Things I've Been Called

Everyone has been called a number of names in their life. Here's a sampling of what I've been called.

*Ted-Which obviously is my name!
*Teddy-By the people who still think I've yet to grow up.
*Theodore-I am not a friend of Alvin and the Chipmunks.

*Mr. Meek-Usually when I owe someone money.
*Sir-When someone doesn't know my name and they want my money.

*MeekMan-In college by my fraternity brothers.

*Tim-I have no idea why.
*Tom-I must look like Tim.
*Thief-It's a burden all salesmen must bear.
*Trouble-I must have a T branded on my forehead.

*Joe-By my aunts and uncles at the annual family reunion.

*Son-By a great pair of parents.

*Gary, Dan, Dammit Ted!-It's what my Dad often called me. It's the price for being the third-born son.

*Dad-By my wonderful sons.
*Pops-Later, by the same talented young men.

*Brother-By my sibs and much older brother-in-laws.

*Sweetie Pie-By my lovely wife.
*Sweetie?-Short for Sweetie Pie when "I need you to do something".
*Pha-Short for Alpha. You need to see the movie "Day of the Dolphin" to understand why.

*Coach-By over a hundred kids who played on my baseball, football, & b-ball teams.
*Moron-By over a hundred fathers who wanted their kids to pitch, play QB, or shoot the last shot with 5 seconds left in a tied game.

*Uncle Ted-By nearly 200 nieces and nephews all over the U.S.A.
*Taxpayer-Every three months by the government.

*Woof! Woof!-When Wrigley needs to go outside.

*AskIndyTed-By my one and only reader-YOU!

Well, that's a small sampling. If I missed any, send me a comment.

Lucas Oil Stadium Water Leak Coverup

Ever heard of Pogue's Run? It is a creek that starts on the east side of Indianapolis and continues through the downtown underground before it empties into the White River. On its way through downtown it collects everything from raw sewage to rainwater. The city decided to cover it up about a hundred years ago because it smelled, bred mosquitoes, and generally got in the way of developing downtown real estate. For whatever reason, an artist painted a blue stripe on the streets and sidewalks to show its path as it meandered through the city.

So, what does this have to do with the leak in our brand new stadium which caused millions of dollars of damage? Some rocket scientist decided to build the stadium on top of Pogue's Run. When we had a thunderstorm hit last week there was a lot of runoff in the storm sewers. At the same time, there was a new source of runoff-the stadium and all of the paved areas around it. As Pogue's run reached its capacity, so also was the capacity of the drainage system for the roof of the stadium. Water(and probably sewage)actually started to run vertically back UP the drainage pipes in the stadium as the rainwater was coming down from the roof. I'm not a civil engineer, but the pipes could not stand the stress and burst into the interior of the stadium.

So far, no one has admitted what caused the water damage. They know. However, after spending over $700 million nobody has the guts to fess up to the taxpayers. They are just praying that the heavy rains are over until they can find the cash to move a long forgotten underground waterway.

Panhandler Inflation

Everyone knows that it is less expensive to live in Indy than in places like Chicago or New York. So, it stands to reason that it must cost more to be a panhandler there, too.

Well, this past weekend, the little lady and I took a long weekend getaway in Chicago. We stayed in the lovely Sofitel Hotel near Water Tower. We asked the concierge for a recommendation of a nearby restaurant as we had decided to hoof it the entire weekend. And, just like Indy, the panhandlers are lurking everywhere shaking their cups. Very few say much, but they all know how to shake the cup.

However, as we proceeded up Rush Street for our reservation at Carmine's Italian Restaurant (which BTW was wonderful), a woman sitting on the sidewalk spoke out to us as we walked by. I never make the mistake of making eye contact, but my lip-reading wife can't help herself. After we passed her I asked, "What did she say?".

"Blank check(?), Visa card(?), or $100 cash?"

She must be a Dale Carnegie Sales School graduate.

My (Baby-Boomer) Presidents

Since we have finished the presidential primaries and will soon be in the campaign for the new President of the United States I thought I'd reflect on the commander-in-chiefs since I was hatched and what I remember them for.

Harry Truman-He could make a decision even if it meant over 100,000 were going to die as a result. I can't even imagine.

Dwight D. "Ike" Eisenhower-Didn't do much while he was pres other than play a lot of golf. As a result, he spent a helluva lot less of our money.

John F. Kennedy-JFK had the charisma of a movie star and the sex drive to sleep with one. Somewhere along the way he pissed someone off and we lost him. I was really upset when he was assassinated. It felt like the world was going to end. But, my little brother, Joe, was born a week later and life moved on.

Lyndon B. Johnson-A mean old man who exercised his immense power in Washington to get what he wanted. He took Roosevelt's Fair Deal and ramped it up to the Great Society. That's political talk for dramatic increases in domestic federal spending. He snookered the public into believing we needed to go to war with Vietnam. It was a big mistake and it ultimately wore him out.

Richard M. Nixon-"Tricky Dick" could have been a great president, but he was a serious Rule #1 violator. He thought he was bigger than the law and he paid the price. Shameful.

Jimmy Carter-Probably was the smartest president of our time and the least effective. The country was a mess under his watch.

Ronald Reagan-This guy could flat out communicate. You wanted to believe everything he said. I saw him speak before he was president and it was something special. Nancy was kind of a pain in the ass, though.

George H. W. Bush-It's hard to know whether he was defending our interests in the Middle East or was he doing the dirty work for his Saudi Arabian buddies.

Bill Clinton-How could one person cheat and lie, yet still be so admired by everyone except his wife.

George W. Bush-Just a disaster. How could one president do so much harm to such a great nation in just eight years. We'll be paying for his mistakes for a very long time. Unlike Clinton, his wife likes him. Somebody has to.

Now, we must decide between two polar opposites trying to morph into moderates. Geez, can we have a do-over?

Gun Control II

Assuming today is a typical day in America, there have been 34 more people killed by gunfire since I posted my blog yesterday. That is more people than were killed last year in the Virginia Tech massacre. Remember how shocked you were that day. Well, you should be shocked everyday.

Send a letter to your congressman before one of your loved ones is a statistic.

Gun Control

First, I need to tell you where I am coming from. I was born the day that President Truman ordered 50,000 troops into Korea to stop the spread of communism and as a youngster, a hunter shot "Bambi's"(look it up) mother. Then, I grew up to the sounds of air raid sirens signaling the impending attack from the Cuban nuclear missiles in the '60's. Then, we spent our childhood shooting each other with our "tommy guns" and "Matel" (the same folks that created the "Barbie Doll")toy guns. But, we all lived to play another day.

Now, my contemporaries in the Supreme Court still seem to think(that's debatable) that we need to have guns to protect ourselves. Give me a freakin' break! They voted 5-4 to allow everyone in the U.S.A. the right to have a gun.

As a result, over a hundred people die in Indianapolis annually as a result of gunfire.

Anyone who wants to become President will be wary to even bring it up, but whoever has the courage to propose legislation to take guns out of the hands of everyone other than law enforcement and the military will earn my vote.

Nuf said.

My Reconciliation Tax Bill & Bart

For those of you who are out of the loop, the property taxes are whacked out in Indianapolis, especially downtown. My tax bill last year for the property I own nearly doubled from 2006 to 2007. However, when the you know what hit the fan, the governor told everyone to pay their 2006 tax bill in 2007 and that the state would bill us the difference in 2008. Confused? Most people are.

Well, I received my "2007 Reconciliation" bill today. The property taxes are still 50% to 80% higher than 2006 and this is after the state raised the sales tax by 1% and the city raised the restaurant tax by 1%.Then, they raised the local income tax an additional .65% while not allowing any debate from the public.

To put it another way, it is like buying a new car with cash and then walking out the door of the dealership and setting it on fire-every year.

So what does this have to do with Bart Peterson? In case you do not remember, he was the smiley face that spent all of the money which created the tax mess. Well, I decided to ease into my work day by having breakfast in one of my favorite haunts-Shapiro's Delicatessen and try to forget about my taxes while reading about my 401K going down the tubes in the Wall Street Journal. When, who should appear? Old smiley face Bart was back in town from his stint teaching government at Harvard. Hey, you need to teach the future leaders how to overspend while they're young.

Maybe I could spill some coffee on him. No, he was in the corner of the room and it would have been too obvious. Or, how about throwing my bagel at him. No, was I hungry. I could have just walked over and bitch-slapped him. No, I don't like lawyers or jails. I guess I just could have made him a deal on my new low-mileage burned out Chevy.

What Is Going On?

Who wants to guess where the price of oil is going to be? I thought I knew, but I was low. I thought people would wise-up around $2.50 per gallon of gasoline. Nope. Then, I thought things would grind to a halt at $3.50. Nope. Traffic was just as heavy as ever.
Now, we've passed $4.00 and they say demand is down a measly 4%. Wake up people! It's going higher. Now is not the time to cash in your 401K just so you can fill up your SUV to go to the mall. Demand has overtaken supply. If you don't understand that basic premise, it's too late for you.

Not to sound like an old fart, but I'm not so sure the little lady and I are going to start living a little like we did back when we got hitched. You don't need to be married to cut back, but it's always easier when you're a team. I can't tell you how seldom we had dinner out and how often we ate macaroni & cheese with crackers crumbled on top to make it look like a "dish". Moreover, I never bought tires for the old heap if you could still see the tread lines on the tires. It made driving in the rain more fun anyway. We had no A/C, no dishwasher, no cable(we did have a 15" color RCA, though), and could fit all of our clothes in a 4 ft. closet with room to spare.

So, what do you do? Live on what you make, live with the ones you love, and vote all of the knuckleheads in your local, state, and federal government out of office who messed up a pretty good thing,

My #1 Pet Peeve

Everyone has a #1 pet peeve. Yours might be lousy drivers, people who talk too much or too loud, smokers, drunks, liberals, conservatives, television commercials, traffic, Windows upgrades, losing a button, hot flashes, bad spelling & improper grammar, unrelenting increase in the price of gas, taxes, politicians, and I could go on and on. But, I won't. Let's get back to my #1.

My #1 pet peeve relates to my work. What I do for a living is not rocket science and it is not important what I actually do , but let's say after 36 years of hearing most of the questions that pertain to my industry at least a hundred times, I have most of the answers on the tip of my tongue when I hear "I am having trouble with my _______". Since my job is helping people solve their problems and getting them back to making a living, I am more than willing to help. And, in return, they will purchase my products and services. We both win.

However, I continue to encounter folks who have tried everything that "they know" and cannot solve the problem at hand. So, after patiently listening, I give them a possible solution based on my 36 years(which BTW is way too long in any business)of experince. You would think the response would be, "I'll give that a try" or "Why didn't I think of that?" or "You're a frigging genius".

No, that's not what they say. They say, "That's can't be right". Not right? This is not a multiple choice test where answers A, B, C, and D are incorrect and E is none of the above. If they know what's not right and they don't know what is right, why are they wasting my time!

That's my #1. And if you don't agree, don't call me.