The Message Forum is an ongoing dialogue among classmates. The goal is to encourage friendly interaction, including interaction among classmates who really didn't know each other. Experience on the site has revealed that certain topics tend to cause friction and hard feelings, especially politics and religion. 

Although politics and religion are not completely off-limits, classmates are asked to be positive in their posts and not to be too repetitive or allow a dialog to degenerate into an argument. 

Forums work when people participate - so don't be bashful! Click the "Post Response" button to add your entry to the forum.

Jerry May

Janalu, 

Changing the current subject(s) a bit.......I read where you have followed certain series on T.V. Ellen and I do as well. Except we don't just follow, we binge watch one to conclusion.

Of recent, we just finished the series: "Reacher" with Alan Ritchson (Smallville) Though it is loaded with testosterone and violence, we enjoyed newcomer Ritchson continue the story.....though he comes in a much larger size than Cruise did in the movies. He did a credible job, I thought.....and can't wait for the series to go into another season. And learned it will....

Our "trade-off" was "Inventing Anna"....the faux German heiress (Anna Delvey, Sorokin) who in her twenties duped many of N.Y. and Americas' elite,,,.out of hundreds of thousands of dollars! The title character; played by Julia Garner (she of Ozarks fame) was superbly played. And it would come as no surprise to us an Emmy could be on the horizon! 

No more written here, as many of you may want to view this one.

Also, one of my favorite series, "Dead to Me" starring Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini.....was I thought, to have renewed one more season. But I haven't heard much else.

This is one we "binge watched" as well!

Kurt Fischer

Jerry:

Coincidentally I just finished reading all of the Jack Reacher novels and watched the Season 1 Reacher series.

In the books it is very clear Reacher is 6 foot 5 inches and weighs 250.  After reading any of the books, the casting of Tom Cruise as Reacher was a bit of a joke.  Tom was a bit of a shrimp compared to the book's character.

David Cordell

This person is second in line for the presidency. Might want to consider limiting herself to three martinis before a press briefing.

Bob Davidson

I see where one of my favorite writers, P. J. O'Rourke, has died at age 74.  He wrote about twenty books I've enjoyed, was one of early National Lampoon writers -- the non-Harvard one responsible for the stuff I thought was funniest -- and was then the token conservative at Rolling Stone.  He's been one of those people whose views very closely align with mine over the years -- becoming more libertarian as he got older.  I was sorry he didn't see the good in Trump, but he was an East Coast guy and they just don't know any better.

This weekend Terry and I were talking about him:  we recently moved after over thirty years in the old  house and are still in the process of sorting through the books.  I've gotten rid of three pickup loads of boxes of books and am still looking at what I will reread and what I can get rid of.  The old Ikea bookshelves in the old house fell apart when I tried to move them, but the study in the new place has a wall of built in bookshelves to replace some of them so there's room for some books.  We also have other,. sturdier bookshelves that could be moved.

I got rid of almost all the sort of current events unless they are good references, like Barbara Olson's book on Mrs. Clinton -- Hell to Pay.  (Plus, the author, who was killed on 9-11, was a near northside Houston girl who went to Waltrip HS with a group of my Boy Scout friends who all liked her back in the day.)  The PIAPS is still around and the Dems seem to be okay with running her again for President, sigh.

I have a stack of P. J.'s books and throught I'd only keep Eat the Rich, which I think is worth rereading.  Terry wanted to keep a bunch of others -- particularly Republican Party Reptile, Parliament of Whores, and All the Trouble in the World because she thinks they are funny enough to read over and over.  We set a stack of about ten books aside to think about.  Now that he's died I think I'll keep them all.

I know that paper books are almost as retro as my vinyl albums and taking notes on yellow legal pads at work, but what the heck, I'm 70 years old and don't care about being trendy, even if that's possilbe at our age.  I have a kindle, but use it to be cheap and to read things I know I won't want to keep, like thrillers, mysteries, and commentary on current events: to me, nothing beats the feel of a real book in my hands.

Jerry May

Kurt, yes.... I read that. Although I must confess, I haven't read the novels.They must have had smallish actors around Ritchson however, though he did put on nearly 30 lbs....to 225 or 230; and stands at 6'2. Still he at least fills the role better than Cruise.

His acting......I think will come along.  Very interesting series!

David Cordell

Lance, there are some scheduling issues. How about Friday the 25th?

Janalu Jeanes (Parchman)

Bob D,.

I had to find out about your PIAPS definition.

Ha, ha!   It's a good one and very fitting.  Some ladies have told that she has 'cankles,' which is the reason for her wardrobe selections.

Bob Davidson

Janalu -- Hillary is one of those truly evil people I can't think of anything positive about, not a single thing -- like a more banal Stalin or Madame Mao, without their actual acccomplishments subjugating their subjects.  I'm always a bit flabbergasted when the wine and psychotropics crowd insist that they consider her their heroine. If you ask them just what they admire about her you get some sort of pablum about her being being female -- an accomplishment that more than 50% of the human race manages without all the fanfare. 

I voted for Trump the first time simply because he wasn't Hillary.  I thought he was yet another New York liberal pretending to be conservative, but he has been one of the very few politicians I've voted for, then been a pleasant surprise in office. 

My favorite P. J. O'Rourke line:  "Giving the government money is like giving a 15-year old boy a bottle of whiskey and the keys to the car."

Sandra Spieker (Ringo)

Original Speaker Pelosi's press briefing, Nov, 4, 2021, without Fox News laughter and poor edits.

Bob Davidson

Jerry -- I'm a Reacher fan from the books.  I thought the new series was excellent -- the actor was a little too handsome, but properly physically imposing, unlike Tom Cruise.  I went to a talk by Lee Child once and he described Reacher as a huge, physically imposing guy who is also the smartest guy in the room.

I did stop reading the latest one in the middle when it got a little too full of pc nonsense.  Child is a Brit, lives in NYC, and was a TV writer so that nonsense is probably built into his DNA>

Kurt Fischer

In Collin County the community college has a program called SAIL - Seniors Active in Learning.  After attending a few of their classes I noticed all of the people seem old.  Not sure I belong....

Jerry May

Yeah......Lance that was quite a night.....as more than a few were; from our visits to Forest Lane on Friday nights.

It was you who recalled we were not in the Charger. Perhaps you didn't have it yet, but instead....we were in your Dad's or Moms family car. No wonder those hoods kept catching us!

It was I though.......who thought of the police station....since we were outnumbered. (I think 4 or 5 in their car armed with bats!)

Sensing our impending doom.......I said, "Lance, just pull in front of the police station....they really won't want to mess with us there!" If my memory serves me correctly, only two got out.....with one saying, "Oh man you "so and sos' decided to pull up to the cop shop!" (we all realized a uniform could come out, or drive around the corner at any minute.) Thats when those guys got in quickly and took off......course so did we!

Were they from Bryan Adams or T.J.?

David Cordell

Nice try, Sandra, but that was a different press conference. Note blue dress versus white dress. Also, what makes you think it was a Fox News piece? Look in the lower right corned to see the peacock. I just watched again and didn't see any edits/cuts, which would have been obvious with her constant hand motion. I don't know the affiliation of those two women, but I have never seen them on Fox News. They apparently have a podcast, and I particularly like the one on top, so to speak.

Just accept that it was a poor and laughable performance by a woman who will be 82 next month and has been in the House of Representatives for 35 years -- half of my (long) life.

David Cordell

Sandra,

Sorry, I take it back. Same press conference, but I don't think there were any edits other than the fact that they pulled out a segment toward the end of the press conference that was particularly funny.

Lowell Tuttle

From PJ Orourke in the Chronicle this morning...

“The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer and remove the crab grass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn’t work and then get elected and prove it.”

Sandra Spieker (Ringo)

Whatever floats your boat David.  If you are happy suggesting that Nancy is less competent due to her age, then it is what it is.  If at 82, I could stand in front of a pool of reporters for 30 to 45 minutes fielding complex questions without one slip up in speech, not to mention standing that long, or doing a full time job, that would be something.  Perfection.  We must have perfection in all of our politicians, except of course those we vote for, they can have faults that we ignore.  The ones we don't vote for, they are evil, incompetent, and mentally unstable.

David Cordell

Sandra,

The fact is that I loathe Nancy Pelosi. Yeah, for 82 she is pretty sharp. She is pretty good looking also. But she is a power monger and a bully. She is a limousine liberal, enormously wealthy, and it appears that she has used her inside information to make even more money. She has flaunted the mask mandate. "Rules for thee, but not for me." I thought that her tearing up of Trump's State of the Union address was particularly despicable. Every Speaker is a partisan, or their party wouldn't elect them to the position. But she is the worst.

35 years in Congress -- too much time for one person.

Bob Davidson

Jerry May

Reacher. Softer.......animal lover/defender side.

Steve Keene

Lance,

My face got red today when a food order was delivered in a slapdash manner.  Appropriately, in a Christian response, I openhandedly tried to turn the other's cheek.

Thank you.  I am pretty sure this Bible interpretation was inspired by listening to you.

Kurt Fischer

I had an Eddie Chiles moment yesterday (again).

Have any of you recently tried to adopt a dog?  Long gone is the experience of going to the SPCA, finding one you liked and sitting in the little room to make sure he was fine.  Instead it had turned into an online dating scenario.  

After having dogs for 46 years, we put down our last one right before Christmas.  It took a while for my wife to recover, but for the past four weeks we have been looking for a dog.  Tried the Plano Animal Shelter, but no luck.  Found out that all of the local SPCA shelters have closed down.  So that left us with animal rescue operations.  These do a nice job of posting their dogs on their websites, but you really don't get to meet the dogs.  Instead, you need to make a decision on a dog based on looking at a picture and then fill out an adoption application.  Some of these are pretty intrusive.  I know they want to make sure the dogs are not going to bad homes, but come on.  In fact, we applied for one dog and were turned down based on our reply regarding heart worm medication.  (Oddly enough, we had never really given the medication to our dogs.  This was not a satisfactory answer).  Instead of them saying "you must do this" and we saying "okay", they simply turned down our application.  Given we have had over 120 years of dog ownership (ie. owning a dog for one year) and have faithfully taken care of our dogs, it was a bit irritating.  

Yesterday we made the right connection and the animal rescue guy brought over the dog.  We passed the various tests - are we friendly to the dog?  do we have other dogs and do they get along well?  do we have an adequate backyard?  etc.  So now we have a "rescue" dog and are doing well.  

I guess all's well that ends well, but this experience sure seemed more difficult than I had expected.  

Wayne Gary

Kurt,

I know how it is with adopting a dog.  I have adopted several Weimaroners over the years.  I know Operation Kindness will not adopt to anyone that will leave a dog in their backyard unattended.  Also if you work they do not want you leaving the dog in a crate all day. Several rescues would not let me have a dog if I worked.

I was lucky getting my latest Weim from the Weim Rescue.  I have learned that it is best if the dog picks you instead of you picking the dog.  Bella had her owners moving to a different country and could not take her.  The rescue picked her up on a Friday and took her to Houston then on Sunday a volonteer drove here to Richardson where I met her.  Bella jumped out of the car and snuggled up to me and my wife and accepted us.  Se is very shy around other people when we take her on a walk.  A real case of her adopting us at first sight.

Wayne Gary

Steve,

I read where 2 young Aggies have made a ton of $ in less than a year using "flare gas" in East Texas.

They set up crypto mine by wells and use the "flare gas" to run generators that powers their computers that are in trucks mining for crypto currency.

Steve Keene

Wayne,

Read the same thing.  Actually they were loading the computers into containers that plugged into the onsite generator on the well.  I do not know how to set up a cryptomining operation.  My idea a year ago was to set up crypto and nft brick and mortar stores where we educated local business to accept cryptocurrency and gave students free crypto to begin using crypto that utilized smart contracts that we would own a perpetual small royalty on.  We were going to adapt legal, engineering, agricultural, and land contracts that were crypto based,  I never could get one of our classmates with computer programming expertise to get off their ass and partner.  Keep coming with the tales from the crypt.

Wayne Gary

Steve,

If you are around next Friday maybe you could join the group for lunch in Plano.