Another hmmmmm day

Well, today I don't have much to say but I do have a lot of time to say it.

Over the weekend I came one mouse click away from applying for Medicare.




But held off from doing so because today we (wife & I) are going to the High Resort facility to get the Presbyterian pitch on their supplemental plan and whether it is what we should do.  Admittedly, even after all we have read we still are not sure on what to do.   We damn sure don't want the fracken gov't to rape us with penalties if I don't sign up now.  Will be turning 65 in a couple of months. Frikken gov't. 

Maybe we can get away with just the medicare Part A.  Who knows.

Sunday giggles

Just some left over junk

For got to include this or at least I don't remember posting it.   Just kinda thought it was ludicrous.  I guess if the sky is blue some one would whine about it.

Lego accused of racism with Star Wars set

Lego has been accused of racism by the Turkish community over a Star Wars model that supposedly resembles one of Istanbul’s most revered mosques.

The anger was provoked by "Jabba's Palace", a model from Lego's Star Wars product range based on the series of Star Wars films Photo: HANDOUT

By Matthew Day, Warsaw

3:18PM GMT 23 Jan 2013

Austria’s Turkish community said the model was based on Hagia Sophia mosque in Istanbul and that the accompanying figures depicted Asians and Orientals as people with “deceitful and criminal personalities.”
The Turkish Cultural Community of Austria released a statement calling for Lego to apologise for affronting religious and cultural feelings.
The anger was provoked by “Jabba’s Palace”, a model of the home of Jabba the Hutt from Lego’s Star Wars product range based on the blockbusting series of science fiction films.
Jabba is the large slug-like creature who holds Han Solo captive in the film Return of the Jedi, and his palace is the setting for several crucial scenes, including using Princess Leia as his slave.
Jabba’s domed home and accompanying watchtower bear, according to the statement, an unwanted resemblance to Istanbul’s great Hagia Sophia, and another mosque in Beirut.

_{Istanbul's great Hagia Sophia Mosque}
A picture posted on the Cultural Community’s website includes the box for Jabba’s Palace with arrows pointing out similarities to a picture of the Hagia Sofia mosque.
A converted Christian basilica and famed for its massive domed roof, the Hagia Sofia is one of the most famous mosques in the world and served Istanbul’s Muslim community for over 500 years before becoming a museum in 1943. It is also regarded as one of the finest, and largest examples, of Byzantine architecture.
The Jabba case came to light after an Austrian Turk complained to the organisation after his sister had bought his son the box set.
Austria’s Turkish community also took issue with the figures that went with the palace, including Jabba.
“The terrorist Jabba the Hutt likes to smoke a hookah and have his victims killed,” said the statement posted on the organisation’s website.
“It is clear that the ugly figure of Jabba and the whole scene smacks of racial prejudice and vulgar insinuations against Asians and Orientals as people with deceitful and criminal personalities.”
The crimes associated with the figures, the statements adds, include terrorism, slavery, murder and human sacrifice.
Taking into account that many of the Lego figures carry weapons, the Turkish organisation also urged parents “not to buy toys of war or toys of discrimination” as the model goes against the “peaceful coexistence of different cultures in Europe”.
As an indication of the anger felt over Jabba’s Palace, the organisation said it was considering taking legal action against Lego for inciting racial hatred and insulting human dignity.
Katharina Sasse, a public relations manager working on behalf of Lego, denied any link between Jabba’s Palace and the mosque.
“The Lego Star Wars product Jabba´s Palace does not reflect any actually existing buildings, people, or the mentioned mosque,” she said. “The Lego mini-figures are all modelled on characters from the movie.
“We regret that the product has caused the members of the Turkish cultural community to come to a wrong interpretation, but point out that when designing the product only the fictional content of the Star Wars saga were referred to.”

A wonderful - sad - make you mad, make you cry movie

2nd post for today.

I have just finished watching one of the most impressive movies, non science fiction films, that I can recall have ever  seen.  I'm doing the dishes and crying at the same time the movie ended.  DAMN ! !  !

For you faint of heart - it is subtitled because it was filmed in  the Belgium|Netherlands and is in  Flemish

Ben is different. His life is a universe to itself, where he plays his favorite on line computer game Archlord avidly, trying hard to train himself for the real world he lives in. The harsh world of a technical school is for him a daily kind of hell. As the horror of being a daily subject to bullying grows, Ben devises a plan. Then Scarlite comes into his life, the girl he has met in his on-line game. That wasn't part of the plan...

See IMDB - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0953318/


         

HOA's - - Better the devil you know

Every time I say that I don't have much to say I end up writing a lot.  Well, I don't have much to say with the exception of the following note from me and a story which deals with Home Owner's Associations.  Probably the basic reason of why I detest them!  The HOA not the cupcakes.

1.  Wife made some absolutely freaking awesome cupcakes this weekend (see pic)   They were called Twinkie Cupcakes but , alas, we discovered that I can't handle the sweet creamy filling  inside them anymore.  Had massive indigestion but, Oh my word, were they good ! !

2.   'Tis a long story but worth reading. (notice the words - government lawyer in the article)

By Justin Jouvenal,

Feb 10, 2013 02:13 AM EST

The Washington PostPublished: February 9

    The feud that consumed Fairfax County’s Olde Belhaven would span four years and cost the community as much as $400,000, and it was ignited by one of the smallest of sparks: an Obama for President sign.

    The modest placard Sam and Maria Farran planted in their yard during the 2008 election put them on a collision course with the neighborhood homeowners association. It was four inches taller than the association’s covenants allowed.

**

    “Need I say more! This would lead to chaos,” a neighbor fretted in an e-mail about the precedent that would be set if the sign wasn’t removed. “Our property values would be put at risk.”

   Such HOA disputes are as suburban as cul-de-sacs and two-car garages, but few metastasize into legal battles that spend years in the courts, break legal ground and bankrupt the HOA.
   Most damaging of all, though, was a move probably unprecedented in area neighborhood feuds: The common area that is the literal and metaphoric heart of Olde Belhaven was put up for sale last year to settle its debts. It appeared that “the square,” as some called the neighborhood, would no longer have a square.
    “It destroyed our community,” Maria Farran said.

    The battle lines in Olde Belhaven were starkly drawn. On one side, the Farrans said they were standing up to an HOA run amok. On the other, HOA supporters saw a couple that inflicted financial ruin on the association — and their neighbors — to make a point.
    Experts say such feuds are becoming more common with the tremendous growth of HOAs, which typically require residents to sign covenants governing architecture, landscaping and other matters when they move into an association neighborhood. The HOAs collect dues and often have the power to fine residents who don’t comply with the covenants.
    There were 10,000 association-governed communities in the United States in 1970, and by 2012 the number had reached 324,000, according to the Community Association Institute. One in five Americans lives in a neighborhood governed by an association.

    “Their growth means there are a lot of people in HOAs who haven’t necessarily bought into the lifestyle,” said Evan McKenzie, a University of Illinois professor who has written two books on HOAs. “Some like the higher level of rulemaking, but others don’t like the fines and control. You have conflict when these groups come together.”

One community, two camps

    Sam and Maria Farran, a wine broker and a government lawyer, moved to the 44-unit townhouse community in the Alexandria section of Fairfax in 1999. In many ways, it is a typical Northern Virginia neighborhood, with tidy houses and a mix of government employees, service members and professionals.
    The townhouses line the three-quarter-acre square, which is the neighborhood’s central feature and the site of most community-wide events. Without the green plot, it might be difficult to call Belhaven a community.
    The Farrans said the HOA had a reputation for hard-line stances. In one case, board member Don Hughes compared some residents’ refusal to install window-pane dividers to the “cat and mouse game Saddam Hussein played with the USA,” e-mails show. Ultimately, Hussein “paid the price,” he said, concluding that the residents should comply.

   Nevertheless, the Farrans were surprised when letters arrived in October 2008 telling them and others that their political placards were too large.
“This is our final request,” Hughes wrote on behalf of the board.

    E-mails show that Hughes pushed the board to act. He wrote that he was prepared to make a motion to put a lien on the Farrans’ house if they didn’t comply. He called sending a letter a “teaching moment.” Hughes declined to comment.

    The Farrans were angry. They acknowledged that the sign broke the rules but said it seemed like an assault on free speech to go after a minor violation during the height of an election. Their response: cutting the placard in half. They planted “OBA” and “MA” signs in their front yard.
    The prank did not amuse board members. And they decided to act.
They passed a resolution allowing the board to fine residents up to $900 per infraction for violating HOA guidelines. Across the country, fining authority has been controversial, with HOAs hitting residents with levies for such transgressions as displays of colored Christmas lights and patches of dead grass.
    Board members believed that they had the right under Virginia law, but the Farrans saw an illegal power grab that had no basis in the HOA’s covenants. When the board, acting at a meeting that was not publicly announced, rejected the Farrans’ roof and deck projects for aesthetic and architectural reasons, the Farrans said it was retribution.

    “It’s like we weren’t living in America,” Maria Farran said. “You are always one board election away from a tyranny. They wield enormous power.”
   The Farrans filed a lawsuit against the HOA saying it didn’t have the authority to impose fines and had vindictively rejected their home improvements.

Board members were taken aback. They saw residents who wouldn’t abide by the rules that had made Olde Belhaven a great neighborhood and who were willing to resort to drastic action to get what they wanted.
   Archie Umphlett, one of the neighborhood’s oldest residents, put it this way: “When it comes to the Farrans, it’s their way or the highway.”

A costly conflict 

   The legal fight consumed Olde Belhaven.
   The Farrans said HOA backers told them to move. They found bullets in their yard. Someone implored a priest at their church to prevail on the Farrans to stop the lawsuit. A local real estate agent said the infighting was scaring off some home buyers.
    “It was a crusade,” a supporter of the Farrans said.
On the other side, board members said that the Farrans were unreasonable and that they declined numerous offers to begin settlement discussions. And as the case ground on, the HOA increased dues from $650 a year to about $3,500, mostly to cover legal fees.
    The board’s former president, Jim LeBlanc, said the situation put a strain on some elderly residents living on fixed incomes. “Some had their health impacted,” LeBlanc said. “There’s a sense of, what is it going to take to resolve this? This was a tragic nightmare.”
   The Farrans said that they, too, had made attempts to settle matters but that those overtures were rejected by the HOA.

    In 2010, a county judge sided with the Farrans on the fining issue. The case set a Virginia precedent that HOAs cannot claim powers, such as fining, that are not specifically laid out in their covenants.
   The roof and deck issues, which had been spun off into a separate lawsuit, were decided in 2011. Another county judge ruled that the board’s votes to reject the home improvements were improper because they came at a “secret” meeting and followed arbitrary standards.

   The HOA was on the hook for about $100,000 to cover the Farrans’ legal fees, and it owed hundreds of thousands more for its own legal expenses. The HOA was financially ruined.

    LeBlanc said the association didn’t have the money to cover the bills, so residents voted for bankruptcy.

    Late last year, a court-appointed bankruptcy trustee put the community square up for sale to cover the HOA’s debts. The pleasant square, with its trees and benches, had in better times been the site of community picnics and Christmas festivities. Now it was a reminder of the community’s plight. A red-and-white “For Sale” sign drove home the point.
    A developer began negotiations to buy the plot but pulled out. The developer had received anonymous threats. Then, a former board president stepped in and put up a gift of $60,000 to facilitate a settlement.
     A judge approved the plan, but the Farrans filed a motion Friday opposing the settlement because it relied, in part, on the use of capital funds. What will become of the square remains an open question.
   But the damage was done. Large gatherings on the square have all but ceased, LeBlanc said. For now, individual residents are paying out of pocket for the plot’s water, electricity and maintenance.
    The Farrans have built their deck and their new roof. And Olde Belhaven is set to begin discussing what form the HOA will take as it emerges from bankruptcy. LeBlanc hopes the wounds will heal in time.
“There really, truly was a sense of community here,” LeBlanc said. “That was truly lost in this process.”
******************************************

An amazing story here, dontcha agree.   And just all over 4 inches, hard heads, and egos! ! !
 

'Tis a Sunday

Just some words on virtual paper

Had blood drawn again yesterday.  Magnesium results were 1.4.  Last week results were 1.6.  Standard range is 1.4 - 2.6.  So am within range but on the low end.  Having blood drawn two more times in the next 2 weeks so that way the Infusion doc can decide on what to do.

I actually really only have one complaint and it has nothing to do with short bowel although it started with the SBS operation.  My femoral artery re-blocked back then.  The blockage causes me pain in my right foot and calf.   I wished that the numbness and loss of feeling would go away.  I have noticed that taking the codeine sulphate 4 times a day to slow down motility actually takes away 30-40% of the daily pain.  I did not realize that it that much of an effect on me.

today Going for my warfarin/Coumadin level test.  Oh well.

Just finished watching a Swedish movie called " The Man from Beijing"

From IMDB - A cold day in January 2006. The police makes a horrible discovery in the Swedish town of Hudiksvall: In one night, 18 people have been brutally murdered in the small town. The police suspects a madman behind the bestial act. But when judge Birgitta Roslin hears the news, she instantly knows that her grandparents August and Britta Andrén are among the victims. And even more: Almost everybody killed somehow relates to her. She realizes that the police is following a wrong track and starts to investigate on her own. Her search leads Brigitta to China where she finds out about the cruel scheming of the leading elite.

Don't understand the Swedish mentality but it was a really good movie although 3 hours long.

Had a little bit of fun a little bit ago.  I answered the phone and a guy identified himself as Robert and that he had a report of my computer running slow.  BOING BOING .. Have we all heard of this scam or what????

Anyway I started to speak to him in a very poor imitation of a Mexican accent.  Telling him it was really slow, so slow I could hardly keep up with it.  It was running slow slow that it had effected my English skills - - He hung up on me. ! ! !  ! ! ! !

So funny.