BofA to pay $8.5B housing crash settlement

8.5 BILLION !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?????????? 8.5 BILLION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!??????????? ? 

I feel like Doc Brown in Back to the Future. Just to let you know theres a report on MSNBC saying BofA is paying 8.5 Billion Dollars to investors because of their losses in the housing crash. BofA says it was due to their purchase of Countrywide one of the nations largest home lenders. The article further adds there are 22 institutional investors with claims against BofA and this 8.5 Billion is going to pay them off. Thats a big settlement there is no way anyone can convince me it would cost more than 8.5 Billion Dollars to defend against 22 lawsuits. Since there doesnt seem to be an argument of being cheaper to settle than defend it must be cheaper to settle than lose. If it is cheaper to settle than lose it seems to me BofA expected to lose most if not all of those claims. If BofA expected to lose most if not all of those claims doesnt that make them at least partially responsible for those investors losses in the housing crash. If BofA is at the least partially responsible for those investors losses due to actions of Countrywide Lenders and Countrywide Lenders was a huge player in the overall housing crash. Doesnt that course of logic make BofA at least partially responsible for the overall housing crash? I wonder where my settlement is,I wonder where the people I know who have been financially destroyed by this housing crash settlements are?  Why do these 22 investors rate such a large settlement when millions of regular Americans have lost so much because of BofA and others? Let me be clear it is my considered opinion...........BANK OF AMERICA OWES EVERY AMERICAN AT THE VERY LEAST AN APOLOGY IF NOT RESTITUTION. That is just my opinion and just to be precise I believe there are many other large Banks and Financial Corporations that are in the very same situation as BofA. At this point it makes me angry that BofA still has the gall to have the word America in their name. The final indignity of all this is the writer of that article I saw said BofA said the charges would include an additional 5.5 Billion. Now adding 8.5 to5.5 I get 14 now when you add BILLION to that it just goes beyond the bounds of sanity. Now comes the really good part.....you ready for this? this is a direct copy and quote from the MSNBC article "As a result of the settlement, Bank of America said in a statement that it expects to report a net loss in the range of $8.6 billion to $9.1 billion in the second quarter of 2011, or $0.88 to $0.93 per diluted share." now Im no mathematician but if I take 14 and subtract between 8.6 and 9.1 lets just call it a round 9 I get 5 left over. Now I could be wrong but it looks to me like BofA will spend 14 BILLION DOLLARS  and only show a loss of about 9 BILLION DOLLARS. The only way I know anyone can spend $14 and only show a $9 loss is to have $5 already in your pocket. Does this mean BofA expected to or actually did make 5 BILLION DOLLARS the second quarter of 2011? I mean seriously if they can spend 14 BILLIONS DOLLARS in one quarter and still pay operating costs for that quarter and only expect to show an 8.6 to 9.1 BILLION DOLLAR loss well it sounds to me like someone is making some serious money at our expense. I dont know this is really annoying me that these companies are saved from bankruptcy at taxpayer expense we basically floated them loans to make it thru the tough times and in gratitude they stop lending us money and still turn such a profit they can even talk of paying BILLIONS of dollars in settlements and not be talking about bankruptcy much less acting like its even hurting them. I expect you poor folks that have BofA accounts will see a few added fees next quarter. Well my blood pressure is high enough think I will stop here before I really get angry.

What a Day Today

Well the weekend is over and its back to whatever you do on Monday. I was feeling pretty good today so I decided to go out. Today I learned several things first thing I learned is they have really changed fly fishing equipment since the last time I went Fly Fishing. In all honesty the last time I went Fly Fishing was about 30 years ago so it has been a while but I didnt remember the flies being so small or the line being so invisible. It must be the advances in technology over the last 30 years it couldnt be me that changed that much in the last 30 years. I mean seriously it took me 5 minutes to tie the fly to the line because the line was too small to see. Its not like I was fishing a crystal clear mountain stream for Trout that have NASA satellites tracking anyone coming within 500 yards of the water. I was out fishing for pan fish in a local parks pond. Granted a Fly Rod was probably a bit much for fishing in a Texas park but it was a fun time and I wanted to get some practice time in. Unfortunately it was very hot and a bit windy, the best spot to actually fish in water deep enough to have anything worth catching was on the wrong side of the pond and forced me to try and cast directly into the wind which if anyone has done any Fly Fishing knows is not an easy thing to do. So I spent about an hour out Fishing in the heat and sun today I actually caught one fish so small I was surprised it could fit the hook into its mouth. I turned it loose to grow up a little bit. Which leads me to the second thing I learned today. As I was coming home I went past a beauty supply store that is right next to a local restaurant where we like to get take out Italian every so often. Now I needed some nail clippers as they work great to clip tag ends of fishing line and remove flies from the line so I thought I would just stop in that store as it was on the way home. Now to set the scene here I live about 5 to 10 miles from the southern border of the Dallas City limits. The advertising pictures and products in this beauty supply store are all geared towards African American's  as they are probably the majority of customers that visit this store. Seeing this I assumed the store would be operated by an African American Woman or at least a Woman. As I was going in a nice Black lady was coming out we said Hi to each other as we passed and then as I went towards the counter Three Asian Men asked if they could help me. Now dont get me wrong I dont have a problem with Asian Men or Asian's or African American's or anyone else based on national origin. I can get along with anyone thats willing to be gotten along with. But this is South Dallas Texas and I guess I just jumped to assumptions as to whom I would be seeing in the Beauty Supply Store and I am forced to wonder whats up with that? I guess I had fallen into a pattern of thinking that needed to be adjusted. I should stop with the expectations and just deal with things as they come along I thought I was pretty good at that but I guess I still have work to do in that area. Oh well at least its something to do.   Talk to you all later....maybe

Another Friday

Fri Feb 18, 2005

Again with the Fridays...what’s up with that? Another week gone by and its SSDW. A little update on my glorious workers paradise. Both the canines and the feline residents are joyously celebrating another week under the thumb errr I mean gentle guiding hand of their most benevolent and gracious leader. It’s obvious that the plan of social tension is paying off as the assassination attempts have begun to taper off. The feline has slowed his nocturnal attacks and is only making a half hearted attempt every now and again to kill his beloved leader by throwing his body in front of the leaders path in an attempt to trip him as he tries to make his way to the bathroom in the wee hours of the morning.

The canines are still bumbling around not accomplishing anything useful. One has decided it is quite acceptable to bring in pecans from the yard and eat them in the middle of the living room floor leaving the shell fragments all about. This has been an ongoing issue and since the offending canine is the weakest link experts agree the offending Canine is non compes mentis to stand trial for the grievous offenses listed. The remaining canines fear this could lead to the revival of the dreaded death squads. The benevolent leader has disavowed any knowledge of alleged death squads now or ever

Amnesty International has ruled the political prisoners held in our detention camps are in no way being mistreated and actually ARE "evil little sh*ts that deserve everything they get." Word is there are plans to send the remainder of the malcontents off to the gulag. The benevolent leader will not confirm these whispers but unnamed sources say communication has been sent to the gulags to prepare to receive the remainder of the political prisoners.

Well that’s all I have for this week. Its time to put on the iron glove and heartlessly crush the aspirations of the little people.

Im not really sure what to think about this

I was reading an article about what an employer would find if they did an internet search about you. Since I dont know who will actually read this to be able to do a search about you I did a google search about me. Is it a bad thing when you cant even get a page one result on a google search about yourself? I finally found something that was supposed to be about me except they had me living in 2 different states at 3 different addresses one of which I never lived at and 2 of which I havent lived at in over 10 years. Its odd how much we rely on Google and how random their information really is. Online business lives and dies by google page rank and search results and yet they cant even find me when Im sitting there waving my hands in their face. If you ever want a good laugh do a google search on your own name and see what happens. Im not  sure if its a good thing being under the radar like that. At least crazy stalkers cant find me not that Ive ever had a crazy stalker. Someone would have to pretty crazy to stalk me and they would have to be very crazy to concern me. Ive lived with real crazy people and in my experience most average people wouldnt know crazy if Charles Manson was sitting on their couch eating fruit loops. Either way I am kinda bummed that I didnt even rate a first page mention on a google search for myself.. Oh well thats what you get for trying something from an article you read online I guess. Think I will take off now have things to do perhaps I will talk to you later. I do have another installment of my old friday series ready to go this friday so be sure to check it out.

A brave new week

Well its Monday again. I have to say this is a new Monday for me as it has a quality of being the first Monday I have been unemployed due to a layoff. Since I have been off work due to a medical issue for quite a while this isnt really effecting my day to day life very much. Being that I now dont have to option of getting better and going back to my job I find myself in a curious position. I am still waiting for the Insurance company to decide about long term disability due to the vertigo, tinnitus and hyperacusis in short I always hear what sounds like feedback from a microphone even when I plug my ears and certain sounds sound like theyve been turned up to a volume of 11 and I get dizzy spells several times a week that make me stagger around like ive had way too much to drink. Considering all that along with migraines which seem to be getting better with the meds im trying for the dizziness which the dizziness hasnt gotten much better work is secondary concern right now. Hopefully a determination will be made soon regarding this claim. But enough about that as its all in my head anyway its always a possibility Im not mentally sound this could be fun. I like Jello and I hear they serve that alot in the mental wards so who knows it could all work out in the end. Now that were done with the personal update I think I will bring up what prompted me to get typing this time. I saw a headline that said,                                  
                                          "Dating site ban's 30,000 ugly Members"
My first thought was How did they know they were ugly? Then I read the post and saw the site was based on members voting on new applicants and deciding whether they were beautiful enough to join. I had many thoughts run through my head among those were How self absorbed do you have to be to apply to a dating site that judges its members in that fashion? I mean Narcissistic much? Then I thought how damaging to the fragile ego of these miserable people who were seeking acceptance and thought they had it for a while to get that email saying  in essence Sorry youre too ugly to be on this site so weve decided to revoke your access have a nice day. :) ( I wonder if they actually put a smiley face there?) The sites spokesman said a former employee uploaded a virus and that is what affected the voting numbers allowing these 30,000  people access. The company has refunded the ones who actually went past the first free trial period and had paid the monthly fee. The company seemingly felt this was not serious enough an issue to inform the anti virus companies and also said no personal information was released due to this virus. It seems this virus only effected  the voting system allowing less than desirable people access. I just cant help but think this is just too funny to pass up I also agree with the writer of the post saying it is very suspicious this announcement of a virus attack but not working with the usual virus removal companies. With no other verification it really seems like a big publicity stunt. Which is why I have not named the site or posted any links in this message. I did try to access the site before starting and it was not available. One last thought before I go, back in the day we didnt blame hooking up with someone ugly on a virus.....we always thought that was what beer was for. Maybe that site had the Beer Virus...no Beergoggle virus.  as always Im outta here maybe I will talk to you later.
                                                 P.S. Here is a link to original post about this

It seems to be Friday ...AGAIN

( Originally posted )
Fri Feb 11, 2005 

Suffice it to say this week has been pretty much the same as last week which was pretty much the same as the week before that. I could go on but I hope your seeing the pattern here.

Living in this kind of rolling monotony one learns to observe the minutiae of life. Simple things like exactly what time the cat decides he wants to bite your chin and wake you up this morning. His usual time is sometime in the 4 o clock hour of the morning and he is fairly consistent. Except for today he waited till almost 5:30 AM. I am therefore watching him closely today to try and figure out what his scheme is. Cause I know he's up to something.

I have enlisted the aid of the canines of the house in my FCO
(Feline Covert Operation). But Im beginning to have my doubts as to the real value of that action. As it is akin to having the village idiots helping out. Im fairly certain even with all three canines working together the feline has them outsmarted. But I have the final laugh because as they are all trying to outsmart each other..... They are leaving me alone which is what I really want in the first place also as long as the feline is busy "outsmarting" the canines He's not plotting against me.

I sometimes feel like the beloved benevolent leader (dictator) of a third world country. Keeping all the factions in constant turmoil for my own nefarious schemes. I even have my own political prisoners as we have begun operation weasel crackdown. After having sent two of the worst offenders to the gulag the rest are being held under "room arrest".

Well I have an uprising to go brutally repress. I may update you later on my progress.
.

Something a little different

I am going to try something a little different today and see if I like it. About 5 years ago I had a series of weekly posts that I enjoyed writing. It was a funny way of looking at my week at the time. The site I posted them on seems to be empty now so I think I will post them here. I will post the original entry along with the date it was originally posted. remember this was about 6 years ago and much of the situation has changed since then. But it was fun writing these and I thought I would share them. Without further ado I will give a second post today with the beginning of the series there were 26 episodes in all and I may just share them all if there is enough interest.

Sorry Im all out of witty titles today deal with it

I have to say I have been thinking alot since my last post. Perhaps I was a bit hasty in calling my Dog a genius. While He does seem to have an intuitive grasp on certain truths of the universe. He cant quite figure out the cat box is not the place for tasty treats. I think the fact He likes "Kitty Roca" removes him from consideration for Mensa entrance. Hes still a good Dog for the most part He just has a few personality quirks. Anyway enough about certain Dogs bad habits and time to move on or back as the case may be. Last post got me thinking about the way Life is alot like a game. You can do well or poorly depending on the effort you put into it. No matter how easy it looks for other people they have to put in as much effort to do well as you do. No one does well without work and practice and a few failures to learn from. I believe we learn more from failure than success if we allow ourselves to. as long as you keep in mind youre not done till its over you can learn and grow from just about any experience. Life is funny that way sometimes actually most times in my experience. Life has plenty of ups and downs enough that we shouldnt get too worked up about the current situation because it will change soon. I dont really have much to say today so it will be short. I think I will close out with one last metaphor. Life is very much like a game in that no one knows who wins or loses till its over and by then its too late to do anything about it. So remember all you have is now so make the most of it because you cant change the past and the future isnt here yet but the futures foundation is today. Do good today and good things will be built on a good foundation. Keep it up and before you know it youve built something great. And finally remember the old riddle, " How do you eat an entire Elephant? One bite at a time."

Madness takes its toll...

Thatll be 75 cents please. Madness might take a toll but it doesnt pay very well let me tell ya. Perhaps it should increase the rates and maybe I could get a raise in the future. Oh well no use complaining, that pays even less. I have to say today I think my dog is a genius. Heres why, Ive always heard its not whether you win or lose but how you play the game. I always thought  sure show me someone who likes losing and I will show you a loser. Or this one Winners never quit and quitters never win but Idiots never win and never quit. Anyway that whole winning and losing thing always got in the way of games. Something I noticed yesterday from my dog was it doesnt matter whether you win or lose either way the games over. See the dog loves tug of war its obsessive about it. He keeps bothering me while Im sitting at my computer to play. I noticed He doesnt like winning or losing cause that means theres no more tugging which is His favorite part. I would play tug with him for a little bit and then let him win and He kept coming back for more tug. I suspect Hes a genius because He figured out for Him its not about the winning or losing but about the joy of the game. I think there might be something profound in that. Im still working on the concept but it occurs to me if we worried less about winning or losing and tried to enjoy the game more things might be a little better for us all. I dunno thats what the Dog says at least. It seems to work for Him I guess sometimes even winning is losing if winning means you have to stop doing what you enjoy. I dont know, I mean I enjoy playing games but everything ends sometime or other and if its got to end I would rather end winning than losing any time. Perhaps we should spend as much energy trying to find a fun game as we can. Or maybe we should just try to enjoy what we are doing so much we dont want it to end. I dont know it could be that little Dog is just crazy enough to enjoy what He does and not worry about anything else. If you ask me thats not a bad kind of crazy to be. Well I still have some thinking to do maybe I will talk to you later about this.

Another Friday...already?

Looks like another Friday is upon us. Im not sure it matter much what we call it one day is pretty much like another in everything but minor details. You wake up, you do things, you go to sleep the days over the next day is wash rinse repeat. The only difference is what you do during the waking hours otherwise its all pretty much the same. I guess sometimes we might like the activities of one day more than another but thats just a personal preference. Some people actually like going to work each day and not having that would make them unhappy. Some people are so unhappy having to go to work each day the week is mostly misery for them. I guess it all depends on your point of view.  I think we've talked about this before good days and bad days of the week. I think we decide inside ourselves whether a day is a good day or a bad day then set out and make it one or the other. Life is too short to walk around miserable all the time or even most of the time especially if we have a choice. You know something, We always have a choice we might not like the choices and we might not want to see the choices but we always have a choice. We can always look at things from many perspectives and we get to choose which one we want. Anything can look different from a different perspective sometimes very different. Take an apple for instance you can look at one side and it might look great all ripe and juicy but if you look at the other side and see a big wormhole in it its suddenly not such a great thing. The apple never changed but your perspective did. Thats a simplistic example but it gets the idea across. We have control of the perspective we choose to view anything in and anything we see is greatly influenced by its perspective. With that being the case we actually have much more control over our situation and our own attitude about anything. We only have to take responsibility for our life and dont mean this in the way of taking blame but more in the way of taking ownership. Blame is something almost everyone tries to avoid because its usually followed by trouble of some sort or other. Ownership is different ownership means you have conttrol of something as it belongs to you. Take ownership of your life sometimes that means the blame too but it always means the choice of what actions to take. From there all you need to do is take good actions. Consequences are not always a bad thing Physics teaches us each action has a reaction or a consequence if you will. Not every reaction is a bad thing just like not every consequence is a bad thing. If you start acting in ways that have positive consequences you will have more positive things in your life. Always remember anything that happens in your life good or bad has one common denominator which is you. Its your life and its gonna do what you tell it whether you want it to or not might as well pay a little attention and work on getting consequence you like rather than ones you dont. Well Im done for today perhaps I will talk to you all later.

Why is it

When you sit down to write its so hard to think of something to say? When Im laying in bed at o dark thirty trying to go to sleep so many things run thru my head that seem so interesting at the time I cant get to sleep. By the next day I either forget or it does not seem so interesting. Oh well guess thats the way it goes sometimes. I did see an interesting Movie on HBO the other day. It was called "Too big to fail" it was all about the last financial melt down. The reason I mention it is I actually had some personal experience in that whole mess. I was forced to have a ring side seat to the entire mess. I think I mentioned on a previous post how I worked for several different companies and never really moved desks. Well one of the companies I worked for played heavily in that whole mess. In my and my coworkers defense our company was purchased by the huge conglomerate and we never really wanted to be employed by the three lettered giant company. (You may notice I have not actually said the name and really dont plan to I expect if you paid any attention to the news at that time you will be able to guess which company Im talking about and if not thats ok too.) Anyway they bought our company about  5 or 6 months before the crash. I watched company stock options become worthless almost over night. I read the company security email notices telling employees not to wear company logos or security badges out in public. I personally knew people that had been accosted on the street for wearing a company ID badge. Plus the daily calls from customers who were very angry and sometimes abusive. Just a side note here if you ever call customer service for anything like  say a credit card or insurance or your phone or utility bills its not a smart thing to threaten them almost all those calls are recorded and most of the time your personal information is already on the screen by the time the representative answers the call. So they know who you are and where youre calling from and have a recording of your threat. Its not really that smart leaving that many pieces of evidence against yourself. Anyway I watched from a unique perspective the meltdown that movie was talking about. One thing I learned is just because someone was in charge didnt mean they had a clue. This was a huge insurance company with Billions of dollars in assets that completely fell apart because one small section forgot the first rule in insurance which is, The whole point of insurance is to deal with catastrophic losses which means if you are an insurance company you had best plan for the worst case scenario. Simply put they didnt have a plan to cover all the losses they had promised to cover. Thats why when an insurance company does business the Dept of Insurance requires they have reserves to cover losses and they are not allowed to sell more policies than they have reserves to cover. Unfortunately someone figured if you dont call it insurance it doesnt have to be regulated by the Dept of Insurance so they called them credit default swaps instead. Who said words can never hurt you? Just changing those few words allowed them to completely over extend a multi billion dollar company I guess words do mean things after all. The really sad thing is it doesnt look like anyone learned anything from that mess and the whole wall street crowd is still at it. Sooner or later its all going to happen again. Unless of course Harold Camping or the Mayans are right then we have either a few months up to a year and a half then it wont matter I guess. I think Ive rambled enough tonight

Monday Monday Monday

Too bad I cant make an echo when I type cause that would be cool. Oh well maybe someday. Monday is upon us again but since we already talked about Monday we wont really go into the whole Monday thing. Today is a special Monday as it is  June 6th if youre not sure what June 6th means I suggest you watch the History Channel today Im sure they will mention it once or twice. If you already know June 6th is the D Day anniversary you probably watch the History Channel already. D Day the first day in the liberation of Europe from Hitler and his followers. It was the beginning thousands upon thousands of troops hitting the beaches and parachuting behind enemy lines. Thousands upon thousands of troops defending those beaches and inflicting terrible losses as those beaches were taken. It is impossible to know what its like doing those things unless youve already done them. The Impartiality of it....who lives who dies all depending on things no one can even see. Maybe a stumble will save one person and kill another. Everyone trying to kill and survive at the same time. Trying to kill someone is probably one of the most personal acts anyone can perform I mean someone trying to end your life its hard not to take it personally. At the same time in this situation one person is only part of the thousands involved its seems difficult to be more impersonal than being one out of hundreds of thousands. I find it strange thinking about it how the exact same thing can opposite. I can only imagine going through that. A history teacher of mine once said the war was won because of mass production. Our ability to produce equipment in greater numbers than the other side but also our ability to train average people to use that equipment properly because equipment without the personnel to use it is nothing. The ability to take average people and get them to do above average things speaks volumes to not only the training but to the average person because its almost impossible to train that kind of courage. That kind of motivation has to be there already and its hard to think of a time when we as a country were more motivated. We use the term "War" on this and on that and whatever else we want but we dont really understand what were saying. The next time someone starts in about a "war" on whatever issue theyre against I wonder if anyone will actually think about what the word War actually means? War is a nasty dirty horrible thing that kills people without any thought about it.  Robert E Lee said it was a good thing war is so terrible else we would grow to love it. I dont pretend to know I just always thought it was wrong in some way to trivialize that word the way we have been. Words mean things and War means death and destruction and is a terrible thing unfortunately it is sometimes better than the alternative. The hard part is knowing when one is worse than the other. Well this is a rambling post and in the end there are no answers. I do find it interesting that Memorial Day And D Day are so close together directing my thoughts down this path. At least the next major Holiday is July 4th maybe we can be happier then. Until then who knows what madness will ensue  I guess you will have to check back later and see.

Look out Im back again

Its Friday again funny how that happens every week. Im not even really looking forward to Saturday or anything so I guess Friday is just another day for me now. Not having to go into work everyday isnt as much fun as it seems sometime. Not that having to go into work everyday is fun or anything. There is something almost reassuring about a regular schedule. If my brain would ever cooperate I might even go find another job. I know crazy talk but without a job theres not as much to complain about. Once you get to that point after a while you can forget what day it is  because they all seem to be the same. Dont get me wrong here I didnt particularly like my job well the job wasnt so bad and the people I worked with were nice enough. Corporate America is really crazy Im not gonna name names but I worked for a good sized auto insurer. The 5 years I was the office I was employed by 4 different companies and never really moved desks or changed jobs. One change was going from the temp company that everyone started out working for to being hire as permanent so that was expected. The other 2 were corporate buyouts both of which made national news in one way or another. The first buyout was pretty quiet up until the parent company completely imploded in the recent financial mess. During that time employees were actually being harassed and assaulted for wearing their ID badges with the company name on it. It wasnt like any of us asked to work for that company we didnt even have a choice. One day a memo comes out and says were being sold. We werent even responsible for the financial problems of the parent company we had only been a part of that company for about 4 months when everything happened. Those were fun times answering the phones as customer service and getting cursed at for something that wasnt even related to the job but because of the main companies financial issues. Oh well I didnt really intend on getting that far into this issue on this post I might get deeper into it later. Suffice it to say about a year after the first sale of the company it was sold again so I worked for 4 companies and never moved buildings. Gotta love Corporate America where you can rise to the level of your incompetence the only place better for that is government. Oh well I think Im done talking now.

Again with the posting...whats up with that?

I think someone actually looked at this place the other day. They must have been lost or something because I dont think anyone would come here on purpose. I mean these are just pointless ramblings and have nothing to do with anything serious or even non-serious. As I read over the posts theyre not even funny  even an attempt at humor might help but not here. It doesnt make you laugh or cry or even think not even shallow thoughts much less deep ones. So why even bother I ask myself? I really never answer myself and I find that very annoying. I mean how rude to completely ignore a very valid question. But thats the kinda guy I am I guess, so deal with it.
Anyway we had a Holiday here last Monday and it got me thinking. How do you address people on Memorial Day? Do you say Happy Memorial Day? I mean its not like Christmas or July Fourth, days that were supposed to remember happy things. Memorial Day is a day we remember sad things, important things, but sad none the less. I dont know how to address Memorial Day all I know is I think about the people in my life who served in the military during some of the worst times to be in the military. Fortunately in my case these people survived and I was able to meet them later in their lives but they knew me from the beginning of mine. Two people in particular come to mind, My Uncle and My Grandfather. They both have impacted my life in ways I dont even know and the ways I do know are so deep I dont think I would be the same person I am today without having known them.  I think about them more often than Memorial Day but especially on Memorial Day. I think about what it would be like to be in a small boat in the Pacific and know in a matter of minutes the front door would open and you and your friends would have to run out into the water while other people were doing everything they could to kill you. To sit in an Airplane and know soon you would have to jump out and hope your chute opens and if it does to know youre going to float down to ground while people there are trying to kill you. I think of people I know today who are doing the same thing, knowing that as soon or even before they step out of the vehicle theyre riding in people will be trying to kill them and their friends. So many things its boggles my mind sometimes and I cant keep track. Anyway thats what I do around Memorial Day I dont know if its happy or sad but it is contemplative. Thats probably whats its all about I dont pretend to know or to tell anyone else what to do or think. Thats just me I guess. I hope everyone had a safe Memorial Day especially those for whom Memorial Day holds first hand memories. OK thats it for now I may talk later on who knows.