Protection Of Assets Manual, a four tome, binder-format mini-library that is pretty much the bible of the Security biz. $800.00 + (well spent, covers about everything). While the bulk of my Protection Industry (security) library currently resides in my storage locker in Charlotte (I am, after all, semi-retired), the above mentioned manual travels with me, though as a priority, it, like all my other possessions, plays second fiddle to my trusty Dell Inspiron 600m.

This is one of those “who would have believed, X years ago…?” things. Throughout the 1990s and long after Alfonse Aloysius Gore, III had invented the Internet, I was one of those people who sneeringly said that I would never become entangled in the World Wide Web. Even in 2000, after voting for Dubya Dubya Dubya, I had no interest in anything WWW. I had no email address, no computer and no intention of ever owning one. I knew how to access programmed, statistical information on an offline computer from previous employment, and that was that.

In late 2001, I was pressured by a lifelong love with whom I had been reunited to at least get an email address. I grudgingly opened free accounts at Yahoo! and Hotmail. We got WebTV and I got hooked almost immediately to surfing, contacting and conversing with friends who were online and, later, we bought an E-Machine desktop computer.

In 2002, a friend of mine who had just returned from Hong Kong turned me on to a blog (the first I’d ever seen) called Gweilo Diaries, a great site out of HK run by an American expatriot who called himself Conrad. His blogroll led me to the Blogosphere and suddenly I was reading and commenting at several conservative blogs — it was awesome, there they were, a whole bunch of sites espousing political opinion that coincided with mine rather than the usual lefty crap that the MSM was spewing!

Flashing ahead to the spring of 2005, living alone again (I belong alone where domesticity is concerned, it never seems to work for very long when I share a domicile with anyone else), I bought this notebook and began using it for work purposes — I found that using the computer reduces project time significantly and eliminates quite a bit of work — and that summer I started blogging. We (my Inspiron and I) have been all over the country together, as well as to Mexico and the Caribbean.

I can’t help wondering if there aren’t a lot of other people whose relationships with their computers are as intense as mine…

My two days at Harrah’s Joliet were awesome, so much so that I intend to go there whenever I need to get away for a bit.

When I lived in Nevada and worked in a casino, gaming establishments became a run-of-the-mill sort of thing, nothing special, day-to-day, etcetera, etcetera.

Since then (over ten years ago), I’d only gone into casinos during a two week visit to Atlantic City back in 1998. It was still pretty much same-old, same-old, except I enjoyed the Boardwalk and the Jersey shore atmosphere, falaffel and funnel cakes (yum!). If you’ve never had a funnel cake, you have no idea!

However, visiting Harrah’s in Joliet nine years later was another story entirely.

First, I have to say that having stayed in a gazillion hotels over the last few years, I found the staff at Harrah’s to be the friendliest, most customer oriented I’ve ever met, folks who really bend over backwards (figuratively, don’t start!) to make sure a guest has a flawlessly fantastic time.

It turned out that the only room service they provide is for alcoholic beverages, but if a guest wants to dine in the room, people who work strictly behind desks would be more than glad to deliver a meal from any restaurant in the house (I didn’t take them up on it, but the offer was there).

Even the pit bosses are outgoing and affable, and all employees make a point of learning your first name and interacting on a friendly basis. They all remember all the customers’ names, even at a crowded bar or craps table, it’s amazing.

Speaking of craps, here’s a bit of history: The game, originally called “galloping dominoes”, was invented in New Orleans in the late 1800s by a Frenchman. The slang for Frenchman was crapeaux, meaning “toad-frog”, and that name became the popular name for the game, then was eventually shortened to simply “craps”.

Between visits to the dice tables, I spent some time drinking at a long bar at the back of the casino that had multi-game slots built into the bar. Whenever I was there, I played $1.00 video bonus poker, and sort of lucked out by finding a good machine at the first stool I occupied — no royals, but lots of playing longevity between inserting C-notes in the slots ($5.00 max bets per hand). It’s not the same as it was during my last visit to a casino, instead of coins filling a tray when you cash out, you get a validation slip that can either be inserted in other machines for play or redeemed for folding money at a cashier’s window. I must admit that it’s weird to me to be in a casino without hearing the cacophony of thousands of coins clattering incessantly into hundreds of slot trays.

“Progress” marches on…

I didn’t get to try their best restaurant, I felt my time was better spent gambling, though I did do the buffet the first day. It was adequate, but unfortunately it was an inordinately slow Wednesday evening and the food had gotten a bit old, and tasted such. Bummer. The steam tables are divided into several different types of cuisines, and of all, I enjoyed maybe two items.

However, Ace’s, a cafe/snack bar located in the casino itself puts out a good roast beef and peppers sub, and is open 24 hours. They have free coffee ’round the clock, but alas, it tastes almost as cardboardy as the coffee bags provided with the in-room coffee maker. However, there is a Starbuck’s on the premises, and being the improviser I am (staying at beaucoups hotels teaches one many useful things) as well as a lover of coffee, I had them grind me a pound of “house” and absconded with a stack of their “official” napkins which, properly applied, double well as filters for said in-room coffee makers. Housekeeping, as customer service intensive as the rest of the staff, provided me with a sufficient number of condiment packets to make it work.

If you want a decent cup of coffee in the casino proper, get it at the above mentioned bar.

Anyone who’s read my blog for a couple of years knows of my travails with hotel Internet access. Well, after a few minor problems at first (no fault of Harrah’s, the outside ISP they use mistakenly classified my room as a meeting room rather than a guest room, and once the error was addressed it was smooth sailing), their wireless access was impeccable, on a par with that flawless access I experienced at the Lenox in Boston some time back. I was majorly impressed.

Among the differences between Nevada casinos and Harrah’s Joliet are that at the latter there are no live poker or keno parlors and there is no race and/or sports book. I was told that these are not approved by the Illinois state gaming board. State law also forbids them from serving free alcoholic beverages (wow!), period, and they have to stop serving alcohol altogether at 3:30 a.m. on weekdays and 4:00 a.m. on weekends. The casino itself is closed from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. daily for cleaning. I laughed when a bartender in the casino told me that, thinking that in Nevada, they’ll clean and even do carpentry around you rather than make you stop gambling.

Despite any shortcomings described above, I would profoundly recommend Harrah’s Joliet as a great place for a hotel/casino getaway. The staff there, from gaming to hospitalty, are so exceptional that they make it an awesome experience.

Being as ultra-suburban as they are, they enjoy a large local trade, and at the tables and bars one meets all kinds of down-to-earth, friendly people who frequent the casino as a social focal point. I never felt at all “lonely” at the bars, conversation was consistantly animated and enjoyable.

For the days leading up to my 52nd birthday, I have to give a zillion star rating and now, at going on 5 a.m. on the day, I will say that my visit to Harrah’s Joliet was the best 48 hours I’ve enjoyed for as long as I can remember.

At the moment, I’m kicking back with some coffee and brandy (one of my favorite combinations these days) and listening to some “oldies” ie The Zombies, The Guess Who and The Doors, and contemplating the next couple of days’ activities.

My birthday is coming up (yeah, I’m a Leo, who would’ve guessed?) very shortly, and I want to do something different. The problem, lately, has been that too many people seem to object to my self-imposed semi-retirement, and as a result I’m constantly being drawn into time consuming, mostly pro-bono projects and so forth that dominate hours and days I’d otherwise spend partaking of leisure activities that range from vegetating or bicycling for hours to working on my novel, researching political issues, blogging and visiting the sites of fellow bloggers.

So I have decided to make good my escape for a couple of days to celebrate my birthday a tad in advance, on the spur-of-the-moment — and I do mean spur!

I was just sitting here listening to music when I abruptly (impromptu, whatever) picked up the phone and made reservations for two days/nights at Harrah’s in Joliet, starting this coming afternoon. I haven’t enjoyed the casino atmosphere and played craps for some time, so it should be a lot of fun and nostalgic to boot. I’ll stop at my bank before I leave and pick up some cash for gaming, then head to Joliet.

Joliet is a drab, ugly town that once hosted a prison (remember The Blues Brothers?), but their Harrah’s seems to be an oasis of sorts — though to read the casino hotel’s hype, the droll municipality is “picturesque”, but at least the interior of Harrah’s will prove to be the bastion of perceived resort luxury one finds in all of their establishments, and I see little reason to exfiltrate its perimeters except to return to Chicago on Friday, anyway.

The reservations lady assured me that a) I will have dependable wireless Internet in my room, b) there is good room service, and c) their dice tables pay the same percentages as Nevada casinos do (in some places, payouts on certain games are less).

I’m pretty excited about it all, and though I’m not a habitual gambler, I do love to gamble in a casino on rare occasions. Unless you’ve spent some time at a dice table, you have no idea how adrenalized and fun it can be. Having worked in a casino, I’m also well schooled, having witnessed too many idiots in action and learned from their “mistakes”, in the area of responsible gambling — phase one on that score is not to let the cocktail waitresses get you drunk. Order coffee or soft drinks when you’re at the table, if you plan to play for a few hours. Trust me on this one.

At any rate, I may or may not be online over the next couple of days, time will tell.

Cheers!