(See the previous (December 2004) Homepage Writings/Rants HERE)

(See the next (February 2005) Homepage Writings/Rants HERE)

1-26-05

Funniest link of the day, here at the Onion. And here's a clip from it:

"Twenty years ago, I never would've believed that we'd have a black, female Secretary of State, much less one who was a conservative warmonger, too. We've come a long way."

1-25-05

Man, I've been busy, trying to get lots of work done and also trying to get some waves--it's been pretty damn good lately. First, check out what the Bushies are saying about his inaugural speech... basically they are saying, "he didn't really mean all that about the 'spreading and supporting freedom'". First a White House staffer says so and then his dad comes out and says so. Here's a nice article summing it up here.

Now check out this photo of me taken by Rodrigo at Blacks on Jan.20th, 2005:

1-23-05

Weird, I was flipping through the channels and I see my Scott Soens' Hallowed Ground playing on Fox. That's cool stuff. Oh wait, now they've changed the music that goes with the movie, that's lame. Earlier today I was enjoying my birthday present from Scott, freakin' unbelievable guy. In even more Soens news, I just spent a day up in the compound--trying to get some fun waves. The Ventura rivermouth looked like fun, couple feet overhead and pretty lined up. No real barrels at the time, but it woulda been fun. It breaks about a 1/4 mile out and we start paddling... Scott about 15 feet in front of me and the Gimp. Wouldn't you know it, Gimp and I get pounded while Scott scoops his way out. We finally make it outside and I take a little closeout barrel on the head to warm up. Paddle back out and sit deeper than everyone out there--why not? Well, a much larger set came that I could not out-paddle--as Tim Chapman would say, I got my "eyeballs blown out". After 6 more of these vicious beatings I look around and I'm practically on the beach again! Mutha. I wasn't alone, the Gimp and half the people that were out were now on the beach. Gimp and I tried to paddle back out, but couldn't--the ocean had warped into some evil washing machine. What the heck, haven't had that happen since I was 14!

Scott of course didn't get washed in, so we waited for him and then went home and ate breakfast burritos. Later, Gimp and I decided we'd had enough of this and went to surf Rincon. Here's a couple picture of Rincon that day (In between sets).

More photos here, here, here, and here.

Here's some photos of Scripps on Jan. 20th. I went to Blacks twice this day and it was huge, but when I got back I had to take a photo of this barrel.

Another photo here.

You may be thinking, "when does this guy work?" Well, I spent all day Saturday working and I'm going right back to work after I finish this.

1-17-05

You know that I follow this political stuff pretty closely, but even I didn't know that the supposed Social Security "shortfall" isn't so bad after all. Well, I stole this stuff from Bob Harris' webpage today :

This was in my L.A. Times...: The president looked at [27-year-old Utah dairy farmer and apparent wide-eyed unsuspecting shill Josh] Wright approvingly.  "At your age," he said, Social Security "will be bust by the time it comes for you to retire." According to the Social Security trustees' own worst-case scenario, this is absolute wild horseshit. From the Social Security Administration's own FAQ page: Q. I'm 25 years old. If nothing is done to change Social Security, what can I expect to receive in retirement benefits from the program? A. Unless changes are made, when you reach age 63 in 2042, benefits for all retirees could be cut by 27 percent and could continue to be reduced every year thereafter. If you lived to be 100 years old in 2079 (which will be more common by then), your scheduled benefits could be reduced by 33 percent from today's scheduled levels. The full Trustees Report makes it clear that even these numbers are based on fairly dour economic projections.  So if our Utah farmer Josh lives to be 100, he'll still be getting payments.  In the very worst case, still substantial ones. And this isn't some half-unknown situation where maybe David Kay has to go in and prowl around for a year before we know that obvious horseshit is obvious horseshit. This is obvious horseshit right now.  Fresh, steaming, straight from the president's mouth and ready to serve. And it's being used to try to turn the most successful social program in the history of the United States into a handout to Wall Street.

And in other news, Seymour Hersh (the journalist who brought us the Abu Ghraib scandal) has a new article in the New Yorker that scares me. A lot. It has former CIA officials talking about the shift to 80's-style Iran-Contra nonsense. Ok, most of my friends might not know what that means, but read the article... very informative.

1-15-05

Hey, I finally got this story the Gimp wrote about a serious road trip we took to Florida back in good old 2002. Go, Here.

1-13-05

Oh my, I am a sick mofo. One sick day, that's ok. You get a little break that you deserve, but two sick days and I'm ready to get back to work. So, I went back to work and by the end of the day I ended up more sick than before. I had to grade homeworks all night and then today... super sick. I'm ready for it to be over.

Anyway, I was thinking about honoring someone who had a very good year--I think I thought of this when hearing that Frank Sinatra song. But there really were two people that I know that had very good year in 2004. These two individuals are:

My two oldest friends, Scott Soens and Bob McClure. They had some seriously good 30th years and they are some seriously good people. How so, you may ask? Well, I am impressed how both of these cats are dedicated to improving themselves--not that I think there's anything wrong with them. And that's all, I'm not going into any details because they would be embarrassed or possibly pissed if I did. That's all for now.

1-10-05

Ok, so I forgot it is actually 2005, I'm going to have to get used to that. So, I just checked what search-terms people used when they got connected to my page... the most bizarre search-term I've see yet was "Paul Logan Naked". Who exactly is searching for this? I don't even think his beautiful companion Lori would be searching for this. Also, will the person from the Seychelles please write me at patrickrafter1@hotmail.com. Who are you?

If you want to see photos from our New Year's party go here.

1-10-04

Hey, do the "right" thing and be well-informed about Social Security before our moron-in-charge prez tries to ruin it. There is a great commentary on it here and while I'm on it, here's a report by the Congressional Budget Office showing that medical malpractice is actually only 2% of medical costs. Then why is Bushie making such a big deal out of it? To help out the insurance companies? Me thinks so.

1-9-04

Man, it is raining like it's never going to stop. Checked the report on Surfline and they said to start building an ark. I don't know about that.

So, I took down some of the photos on this homepage because they slowed the download time a lot--Scott told me about it. I'm so 21st century with my fast connection.. I can never go back.

A couple notes on my trip back east a week ago:

The Avalon skatepark is so great I can only imagine my life if that was there 15 years ago (that's right, I am old). Had some nice times skating with Bob, Jaime, and the Gimp. Bob was sticking that crazy footplant-thing he does, Jaime was nailing the backside disasters, and the Gimp was shralping the coping like never before.

The weather was... friggin' nice. Really nice, considering. New Year's could have been a total disaster if we had the normal Philly weather, but it was nice (I was still huddling next to the heater the whole time). I have a bunch of photos from that night, maybe I'll put them up tonight, but I kinda feel like crap.

Also, Tim and Tam's new house in Philly was rad. Very nice place for some nice people. Seth and Chucky were totally different now that they're married (just kidding). My mom has nice teeth, but she says her picture doesn't come up on this site now... have to look into that. Lauren grew about 3 feet since the last time I saw her making her 7'6" tall right now. More later. bye.

1-6-04

Ayuh, just got back from the east coast... what a good time we had. New Year's we all got crunk on the Delaware, then I stayed up late with all my friends down in Cape May County. Also, I went to Princeton to meet with some people I'll be working with. Photos are coming up soon, I'm slammed with work right now including Teaching Assistant duties and I need to sample a new core today.

In news that is relevant to all of us, Paul Krugman -an economist- has an excellent article on the supposed Social Security "Crisis" in the NY Times. He calls the Bush administration's plan to privatize Social Security a "fake solution to a fake crisis". Basically, the Bushies aren't counting the Trust Fund for some reason. Perhaps more importantly, their projection for a shortfall of 10 Trillion is based on an "infinite horizon"... now does that make sense to anyone? Especially when it is usually projected over just 75 years? Even the hard core right wingers and just-misinformed-bush-voters among us can see that is just plain misleading. Oh, read about that here (that was the easiest link I could find).