dak4n6

A little OT, but "Planet Earth is blue and there's nothing I can do" was my sig for the first year or so on TST. What a great a priori summary of human existence....

I have traveled extensively for the last 5 yrs for business using rental cars (Philly to DC), and have always used the same Avis location. During that time, their service has gone from enthusiastic first name greetings (both ways), where I didn't need to show my license or credit card and just verbally told them the final mileage upon return, to always not knowing the person behind the counter, being greeted with "hello sir", having to show my credentials, and waiting while they went to check the mileage in spite of the fact that I tell them. I received a request for a satisfaction survey from Avis and couldn't wait. I copied my reply when they asked why I gave them a '4' overall: Treat and pay your employees better. I have been in the workplace for 40 years as a worker and manager, and I can recognize beaten down spirits when I see it. I have been renting from this particular location for many years, and recently I have seen many many workers come and go in quick succession. The high turnover is a very revealing sign. Pay your executive managers less, pay your front line workers more, and treat them like human beings. You will then start to see better response from your customers. It really is that simple. These are the exact same symptoms as at the workplace I just left. Horrible morale, and abusive management. When will upper management ever learn you can't get good performance by paying themselves exorbitant salaries and beating on the front line workers? That old joke is very apt: "The beatings will continue until morale improves". You get good performance by nurturing, mentoring, and taking care of your front line workers. Working people are not ants or drones.

Yeah the drama in tennis is like the last match in a tied Ryder Cup all square coming down the last 4 holes. Yes, those 10 - 30 seeds are the ones who make things interesting. BTW, Wawrinka won 9-7 in the 5th, incredible match. I don't remember that last year. I can't figure out how to delete a thread, so I'll just let this stand as testament to my duhness, and we can start posting for real next week...

Wait, what? I'm the one who is lost. I'm on travel right now and the hotel's cable feed doesn't have a guide with a description of each program, so I must be watching last year's, but you would think that the ESPN coverage would indicate that..... OK, well I set up the thread for next week. And I was really getting into this match and yelling at the TV, feel like a tool now. Who won last year? I should just delete this thread out of existence... Thanks GD, I'm gonna delete this thread. I need a big red-faced embarrassed emoticon. I'll start another up next week, unless you get to it first...

Well it is the quarter finals, Nole #2 vs the Stanimal #8, so the tournament is about half over. It looks like most of the top seeded men are headed into the semis. Nole and Stan at deuce 3-3 in the 5th set right now, and Stan just served a 135 ace to go Ad. awesome. And....after a 15 shot rally Nole just hit it 2" deep out at the ad corner so it's on serve in the 5th set...and I need to get to sleep but that's not going to happen...

IMO, one of the more enjoyable tennis majors. Start of a new year, the players are refreshed and healed, and the surfaces are fast. Watching Novack and Wawrinkia right now. Some great points and great shots on both ends. Stan's backhand is one of the most beautiful in the game. Just now he hit a stinger cross-court BH winner. Plus, I love the way Nole applauds his opponent's great shots. Truly a good sport, unlike someone who's name rhymes with Badal. Tomorrow is Fed vs Murray. That's gonna be a battle. Post observations and picks here. I think Fed will win #18. His new strategy of serve/volley and even return/volley had been really effective recently. Stan just won the 2nd set with one service break, and the announcers called him 'The Stanimal'. Never heard that one, made me snort...

That's weird. My cat said almost the exact same thing when I told her the costs of sending her to a high level feline university. Looks like she will be attending a state college...

Me too, I had Starman lodged like an ax from Michael Myers in my brain for like 2 days. And the insane dual harmony recorder solo in Moonage Daydream occupied my neurons for a while. Sheer genius. BTW, not to argue with a genius, but when I was a teen, I was not quite aware of what I was going through...I was absolutely clueless. I love the sax leadout in that song. Wasn't it played by Lou Reed?

Get up, get in the hole...oh wait, this is a PG 13 site.

4 chords repeated over and over and one sentence repeated over and over... Sounds like something me and my buddies slapped together many times in the past, after many beers and spleefs...

i want to see his other lessons, such as: "How to hit a smothered duck hook driver" "How to hold the face open in a slice wind" "How to stab a short fast left-to-right putt" and the classic, "How to swing quicker when your tempo is already way too fast"

GO PLAY! (I forgot who said that). Seriously, just start playing as a single and you will start getting paired up, and before you know it you will have a bunch of new contacts in your cell phone and you'll be a 'regular' in one or more groups of guys. That's truly one of the great things about golf. Unless you're a true jerk, it's actually very hard to keep golfers apart from each other.

The really funny thing is that he hit his two shots with good balance, tempo, and shaft lean with hands ahead. He did not flip, cast, and blade like he was trying to teach. Maybe if his wife had filed for divorce it would have been better...

That was cool, kind of reminiscent of The Kinks, but a few recent bands have already recycled that raw unadulterated retro sound, like Jet. You're right Grump, good new rock is hard to find. I watch Guitar Center Sessions religiously, and they regularly showcase modern bands, but their sound tends to be too 'Indie' and artsy for me. Kind of like they are trying too hard to be the new REM or something. One big thing I have noticed is the disappearance of the hard dominant guitar. Driving guitar lines, dual guitars, intricate mind blowing guitar leads. There are no new Brian Mays or David Gilmores or Jerry Cantrels or Tommy Morellos... That's why these days I tend to listen to (and see live) the latest reincarnations of the past greats. I like the new Alice in Chains, Slash and Miles Kennedy is incredible, Chester Bennigton with STP sounds awesome IMO, and of course there is always the venerable Pearl Jam. Heck, I even watched the rebirth of Jeff Lynn and ELO in concert and they were great...

Panic in Detroit had a great hook. I always enjoyed playing Rebel Rebel, great guitar line. And of course, Space Oddity was groundbreaking.

Thanks everyone for the good perspectives. I think I'm gonna try to slip him 50 bucks casually and say "For everything you've done, thanks". I think he'll take it. If not, I've been eyeing a good Mendocino pinot noir lately..

Um, so you can practice that 90 yd 3/4 56* to a pin 20 ft from the back edge of a water hazard and make it real I guess...weird. There's also enough steel scaffolding to build a skyscraper.

How sad. He was one of those fearless artists. Truly stretching the boundaries always, but unlike a lot of other fringe experimenters, he brought unforgettable melodies to the table. On this night, there IS a Star Man waiting in the sky, and he is watching...

Naah, even a fast nasty serve you can just block back. It's getting that well placed 100+ 1st serve that's just like a drive. The harder you try to hit it, the slower and more awry it goes. When you hit it with good extension and patience and timing, it goes like a rocket.

I've already put a few hundred rounds through it and it's still a bit stiff, and I oil the bolt and lever, but I figure that is kind of like buying extra time cause it should loosen up real nice over the years. On the other hand, I have a Rossi .44 mag 16" lever action carbine that came out of the box slick as oil.

Nope. It's a Marlin lever action. Some call it a 'Remlin', since apparently Remington bought Marlin and ever since according to gun snobs, quality went into the crapper. I have heard you can get a good one, or a lemon. Mine, it cycles a bit stiff, but it never misfires and it's accurate as heck w/iron sights.

IMO there is no ethical argument against hunters being self-reliant and harvesting food. It removes a good deal of demand from the nefarious and very ethically dubious meat industry. As long as state wildlife management maintains proper counts and updates limits and seasons properly we can maintain stasis. When I was young I was anti-gun and anti-hunting, but now I am putting using my 30-30 Win to bag some venison on my priority list...

Golf is one of the most ho'ing sports around. Tennis also.Let me make a fishing analogy. I love getting a new outfit. A nice shiny new casting reel on a beautiful carbon stick. but guess what, it takes a while for me to cast exactly to my target and reel in at exactly the right depth and speed that I intend, but after a while I start to learn the properties of the new outfit. Same with golf clubs, if you keep switching, you are going to be guessing too much. Find a set that seems agreeable to you, and stick with it for some time while you learn things like ball flight laws, Then, when you settle down, ho away!

Politics, banks and investment firms, and special interest groups make me frustrated. Criminals and terrorists make me angry. My former boss makes me rage into dangerous levels. Don't worry, I'm now free of his ambitious self serving divide-and-conquer controlling management, so there won't be any newspaper headlines on my part....

I thought this is a home defense product. So it's a mouse trap type of system designed to trap the perp with no one else home so that cops can catch him? Now, imagine you're a LEO opening up the door to a wall of fog with movement inside... yikes.