Eulogy to a friend.

For several months I had been aware that a friend of mine had been quite ill. However, he lived in another city, and I've had very little contact with him over the past 5+ years. Last Tuesday I was informed that he had passed away. I attended the viewing on Friday evening and his funeral on Saturday morning.

Shawn Sorenson had to be one of the most unique people I have ever met. If you saw him next to me, you would have never thought of us as friends. Truth be told, in high school I didn't want to have anything to do with him.

But people change. And I've never met anyone who changed as much as he did.

Sometime after high school he quit drugs, alcohol, and smoking. He did all this without losing his personality; without losing who he was. He was still a coarse, fun-loving person. Coarse because his style of humor would be offensive to most people I know. He was just offensive enough to be funny without being annoying. It took a certain style of humor to appreciate his antics, and it was always more fun to play along with him than it was to ask him to stop.

Fun loving because there was never a dull moment. I know that phrase is used often, but with Shawn it was true. You never knew if you were going to wake up in the morning by being doused with barbecue sauce or being poked with the blunt end of his dull sword. Yes, the same sword he dueled with when my other friend challenged him to sword fights. He loved making you squirm, but only just enough. If he got bored, the gears would start turning and he would always come up with something to do. Like dousing a soccer ball in gasoline and wrapping it with a discarded bedsheet, then lighting it on fire and playing flaming soccer. Oh, the memories. Sometimes I wonder how he survived as long as he did.

Despite the coarseness, he was an irrevocable nerd. You'd never be able to tell this just by looking at him. He didn't have greasy hair, glasses, a pale complexion, or a thin build. (Wow, I totally just described myself. That's kinda scary.) Yet he sat around the table with us and played Star Wars RPG on many occasions. Usually he played a wookie and took advantage of the freedom of gameplay by injuring as many people as possible just for kicks to see how long it would take for authorities to detain him. It was hard to roll the dice when you're laughing so hard you can't see through the tears.

Another word that describes him is generous. If you had issues, he'd be the first one to offer you a ride, or an extra coat, or to join him in partaking of his amazing barbecue ribs. He never complained to me, even when his health had deteriorated to the point where he was in excruciating pain. He never talked about his ailments. He was more interested in inviting you to go fishing or something else fun.

It was because of his generosity and love that he won the hearts of all who knew him. It was a simple Christlike attribute, yet it stood out. It was hard to not like him. I can almost hear him whispering in my ear, "Hey sonofabitch, how the hell are you?"

Shawn lived 30 years. He was 3 months younger than myself. It was his time to go; his time to be released from his pain. There's a lot of work to do in the next life, and his experiences in this life more than qualifies him.

I won't see him for another 30 years or more. Its okay, though. Seeing Shawn again will be well worth the wait.

Why I love Steve Wynn

On the Fox News Sunday Economic Roundtable show, Steve Wynn, the billionaire Las Vegas mogul shared some simple truths about the economy and role of Government. (Partial video segments can be found here and here.)

WARNING: This post is very long. It may take 15-20 minutes to read the words. You have been warned.

Okay, on to Steve Wynn.

"I think that the priorities of the administration should have been more directly focused on job creation. From the day of the inauguration forward, the priority should have been job creation. And the most powerful weapon and the tool that the government has for that is its tax policy. If the government had used its power to restrain its tax collection they would have given everybody who runs small businesses, large businesses, a chance to hire more people and that could have been done an entirely different way. With eight or $900 billion we could have created four or five million jobs, which would have made a big difference."

It gets better, though. Chris Wallace later asked, "Where do you draw the line between the proper role of government in all this and the proper role of the private sector?"

Steve Awesome replied, oops, I mean Steve Wynn replied,

"Government has never increased the standard of living of one single human being in civilization's history. For some reason that simple truth has evaded everybody. The only thing that creates an increased standard of living is giving someone a job, the demand for their labor -- whether it's you and I, Chris, or anybody else. The people that are paying the price for this juggernaut of federal spending are the middle class and the working class of America. And soaring rhetoric and great speeches with or without a teleprompter aren't going to change the truth, and the truth is: The biggest enemy, the biggest obstacle that working middle-class America has is government spending."

YES!

But Governor Granholm, D-Michigan, had some words for Wynn.

"It's just so simplistic to say that! With all due respect, I mean, to say that government has never created a job or increased the standard of living. You know, I mean there -- there are a lot of people who are grateful that in this country we have a minimum wage. There are a lot of people who are grateful that they have access to Medicare and Medicaid. And I hope that we get access further to additional health care for those who are un- -- right now uninsured. I mean, there is a balance here. To say that government is all evil... This is a democracy. It's the greatest country in the world."

Steve Wynn then responds,

"I didn't say that at all. I'm saying that the source of government revenue, the source of well-being in this country is employment. That allows companies to pay taxes, employees to pay taxes. That's the source here and it's gotten out of focus. That's my point, Governor. I'm not making any other point. And, believe me, ma'am, I've got 20,000 employees. I've had as many as 150,000 families that I've been self-insuring. There's nothing "simplistic" about my approach to this problem."

BINGO.

"Health Care, something I know about, is a complicated, technical issue for which practically everybody in this administration has absolutely zero experience. It was not a priority. Job creation was the priority from the day this President was inaugurated. It has been eclipsed by a technical, confusing conversation in which hardly anybody has read the small print on a thing called Health Care. That's a proper subject, along with infrastructure, for a healthy economy. But health care and infrastructure are things that come later. Right now our concentration should be on job creation."

"I've never laid off anybody in 40 years. But if this president, and this administration, and Nancy Pelosi get their way, I, and all other employers like myself, will be hit, with my employees, with a barrage of taxes that will result in more layoffs, that will not be helpful, and will be counter-productive to the very goal we should have as a nation."

"The economists have had their moment, really everyone who has had absolutely no experience in insuring people, creating jobs, have had their moment. The housing market will improve when pepole have a job so the can buy a home that they can afford or a car that they can afford. The stimulus package which is antithetical and counter-intuitive to Washington is to restrain government power. The most powerful tool is tax policy. Had the president stood up the day after he was inaugurated and said we're going to pass a bill that say if you can prove to the IRS that you've increased your permanent employees with health insurance we will subsidize $30 thousand or $40 thousand dollars of that in the form of a tax credit, there would have been jobs created in this economy within 60 days in every corner of the economy, not just in civil construction, no not at all; there would have been jobs created everywhere because businesses, as you have pointed out, have cut back out of fear, they're suffering from a lack of consumer confidence. The day that the unemployment figure goes from 9.6 and climbing to 8.9 is the day that consumer confidence will return, and this country will be on its way out of the recession."

"I think these are complicated subjects. Job creation. The chance to build more cars comes from people having a job. Focus on that simple truth. Simple truths hold institutions together. We've lost our focus. And that's my opinion."

Hehe, he said "antithetical." My new word of the day.

an⋅ti⋅thet⋅ic

 –adjective

1.	of the nature of or involving antithesis.

2.	directly opposed or contrasted; opposite.

Okay, I think this post is far too large. If you read the whole thing, I think you deserve a cookie.

Lets ban railroad ties.

Watch the VIDEO.

There are no deadly weapons, only deadly people.

And while we're at it, lets ban dihydrogen monoxide. Its tasteless, odorless, and colorless. It kills between 3,000 and 4,000 people per year, mostly children, and its present in every home. Inhilation of dihydrogen monoxide can cause asphyxiation and severe neurological damage. Exposing dihydrogen monoxide to the skin can cause burning, and prolonged exposure can result in hypothermia. WE MUST BAN THIS DEADLY SUBSTANCE KNOWN AS WATER.

Stick that on your skillet and cook it.

/end randomness