Sweethearts Candy Blog's

Yes, my face is red.  The reason?  I went to the Hollister Air Show on Saturday and got a terrible sunburn.  I look like Lobster Man (a new super hero?).  It was a great show, however and I loved seeing a lot of vintage aircraft, especially several P51 Mustangs.

Meanwhile, while I rest up and rehabilitate, trying to regrow my epidermis, I am busily studying string bass.  An important goal now appears possible and within reach!  Yeah, baby!

Stogie's New Fedora (for Blogging)

Yesterday I completed a tax return for a long-time friend, Larry, but he left without signing one important document.  So I left the office and took the form to his house for him to sign -- I was determined to finish all paperwork that day and leave nothing to a new day.  When he invited me in, he showed me a brand new Stetson Fedora sitting on his table.

"Would you like to have it?" he asked.  I said YOU BET!!  I have been wanting a new fedora since my dog chewed up my last one (also a Stetson); however, a new Stetson costs upwards of $100 and I couldn't justify the expenditure in these hard times.  However, I have a large head (needed for all those brains) and I wear a 73/8  hat size.  I tried on the hat and it was a perfect fit!  Sure enough, the tag inside said it was a 73/8.

I think the gift was Larry's way of saying thanks for saving him quite a bit of money over the past few years.

Stogie's New Fedora (for Blues and Jazz)

Larry said "Don't say I never gave you anything," and I said THANKS and BYE and left before he came to his senses and changed his mind.

As Robert Stacy McCain or Da Techguy will tell you, a fedora is an absolute must for blogging; we are the new media, the new reporters and must wear a fedora.  Matt Drudge renewed this journalistic tradition when he opened the Drudge Report, and it is a good thing.  However, for me the fedora will do double duty, since fedoras are also popular with blues and jazz musicians.  All I have to do is flip up the front and the fedora converts from a journalistic theme to a jazz theme.  Am I cool or what?  Don't answer that.

I just returned from a court hearing over my unemployment benefits.  My last employer was just plain crazy and fired me in a fit of anger over a disagreement.  Then she falsely told the EDD (Employment Development Department) that she had "disciplined" me and I quit.  I read her comments in the file before the hearing and she lied her ass off.

My former employer didn't show up at the hearing but participated via telephone.  She was evasive and side-stepped the judge's questions.  When I cross-examined her about the facts surrounding my termination, she refused to provide any details.  In other words, she just made the whole thing up.

Will I win?  If I do, I will gain a healthy chunk of cash from the EDD, and perhaps can catch up some mortgage payments.

This is not my first time to represent myself in a court hearing.  I once defended a lawsuit against me in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco...and won.  My opponent was trying to use the court system to ruin me, so I had to take over my own case.  Now that was a very scary undertaking.  However, there is an old poem that goes:

Have you come to that Red Sea time in your life
When in spite of all you can do,
There is no way out, there is no way back,
There is no other way but through.

UPDATE:  The judge's decision arrived by mail today (Thursday, 9/30/2010).  I WON!!!!

Wifey and I are in Santa Monica tonight, tomorrow and Sunday morning.  We drove the 400 miles from Hollister this morning.  Tomorrow we will attend a wedding in Malibu and I will meet relatives of my wife that I have never known.  They are from the Philippines and are from the father's side of my wife's family.  Our son will meet them too and it should be fun.  A friend and neighbor, who is armed and dangerous, is house-sitting for us until we get back.

We got a room at a lower cost motel to save money, but the room has a very fast wireless internet connection, and here I am blogging.

Now I think I will mosey down the boulevard in search of food, perhaps somewhere near the Santa Monica pier.