John Burkholder

I managed to get booked in one of the nastiest motels in Maryland. The wall is crumbling behind the vinyl. The ceiling tiles are sagging in the unventilated bathroom. The room is dirty and I am not sure what that dark red spot is in the middle of the room. I hope that is spilled soda behind the bed. Maybe those hairs are embedding in the floor of the shower due to some resurfacing treatment. The hotels around the area are booked solid due to some accordian players convention I would imagine...so I am stuck here. The only saving grace is the Internet connection. As I have been sitting here, I have come to the realization it is time for me to face my demons. No, I am not talking about the small insects flying about the room, I am talking about my abandonment issue. It may be true that my abondonment issue was aggravated by the suicide of my Father when I was 6, the suicide of my Brother when I was 12, the suicide of my Wife and Mother of three of our kids (which I fear will have the same...

The other day, I drank so much tea, I barely made it to the urinal without hydroblasting the frontside of my blue jeans. This doesn't happen very often because I have had the unfortunate circumstance of pushing people aside just to get to the toilet. Ref: The Dance . So the other day I was at the point of tears when I made it to the bathroom. Bathroom? Well, in my office there is a shower in our bathroom for the fitness center so I guess it is close enough. Maybe I should call it a showerroom. That looks and sounds funny. Isn't it amazing what part of the body is actually in control? Well...it seems they talked amongst themselves: All the organs of the body were having a meeting, trying to decide who was the one in charge. "I should be in charge, "said the brain, "because I run all the body's systems, so without me nothing would happen." I should be in charge" said the blood, "because I circulate oxygen all over, so without me you'd all was...

Another tax day and again the government will continue to bend people over in order to get the money it so seriously deserves. We need to pay for the new infrastructure such as roads for our vehicles and city water services. We need to pay for our health care for the elderly and the very young. We, as a people, need to pay to ensure our defense against the evil tyrrany that threatens our way of life and our personal liberties. We need to pay. And we do pay. But apparently we do not pay enough. Right now, the United States government is running with nearly a $8.9 Trillion deficit. The entire 2007 federal budget is $2.8 Trillion (not including other appropriations for the war effort). How many companies would be permitted to run in a debt of three times the entire budget? Wouldn't they be severly scrutinized for cheating the stockholders like Enron? Or is it OK because they are telling us that we are spending money we don't have? We...yes we. We are paying the government to perfo...

Last week, the Harvard School of Public Health released materials to the Motion Picture Association about the impact of smoking in movies on youth and the need to eliminate cigarettes in film. The cliff-notes version of the report is that children do not have the parenting and understanding to know that smoking is unhealthy. Therefore, the motion picture community needs to rectify the issue by demanding that any movie that has someone smoking in it be considered an “R” movie. Petitions have been created to demand the motion picture industry remove smoking. I have but a few unanswered questions about this before I make a comment on the issue. Who did they study? I seriously doubt in this day and time that any of the youth started smoking because they saw Audrey Hepburn smoking in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. How old is the data? 14 years old. What are the demographics of the smoking youth? What types of movies are the youth watching? Are they watching “R” rated movies to begin with? Do the...

I am heading to the airport once again today. Unfortunately, I have to transfer in Pittsburg this run since a straight flight was going to cost me considerably more. As I understand it, the airports are already having delays, so this should be an interesting day of people on cell phones. Cell phones. I have three on me at this time. I have my personal cell on the smaller, I-could really-care-less-about-you phone carrier. I have my business PDA with cell phone service from the monster-conglomerate carrier. I have the the on-call Blackberry phone on the carrier that continually asked if I can hear them. What I hate most is the people who have bad receiption. These are the people who for some reason feel that if you begin loosing receiption, you have to talk louder into the phone. As if the increased volume somehow increases the frequency bandwidth of the cell phone and it's carrier. This brings me to my point (as I almost always have one). At what point did someone figure that yelli...

So, I have been sorting out ideas of how to make a load of money without a lot of work and of the brain cells decided to jump in and help other people. I would love it if the people in my head would keep to themselves. Anyway, I came up with an idea for a small town that is running a deficit. Instead of having an election for a mayor the next round, they sell it to the highest bidder. It is really no different than actually running for Mayor. The person with the most money wins. So, we are just making it so the city actually benefits instead of having signs plastered all over the roads and people shoving fliers in your face. How much devotion is a mayor going to have when they just spent $1 million of their own money to win? Well, about $1 million of their own money's worth. I know I would want to make it go as far as possible. Why would anyone buy a mayor's seat? Often mayors are bought anyhow, so this cuts down on the collateral damage of the race. The "candidate"...

I managed to get all of the system to take the time change change. For my overseas readers, The United States in it's infinite wisdom moved the time change to today, March 11. It was originally scheduled for three weeks from now, but at the last moment, they moved it to today. I have written an entire blog entry about the time change . If figure this little move of the move hascost the United States, and other countries at least $100 million if you take into account the developers, testers and implementers of software...never mind the users. I have said it before, I say it again... Get rid of the time change! Eliminate time zones! It just doesn't make sense! With the development of new aircraft, we will be taking off from New York at 8:00AM and landing at 6:00AM in Los Angeles. Time is far too complicated for some people and there is no real reason we can't all use the same clock. To add to this rant, now my daughter's birthday is an hour short. Avery turns four today. ...