The Infamous Hood Pass

You know, I have tried not to make this an entertainment/gossip blog and for the most part, I have succeeded. There are one thousand other blogs you can go to if that's your thing. The only reason I'm going to give my take on the whole John Mayer flap is because both my wife and daughter are big fans... they introduced me to his music and I would hate for them to think that he is a racist.

He did use the N-word in a Playboy article recently and he did say something about a certain apendage of his being a "white supremacist". I don't know if he was trying to be ironic, cute, or just where the hell he was going with that... but, all in all, the guy talked a little too much, too freely, and got set-up.

People who have not read the Playboy article in it's entirety have lost their minds, branded him a racist, and tossed out his CDs. All of this based on some mutterings on Facebook, Twitter, and certain blogs. I have said that Americans don't read and that their minds don't run past a soundbite. To my dismay, Americans of all races prove me right every time.

Even people like Holly Robinson Peete, who should know better, is going around saying that "John Mayer hurt every black woman's feelings with his remarks." Did He? I mean, it's not like Denzel Washington or Barack Obama made these remarks. Did that many black women have John Mayer posters in their bedrooms? I'm just asking. If anybody should be angry at John Mayer, it should be Jessica Simpson and Jennifer Aniston. He gave a little too much information about the intimacies of their relationship with him to the press.

He actually paid Holly Robinson Peete and Kerry Washington a compliment. He said he thought they were "super hot". He didn't say that he didn't want to date black women... he merely stated that as of yet, he hasn't dated any.

He was asked by the reporter, "Why is it that so many hip-hop artists, so many black singers like you?" A set-up question if I ever heard one. Would this same reporter ask a black artist why he has such crossover appeal? Maybe... but they certainly wouldn't say to Snoop Dogg or Will Smith, you have an official white boy pass or something of that nature, would they?

Why does John Mayer have to have a "hood pass" because a few rappers and singers who happen to be African American happen to like the guy? The question in and of itself was racist. But, I'm not letting Mayer completely off the hook. The way he answered it was so incredibly stupid, that he should have retracted it immediately after saying it, or asked the reporter not to print it, which (of course) he most certainly would have done anyway. Reporters interview people to get controversial statements because controversial statements, even when they are clearly idiotic, sell magazines.

These are excerpts from the Playboy interview. Judge for yourself if you think he's a racist...

MAYER: Someone asked me the other day, “What does it feel like now to have a hood pass?” And by the way, it’s sort of a contradiction in terms, because if you really had a hood pass, you could call it a nigger pass. Why are you pulling a punch and calling it a hood pass if you really have a hood pass? But I said, “I can’t really have a hood pass. I’ve never walked into a restaurant, sked for a table and been told, "We’re full."

PLAYBOY: It is true, a lot of rappers love you. You recorded with Common and Kanye West, played live with Jay-Z.

MAYER: What is being black? It’s making the most of your life, not taking a single moment for granted. Taking something that’s seen as a struggle and making it work for you, or you’ll die inside. Not to say that my struggle is like the collective struggle of Black America. But maybe my struggle is similar to one black dude’s.

PLAYBOY: Do black women throw themselves at you? (Would any white reporter ask Shemar Moore, "Do white women throw themselves at you? I'm betting, they don't want to know the answer to that one.)

MAYER: I don’t think I open myself to it. My dick is sort of like a white supremacist. I’ve got a Benetton heart and a fuckin’ David Duke cock. I’m going to start dating separately from my dick.(Meaning, he hasn't dated any Black women, but he is open to it.)

PLAYBOY: Let’s put some names out there. Let’s get specific.

MAYER: I always thought Holly Robinson Peete was gorgeous. Every white dude loved Hilary from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. And Kerry Washington. She’s super hot and she’s also white-girl crazy. Kerry Washington would break your heart like a white girl. Just all of a sudden she’d be like, “Yeah, I sucked his dick. Whatever.” And you’d be like, “What? We weren’t talking about that.” That’s what “Heartbreak Warfare” is all about, when a girl uses jealousy as a tactic.

I don't know what he was talking about there... just rambling. But, for sure, he wasn't insulting black women or black people. Yet, all over Facebook, Twitter, and Blogger there is almost universal condemnation for the guy by people who haven't read the entire article... people both black and white who took one fragment of a sentence, the equivalent of a sound bite, and ran wild with it.

Could he have expressed what he meant better? Sure he could have. Should he have used the word nigger? Screw all that politically correct n-word jazz. Hell to the no, he shouldn't have... and neither should my cousin when describing one of his best friends or the cats that live down the street from me, whether they are drunk or not. Do I beleive John Mayer is a racist? No, I do not... just the latest recipient of the "Foot In Mouth" award.

If I thought he was a racist, I would be the first to condemn him, just like I do all of those rotten politicos in the great state of South Carolina. But in this case, I think there was a rush to judgement on behalf of some people and poor judgement and choice of words on John Mayer's behalf.

Again, like I said... the real people who should be angered about that interview is Jennifer Anniston and Jessica Simpson. No woman likes a man who kisses and tells.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Links2Love.Com

In honor of this special day, here are some
timely quotes you may want to ponder.

Weekend Humor

Here's a rare item. Mark it on your calender folks. A second post in one day from the house of ideas. This one was too good to not post...

An older gentleman had an appointment to see the urologist, who shared offices with several other doctors. The waiting room was filled with patients. As he approached the receptionist's desk, he noticed that the receptionist was a large unfriendly woman who looked like a Sumo wrestler.

He gave her his name and in a very loud voice, the receptionist said... "YES, I HAVE YOUR NAME HERE; YOU WANT TO SEE THE DOCTOR ABOUT IMPOTENCE, RIGHT?"

All the patients in the waiting room snapped their heads around to look at the very embarrassed man. He recovered quickly, and in an equally loud voice replied... ''NO, I'VE COME TO INQUIRE ABOUT A SEX CHANGE OPERATION, BUT I DON'T WANT THE SAME DOCTOR THAT DID YOURS.''

The room erupted in applause!

The E-Games People Play

As I said yesterday, people play these online games with people because of their own special agendas. Some folks are bored, some folks need to know how popular they are, but the biggest driving forces here are fear and deception.

Jennifer Worick, author of "The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Dating & Sex", says people do have different agendas when it comes to dating. "For me, the end goal is to be in a loving relationship with someone. But for others, the end goal might be that they’re passing time, preventing boredom, or just collecting men and women", she says.

Deception, people pretending to be something they’re not (whether it’s single or a certain gender), can be another reason relationships stay in the virtual realm, says Patricia Wallace, Psychologist and Senior Director of Information Technology at Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth in Maryland.

Another big factor is fear. "There’s the fear of failure, the fear of rejection, the fear of making a fool of yourself," she says. "An online relationship is perceived as being low-risk as compared to meeting in person. When you pick up the phone or meet in person, you have a lot less control over your message and your impression as compared to a Facebook wall post or an IM where you can rewrite and think about what you want to say." (In other words, lie.)

She says, having more control means having the ability to create a better version of you which can then be marketed to a better version of someone else (more than likely a fake version). "A woman (or a man) might feel really smart and attractive when she’s (or he's) online because she (or he) comes up with a lot of witty things to say. She or he controls the pictures that she or he sends and she or he meets somebody who does the exact same thing," says Wallace, author of “The Psychology of the Internet." "They can have a magical interaction — a meeting of the minds, sort of — whereas meeting in person would just spoil it. He stutters; she burps." (You know, real human things.)

Yeah, reality kicks in... reality can be messy. It's not clinical, it's not clean. What all of these people miss out on is that life... real life, real love... is only interesting really good when it is in fact what it is... messy, unclean, unclinical, and totally out of control. This is what makes a relationship worthwhile and memorable. The technology, the hiding and the posturing be damned. In the end, the real will win out and it has to.

Don't get me wrong... I network on Facebook, probably more than I should, but if I were single, trying to meet someone, and forge a relationship, Facebook, Twitter, I-Chat, etc. would be the last place I would go to do so. Remember, you're talking to a guy who doesn't trust the personals in the newspapers!

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

The E-Lationship

I was laying in my bedroom listening to the radio and Sade's new song, "Soldier of Love", was playing when this revelation hit me. I was thinking about how relationships are now. I was once again thankful to be married and out of the game but playfully wondering if I were "in the game", would I take care of the new technology available today that was non-existent, 20 or even ten years ago.

Yeah, I'm kinda ol' skool in that I wouldn't trust meeting someone on an online dating site. I don't think I'd want to meet someone on Facebook, Twitter, I-Chat, or texting either. You are talking to a guy who didn't trust meeting someone in the "personals". (Does anyone know if they even run the "personals" in the newspapers anymore?) Reason being... people lie. Here's a short story...

Once, when I was in my twenties, a friend of mine answered an ad put in the personals. The young lady described herself as "looking like Janet Jackson". The guy wanted me to go with him to meet up with the girl and we agreed to meet in the downtown area in front of a well-known landmark.

Well, we got there, looked around, and we didn't see anyone who resembled Janet Jackson. When he finally met up with his date she resembled gospel singer Mahailia Jackson more so than Janet Jackson. When I got finished laughing, I quietly disappeared into the night and left my boy to his misfortune. However, what you should know is that he lied too. He never mentioned to the young lady that he had put on a few pounds himself. He described himself as "athletic build". That's what I mean... people lie.

People post photos of themselves on Facebook,Twitter, and what have you that are decades old... they lie about their marital status... and in some cases, they lie about their true sexual orientation. It's hard to do that much lying when you're standing face to face with somebody, isn't it? Give me the old-fashioned face to face meeting any day. The only new thing I like is that you no longer have to exchange phone numbers on cocktail napkins. You can use your cell phone or BlackBerry.

The "e-lationship" (electronic relationship) is not for me. Now, I hear we have the new freak. This is a person who only wants a relationship with you on Facebook, Twitter, Text Message or I-Chat and they have no desire to actually meet you. "I’ve been involved in five or six of these", says a 49 year old male co-worker of mine who in recent months found a "dime piece" of a girlfriend on Facebook and left the online dating scene. "One woman was always popping up on the chat box everytime I was on Facebook... "What you doing? Where have you been?" This went on for a month and then, I proposed that we meet but she was always busy. So, I called her on it and she said, "I’m getting what I need out of this and there’s no need to go any further." So, I cut it off. I de-friended her because I didn’t have time for the B.S.", he said. Meanwhile, I just shook my head. Is this what we've come to?

Why would someone spend all that time communicating with a person they never plan to meet? I think some folks, both guys and girls, just like to collect "cyber-harems." My friend who I spoke of in the last paragraph told me, "I have a female friend who’s on a dating site and I can see that a lot of the people from the site have started following her on Facebook. She has 15 to 20 guys all commenting on her posts and looking to get with her but she’s only interested in the attention. She’s told me flat out that she ain't about meeting anybody. She just wants to feel like people want her every now and then." He laughed.

That kind of self-absorbed behavior may be great for her ego, but on Valentines Day, when she's sitting home drinking a wine cooler alone, how will she feel then? This isn't all on women either, There are a number of men on Facebook who I suspect are doing the same thing (more men than women).

Different people have different agendas when it comes to their personal relationships. I suppose the ultimate goal is to connect with someone... to find that soulmate, that relationship. I suppose that some folks are just bored and passing time... testing the waters, I guess. I tend to think deception and fear play a big part in why people play these "e-games". I'll discuss this more in my next post...

Blizzard Blues

I suppose this is what you would call a mood piece... I'm just riffing about my current mood. Normally, I would write something like this as a status update on my Facebook page, but you know how I am on this blog. This is going to be way more than the 140 charactors they allow on a Facebook or Twitter status update (since I'm not on Twitter, I don't know what their equivelant is called).

As I write this, it's snowing and I'm aching. We got hit this past weekend with 28 inches of snow. Tonight, I understand that we are about to get hit with more (12-18 inches) snow. At work today, I was told to cancel a number of meetings that were scheduled to take place on Wednesday and Thursday. We were told to leave early today too. This means that there is a possibility that by the time you are reading this, I may be off from work, still at home, and still in my pajamas.

I also told you that I'm aching. I got that pesky tooth pulled (or extracted, as they say in dentist speak) last Thursday... the day before the first blizzard hit. I had to get stitches so I'm spending my days ingesting pain killers and eating soup and pudding and it's going to be that way for a while.

Optimist that I am though, I am making the best of it. I am, after all, writing this post and jumping back and forth to Facebook. I've got the company of my wife, good music (Sade, Maxwell, Alicia Keys, Mary J. Blige, Joe, and Robin Thicke), a refrigerator and cubbard full of food, and Cable TV. What more do I need? What I don't need is a power outage... that would fix me wouldn't it? No computer... no TV... then what? Well, I do have books and magazines I could read by candlelight. As long as my gas does get cut off, I can still fix some food (what little I can eat considering my painful mouth).

I don't really have the blues. I mean, I absolutely hate winter.... but, I'm a realist. I live on the East Coast and it is what it is... this is the nature of the beast. Winter, particularly bad winters like this one, help me to appreciate the beauty and splendor of spring and summer. I'm counting the days. Believe that (as 12Kyle can say). In the meanwhile, I'm making the best of a bad situation.

The weather outside is frightful
and the fire is so delightful.
And since there's no place to go,
let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

If you live on the East Coast of the United States and are snowed in like we are, I hope you have a warm cozy place to lay your head and that you, like I, am making the best of the situation. Until next time...

Snow Blows!

Well, it was reported that 28.5 inches of snow fell at Philadelphia International Airport Friday evening through mid-Saturday afternoon (just under the record 30 inches that fell in January 1996). Actually, we were already scheduled to keep our grandkids on Saturday, even before news of the approaching snow storm traveling up the East Coast was reported. So, when news of the storm broke, our daughter suggested that we pick up the kids on Friday evening (before the storm hit) and we decided to keep them with us through Sunday. Even our church cancelled services for today so instead, we will be digging out the car so we can finally take the little ones back home. In spite of the weather, we had a great time indoors with them but all of this shoveling is no fun at all. Now, I'm hearing early reports that we may get even more snow on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. Next year, I think we'll just fly south for the winter-LOL!

Student Loan Relief

When I started college, I started with a scholarship (for track) and a grant. The money from these two combined got me through one semester. After that, my mother and I were informed through my college's financial aid office that we would have to take out a student loan. I'm sure this is something that every parent and perspective student goes through.

I was particularly struck by President Obama's State of the Union address last week when he said that a person shouldn't have to go broke just because he or she attempted to get an education. I finished school in 1981... my final student loan (I had three) wasn't completely paid off until 1989, right before I got married. My wife-to-be helped me pay it off. It would not have been a good look to go into a marriage in debt.

Paying off a student loan probably keeps a lot of people from moving ahead economically. Even the most conscientious people (of whom I was definitely not one of) will tend to fall behind in payments and this can effect your credit. Of course, if you were like me in my twenties, you probably wouldn't have cared. I owned nothing... no house, no car, nothing. In my thirties, it was different. I wanted to have a house and a car. Since my name was not Micheal and I didn't have four brothers that sang, those things were going to take credit being extended to me, which is why it was a good that, although I had some late and missed payments, I got those pesky student loans out of the way before I got started on my way into real adulthood.

A new program links payments on federal student loans to income and forgives balances after 25 years. Those working in public service could have their debts erased after 10 years. This sure would have helped me.

As graduates struggle to find jobs during this worst economic crisis of a lifetime, an adviser to the Secretary of Education expects a rise in the default rate on student loans, which cannot be easily renegotiated or discharged in bankruptcy, but a provision of the College Cost Reduction and Access Act of 2007 that reduces monthly payments for hundreds of thousands of borrowers who qualify for the new Income-Based Repayment (IBR) plan took effect July 1, 2009.

Borrowers who work in certain public service jobs could also have the balance of their loan erased after making qualifying payments for 10 years. Supposedly, this costs the government nothing, since it will now change the way it subsidizes student-loan lenders. So, will your student loan be bailed out? In a word, maybe.

At the very least, the IBR plan will lower the monthly payments of people who accumulated significant federal student loan debt but don't have the income to make the payments on the standard 10-year repayment plan. This relief may reach as many as 1 million people, according to the Project on Student Debt. And, despite lower payments, the former students won't be paying off their loans indefinitely because any remaining balance will be forgiven after payments are made for 25 years. Wow! I had mine paid in eight years so it wouldn't have included me anyway but it would have been nice to know.

The news is even more promising for people working in public service jobs... government employees, teachers in public schools and universities, workers at public hospitals, and anyone working for a 501(c)(3) nonprofit would qualify. Anyone working in a qualifying job who borrowed from the Direct Loan Program is eligible for loan forgiveness after 10 years, down from 25. This definitely would have effected me since I work for a non-profit.

To qualify for forgiveness, borrowers who work in a public-interest position must either have an existing Direct Loan or consolidate a federal loan with a private lender into the Direct Loan Program and make 120 payments after Oct. 1, 2007. The payments, which do not have to be consecutive, can be made while at different eligible positions and must be made on the income-based or standard repayment plans.

At this point, the burden is on borrowers to document where they were working during their repayment period. The Department of Education is planning to develop a more definitive system to confirm eligibility, but right now borrowers should keep pay stubs and tax documents that verify their work history.

IBR and public-loan forgiveness won't be the best options for every borrower. Some borrowers, those able to make higher monthly payments, would be better served by sticking with a traditional payment plan to avoid accruing years of additional interest. Graduates who financed their education with private loans are ineligible entirely. Bummer!

But, for an MBA grad who borrowed $150,000 while planning to be an investment banker but ended up in government service (i.e. mailman), the IBR will result in payments that are affordable on a civil servant salary.

And, that is certainly good news to know. When I came out of college in the 1980s, I had nothing good to know.

Keith's Favorite Quotes

ART: Oscar Wilde Caricature By Brendan O'Rourke

"A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone's feelings unintentionally."

Nicknames

Charles "Pretty Boy" Floyd

One thing about your childhood and your adolescence... when it's over, it's over and, in essence, it should stay over. Michael Jackson never understood this and he spent the rest of his adult life trying to, in effect, "fix" what he felt was broken in his childhood. Most people don't do that, but they do carry past hurts and humiliations with them into their adult lives and they make everybody they meet pay for it... people who had nothing to do with it.

In my case (one case, anyhow), there was a nickname. One thing you should know about me is that I hate nicknames and I always have. I liked my name... the one my mother gave me that is on my birth certificate is just fine. It has five letters, it's easy to pronounce, and I never had a problem with it. I had relatives who found it necessary to add a "y" to it. While I couldn't do anything to my relatives, the quickest way to get into a fight with me then and now would be to call me "Keithy". I hated it.

My grandmother was from the south and she had a peculiar way of calling my name, which sounded like she was saying "Keith A.", A. being my middle initial (it's stands for Albert, just in case anyone was curious). To some of my cousins, I jokingly became "Keithay"... One cousin still calls me that to this day, in jest, but I don't mind it.

However, the one nickname that I hated the most was a name I was given in high school that lasted until I graduated. I will not reveal the nickname here but I hated it. It was given to me in the 10th grade during a snowball fight. I had on a cheap pair of gloves. The material was so cheap that the snow and ice were freezing my hands so there was really was no reason to have the gloves on. I would have been better off throwing the snow with my bare hands.

Well, this guy yells out the nickname that would follow me throughout high school and it was actually the name of a Chicago gangster (not Al Capone) who had long been dead. Everybody laughed, including me. I had no idea that this nickname would become synonomous with me... but it did and it stuck.

By the time I was a senior in high school, some of my teachers were referring to me by this nickname too. My mother always told me that you are the name that you answer to... so, I should have nipped that in the bud right there and refused to answer to it. Maybe, it just wouldn't have mattered at all. Sometimes a name catches on like wildfire and there is nothing you can do about it.

Bank robber, Charles "Pretty Boy " Floyd hated his nickname, which was given to him by a prostitute who was impressed with his looks and the impeccable way he dressed. When shot down by the FBI in 1934, agents ran up to him, leaned down, and asked him.. "Are you Pretty Boy Floyd?" He answered, "I am Charles Arthur Floyd" and then he died.

"Baby Face Nelson", whose real name was Lester Gillis, hated his nickname too and no one dared call him that to his face. It was a nickname cops gave to him because even at 26, He was short and looked like a little boy. He never liked it or answered to it. He prefferred to be called "Big George Nelson" , but nobody ever called him that either. The man killed three FBI agents in 1934 before he himself was gunned down. When asked who the body belonged to at the local morgue, his wife , who came to claim it, said "Lester Gillis." Nobody knew who she was talking about until a cop said, "That's Baby Face Nelson." Then, everybody knew.

The year I graduated, I won a few awards... the Coaches Award for Athletic Excellence and a few others. When my name was called, there was a hush amongst my classmates. They had been calling me by this nickname for three years and only a handfull of them actually knew my "government" name, as the young people say today.

When I left high school, that nickname was buried there. No one in college called me anything other than my real name. My wife doesn't even know about this nickname. I went through the Air Force known by my actual name and I left it at that.

You can imagine how mortified I was a few weeks ago when I was sitting in bar and restaraunt with two female co-workers enjoying some hot wings, a couple of cold beers, and catching the Sixers game, when two of my friends from that era (who, by the way, did not go to high school with me and only knew me by that name because they had heard someone else call me that)walked in and sat with us. They were a tad bit inebriated and very talkative... especially one of them.

They began regaling these two women with tales from my "colorful" past... some of it complete fabrication and some of it was only partially true. Then, they began calling me by that name... that dreaded nickname. Naturally, these women were fascinated and here was a whole side of me that they didn't know. The thing was, I didn't know this side either... and neither did the storyteller. Since these guys and the women were drunk, talking out of their heads, and no one was getting the hint that not only was I embarrassed but they needed to shut up, I endured and it was high school all over again.

In high school though, I never told anybody to shut the hell up and I never said that I didn't prefer being called by that nickname. I still didn't tell anyone to shut up, but I made it clear to all involved that I prefer being called by my given name. This was news to them and one guy just couldn't let it go. He told the women that most women called me "Keith" and that the "brothas" called me by my gangsta nickname. I reiterated that everybody calls me Keith and that was what I preferred. He wasn't hearing it, but the other three kinda got the message and caught the vibe. The matter was dropped and I have dug up the ground and buried that name again. Hopefully, it will never to be revived.

I never said that, at times, I couldn't be petty. For some people, a name is all they have. There are thousands of people who can't stand their birth names and hide behind a middle name or hide behind a nickname... but, I am not one of them.

The Trouble With Toyotas

If you follow me on Facebook, you know that yesterday I wrote a humorous status update that said I was driving to work behind a Camry and in front of a Corolla. Both of these cars are manufactured by Japanese carmaker, Toyota. If you haven't been under a rock for the past few weeks you know that they have been having more than a little bit of a problem with the acceleration pedel on their most recent models.

Now, I drive a Japanese car myself (2008 Nissan Maxima) and who knows... they may not have a similar problem one day. The thing is, I was in traffic stuck between two Toyotas that looked like they were recently manufactured and well, you know how your mind gets to wandering and you get to thinking thoughts? The truth is stranger than fiction. While I may or may not have been in any danger, the way Toyota handled the problem is very, very scary. It began in August of last year...

The 911 call came at 6:35 p.m. on August 28, 2009 from a car that was speeding out of control on California Highway 125 near San Diego. The caller, a male voice, was panic-stricken: “We’re in a Lexus... we’re going north on 125 and our accelerator is stuck! We’re in trouble... there’s no brakes! We’re approaching the intersection! Hold on! Hold on and pray! Pray! Aggghhhhhhhhh...” and the call ended with the sound of a crash.

The Lexus ES 350 sedan, made by Toyota, had hit a sport utility vehicle, careened through a fence, rolled over, and burst into flames. All four people inside were killed: The driver, Mark Saylor, an off-duty California Highway Patrol officer; his wife, daughter, and brother-in-law. It was the tragedy that forced Toyota, which had received more than 2,000 complaints of unintended acceleration, to step up its own inquiry, after going through multiple government investigations since 2002.

Yet, only last week did the company finally appear to come to terms with the scope of the problem, after expanding a series of recalls to cover millions of vehicles around the world, incalculable damage to its once-stellar reputation for quality and calls for Congressional hearings. With prodding from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Toyota halted production and sales of eight models, including its top-selling Camry sedan. And late last week, the government allowed the company to go ahead to try yet another new fix for its vehicles, which it is expected to be announced today.

At almost every step that led to its current predicament, Toyota underestimated the severity of the sudden-acceleration problem affecting its most popular cars. It went from discounting early reports of problems to overconfidently announcing diagnoses and insufficient fixes.

Toyota’s safety problems may prove to be a hard lesson for the N.H.T.S.A., as well. Six separate investigations were conducted by the agency into consumer complaints of unintended acceleration and none of them found defects in Toyotas other than unsecured floor mats. In at least three cases, the agency denied petitions for further investigative action because it did not see a pattern of defects and because of a “need to allocate and prioritize N.H.T.S.A.’s limited resources” elsewhere, according to agency documents.

If that doesn't frighten you, I don't know what will. From reading this, I guess you all understand why I was just a little bit concerned about driving in front of and behind two cars that could have been included in the recall. Actually, I kid... I wasn't really concerned. But, I can't in all honesty say that thoughts didn't come to my mind about the possibilities...

What I've Learned

1. The older you get, the more nostalgic you get.

2. I always said that I never wanted to have any regrets... I find now, that's just
impossible.

3. In my lifetime, I've found foolishness and meanness in all races... and I've also found
a lot of good and noble people in all races too!

4. My grandmother used to say... "I'm from Missouri, show me" everytime a politician got on television and made some outlandish promise. I thought she was just being overly cynical.
She used to tell me to live long enough and I would understand. I think I understand it
now.

5. My mother instilled in me that an honest days work, regardless of what it was, is always better than feeling sorry for yourself and doing nothing. This is probably why I've seldom been without money in my pockets since I was about 23 years old.

6. I still believe in America, its promise, and its potential in spite of everything I've seen to the contrary.

7. Never expect a thank you and never do anything to get a thank you... see how free you feel afterwords.

8. We are all confused by the fact that there is always a lack of time for this and a lack of time for that...

9. You always find yourself wishing at some point that you might have been a better example to your children, but that's just the cycle of life. Your parents probably felt the same way too.

10. Sitting on the boat of mediocrity makes you miss your opportunity. Get out that boat and swim!