a few thoughts through bloodshot eyes

Hello Cheery Peoples,
I am reminded of the great Earl Pitts as i sit here pecking out this first thought. I can imagine his wildly ethic accent bellering, "You know what makes me sick?? You know what makes me want to gouge out Shamu's eyeballs and glue them to my forehead before i head to the pool??". (((If you aren't familiar with Earl Pitts, STOP HERE and search him on youtube.com and come back.))) Well, i'll tell you what makes me sick. It happens nearly everyday. I will check my email and see something like the following in my inbox; Fwd: fwd: FwD: fWd:fwd:fwd:fwd:fwd: etc...
I hate forwarded emails. There are a couple reasons for this. More often than not, it turns out to be some joke someone found amusing and felt they'd share, a human interest or politically oriented chunk of malarkey that a simple fact check shows to be erroneous at best or some seemingly harmless prayer gift or request that requires you to pass it on to six hundred others or you will be damned to an eternity of fire. Generally, i just delete them, but i always look at the beginning to make sure i'm not missing anything important. It is a horrible nuisance. Now i know what you are going to say and i hear it often. "Dave, they send these to you to let you know that you crossed their mind". Okay, so that may be true, but if that is the case i'd rather get an email that simply says, I thought of you today. That would mean more to me than all the joke email in the world. However, the type of mail that gets forwarded isn't the only thing that really bugs me. When people forward emails, they simply click forward, click on the people they want to send it to and then click send. This sounds simple enough and it is, but it comes with a price. I value my privacy and i live a pretty reclusive lifestyle. Personally, i play my cards close to my chest. I don't put any more information out there than necessary. The people that have my contact information have it because i hold and cherish them as friends and family and i trust them to not share it. I know i wouldn't share their information with anyone. It's a trust issue. Then again, i'm talking about forwarded emails. This week, in the forwarded mails i received i gained the private email addresses for two County Sheriffs, my dad's boss, three policemen, the assistant railroad commissioner, a priest from our old diocese, and a whole host of names and email addresses of people i have met over the years. While the vast majority of these people are just plain old good people, it only stands to reason that there are some that aren't. So, i'm asking each of you, avoid the possibilities and delete the old recipients from those forwarded emails. Fact checking for the ones that fact checking would apply to would be better, but at the minimum, you owe it to your friends to delete their addresses off before you send it on. Remember, i rarely send on a forwarded email, but when i do i remove the prior recipients and i do it for you, all i'm asking is for the same consideration.
One more thing, If you don't smoke, drink, or work as a consultant, don't ever complain to me about how much you pay in taxes.
My next post will be a happier one, i promise.
Till then, enjoy each other, Dave

Sigh-ning all the papers that come home from school.

The guys came home yesterday with the usual stack of papers that require a parents signature. I LOATHE this day every year. It's a bunch of pointless crap for the most part. I mean why in the hell do i have to sign a copy of the code of conduct, i'm not going to school there? As long as i'm familiar with what it says is that not good enough?? It's like when they took the sodas out of the school vending machines or cupcakes at in class parties cause they make kids fat. Are you kidding me?? I mean really we have to make sure johnny doesn't get fat from eating cupcakes at a class party, but they serve fried burritos covered in nacho cheez in the lunch room. I'd really love to meet the person that finds the fried burrito more healthy than a cupcake.
Something new for us this year, but probably not for the rest of the world cause our school district is five years or more behind any trend, was the racial/ethnicity updated survey. They have incorporated the one that was started under Reagan and passed by king george; hell it could have even have been Clinton. There are two parts that just annoy the hell out of me. First is the Hispanic/Latino or Not Hispanic/Latino question. That is the ethnicity portion. There are no other ethnic divisions worth noting, obviously or they would have been included. Well, for me this is a murky ass question. If you think of all the Ethnic markers for Hispanic/Latino, we certainly fall into that category. However, as it is defined by the OMB and the statisticians, most of the people i know would fall into this ethnic group. You know what, i don't have a problem with that. What i have a problem with is that it's either that or nothing else. The question is, is this really necessary??
The other weirdo part is under the race category. I absolutely abhor this one. Now before i get to it, i'll say that part of my ancestry is from Scotland and part is from the Creek and Cherokee that went to Spanish Florida and my wife is, for lack of splitting hairs here, Lebanese. This is where the Race section is just wacked. The White box is for anyone that is descendant of the peoples of Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. Let's see Scotland is Europe so White and Lebanon is North Africa, so White again. Does this make all Lebanese White?? What about those people from Egypt or Dubai, are they White also?? WEIRDNESS!!!!!
So, We are Hispanic/Latino and White. I hate being labeled. Would it not have made a hell of a lot more sense to just put a NATIVE TEXAN box?? Now that's a label i not only can live with i am proud of.
Oh and for those of you thinking, what about the Native American box?? Well you only get to claim that status if you have lineal documentation to one of the nations. Really and truly that is something that i should have as i am the family historian and have tons of information about those that came before me, but there was a census done after the Seminole war stopped, note not ended, it just stopped. In that census my ancestors were worried about reprisals or worse and adopted the names Johnson and Williamson from people they admired. That census was to get an accurate count on the peoples of what had been Spanish Florida and family history, customs and traditions, the very identity of some families were lost forever from something as simple as that census. What will the ramifications of the new one be on the American Ethnicity's in the decades ahead?? I'm sure i don't have the answer, but what really sucks is that i'm sure they don't either.