The Swimming Classes In my senior year of high school 1996 and 1997 I had been selected by my computer science teacher to be one of 15 or so people on the school s first web team After I quit playing football about three quarters through the season I even formally had a class change so that I could program for the school rather than just sit around in the weight room One of the tasks that came with this building the school s website was to take digital pictures of the various teams and clubs across the school It might also be worth noting that this was the first time most of us had ever seen a digital camera It was a flat and boxy looking thing by Kodak that shot at a resolution of about 320x200 worse than the old flip phones I really have no idea how we never got caught doing this but my good friend David Spencer and I one day discovered that the doors to the school s Olympic swimming pool and diving well were not locked during our web period So of course one day we thought we d give it a go and brought our bathing suits and towels to school with us Of course we couldn t get dressed in the locker room and so just wound up changing in the pool area itself We spent the entire period diving off of the 3 meter board and when we were done dried off changed and headed to our lunch period We continued this for weeks without anyone ever saying a word about it

Dreux s Tale of Jury Duty Crockett and I were hanging out with Dreux the other day and he told us all about his experience with jury duty here in Travis county We were surprised that he was picked for the case at all being a logical engineer and all but he was His reward was sitting and listening to 5 days of civil trial strong The Suit strong The lawsuit came from what is no doubt an upsetting tale but in my opinion was frivilous all the same Essentially an F 550 work truck was making a left turn at a stop light crossing a highway in his turning lane Mind you he was actually the second car waiting for the green left arrow As the arrow turned green thus giving him the right of way the car in front of him went through the intersection and he proceeded to so the same Perpindicular to his car and coming from the left at about 55 MPH or so was another car The driver ran the red light and the right side of her car smashed into the large grill bumper of the F 550 severely injuring her passenger and backseat daughter in a carseat So much in fact that life flight was needed at the scene The woman s daughter suffered severe head trauma and will apparently never be the same again To a lesser extent this was apparently also true of the passenger Oddly enough the lawsuit actually came from the injured child s father and from the mother of the passenger They the plaintiffs were seeking a claim of negligence on behalf of the F 550 turning left claiming that he has a responsibility to ensure no cars are coming even if he has the right of way For that they attempted to justify he was 20 at fault and were seeking to award 10 000 000 in damages which results in 2 000 000 after factoring his negligent part Long story short Dreux and the 11 other members of the jury found in favor of the defendant and therefore awarded no damages to the plaintiff It seems that one of the largest points made was that by the time she ran the light all lights had been red for two seconds the defendant s light had been green for 8 seconds and the woman driver s light had been red for 10 seconds Not to mention her light had been yellow for 6 seconds prior to it turning red strong How One is Selected for Jury Duty strong There was some confusion amongst us trying to decide how one is selected for jury duty It seems that some of us believe it comes from registering to vote others believe it s merely having a license It seems to vary from state to state and possibly county to county but here are the rules for Travis County The jury wheel which is the list of potential jurors comes from three lists all registered voters in Travis County all registered voters from neighboring counties that reside within Austin city limits all persons in Travis County with either a Texas driver s license or a Department of Public Safety identification card Each year the Voter lists and DPS lists are merged by matching the names as best as is possible to minimize duplications The merged list is given to the Travis County district clerk The district clerk county clerk and sheriff then meet to reconstitute the jury wheel by replacing the old list with the new one Jury summonses are sent from the jury wheel on a random basis About 120 000 to 150 000 summonses are sent each year To read more about this visit a href http www co travis tx us district_clerk jury A1 asp http www co travis tx us district_clerk jury A1 asp a

The Zoso Pumpkin While living at the Duval Street apartment my roommates and I had quite an elaborate display of crap in front of our apartment door Most of this was designed put in place by none other than me We had a park bench an assortment of fruits and vegetables plants a 400 pound wooden Shiner Beer bottle and for Halloween of 1998 a cool pumpkin Seeing on how our apartment was a common ground of music lovers and such we had the full band setup in the apartment I guess classic rock was always something that everyone could agree upon regardless of their specific music tastes And of course somewhere atop everyone s classic rock stack is a collection of Led Zeppelin I wanted to make a cool looking pumpkin that everyone would find some interest in and so I looked to Led Zeppelin Perhaps one of the most known symbols at least to the LedHeads is Jimmy Page s Zoso strong Making the Pumpkin strong The process of making a Zoso pumpkin is actually pretty simple 1 Go to your local pumpkin patch 2 Pick out a nice looking 8 pounder 3 Pull out all of those tasty pumpkin guts 4 Surf the web for a picture of the Zoso logo 5 Print the picture and tape it to the pumpkin 6 Use a tack to outline the picture 7 Remove the picture and cut away on the tack holes That s about it For anyone who is mildly curious as to what in the hell Zofo means I couldn t tell you I ve read far too many accounts to really speculate where it came from but the simplest one is that Jimmy Page and Robert Plant were looking at calligraphy like symbols Jimmy Page found one that he liked and apparently the symbol sounded like Zofo apparently pronounced Zo So From that point on it was sort of a trademark of his For any of those now curious as to who the hell Jimmy Page is he is was the guitarist of Led Zeppelin and is credited with being one of the more if not most famous classic rock guitarists photo 19568 502 520 left The pumpkin glowing on my front porch photo photo 19569 502 520 left Another picture of the same thing photo photo 19570 502 520 left A closeup of the Zoso logo photo

Question for State Representative Dawnna Dukes div class pageImage iframe width 519 height 292 src www youtube com embed TKlisXmDJLo frameborder 0 allowfullscreen iframe br A video question I created for the incumbent of district 46 div Following an interesting series of events the current incumbent for TX House District 46 acknowledged one of the claims I made about her recently I created this video in direct response to her and posted the video on both her Facebook and Twitter feeds Following one of our canvassing days a constituent of Ms Dukes received one of my campaign flyers on her door photoed it and posted it to her Twitter feed inquiring about the competition Dukes didn t respond Some of her constituents spent the next couple of weeks on Twitter discussing my claim that she is not as LGBTQ friendly as one might expect an Austin Democrat to be While she has always shot down bigoted Republican bills aimed at further subjugating gays and lesbians to the best of my knowledge she has never attempted to introduce legislation actually aimed at marriage equality for Texans I suspect this is due to the fact that she is playing politics but of course this is largely the problem with our entire political apparatus politicians are more interested in securing their next term than righting obvious injustices She eventually weighed in on the conversation The cited a gay Dallas magazine that had given her accolades for a speech she made against an extremely bigoted Republican bill The video picks up from that part in the chain of events

Government 2306 Critical Paper 2 Government 2306 Critical Paper 2 Committee Hearing in the House strong Committee Hearing in the House Energy Resources strong As I began listening to the discussions that were taking place in the Committee Hearing it occurred to me that these people are just that people They do not speak as poets or even articulate writers If we could call these men and women anything at all besides what they are it seems that we could call them non threatening lawyers These people are simply sitting around discussing current issues that are problems or at least potential problems in regards to Texas as a whole In this particular case the topic of interest is energy resources as that is the committee that I chose to listen to What I find so interesting about this committee meeting or I would assume any of them is the simple fact that these men and women are simply civilly discussing issues that affect my life in one way or another Perhaps not right now but at some point in the future any one of these issues could come into play for me The majority of this segment that I found most interesting was on the taxation or lack thereof of the dried up or forgotten oil wells in Texas I found this topic to be interesting in the meeting because I feel that its points were argued relatively well and my father is an oil broker thus giving me an interest in the taxable steps involved in his business It certainly would have helped to have known more about the bills that these men and women were discussing but on the flipside they argued their points well enough that the bills they spoke of were fairly simple to interpret One of the many topics discussed on the taxation of oil wells is due to oil entrepreneurs that create an oil well milk it until it is dry or until the oil is unobtainable if in fact there ever was oil to take from it and then move on If we look at this concept for what it is we must first look at what drilling for oil actually creates After speaking with Howard Ludlow my father on the matter I was able to get a layman version of what goes on The actual space that is necessary for drilling these days is no larger then a one hundred foot squared area An apparatus is setup to drill which nowadays can be nothing more then a mobile rig on a truck In older times humans would have to drill within 5 000 ft to obtain oil but as times have changed and we have taken more and more of our precious resource it has become necessary to drill deeper and deeper These days a hole of 10 000 ft or deeper is common As the hole is drilled about 4 6 in diameter the drill is threaded in such a way so that the ground waste that it extracts called the tailings are removed at the top of the well They are usually left in a pile nearby the drilling well Using a little math a 6 hole at 10 000 ft would create about 2000 cubic foot of waste that is simply thrown to the side Now back to the argument at hand Most all of the large drilling manufacturers at this point will drill until they can drill no longer Oil or not we will assume that the drilling process is over After they have completed their drilling they will fill in the hole with a special mixture and then cap it off The excess waste is plowed over and a small hill is all that is left in this area The problem is that smaller businesses will not always do this and the House has a large problem with this I suspect mainly for environmental reasons Once the well is no longer commercially viable to them they simply move on to another hole The House wants to create a tax that would be imposed on all oil companies which would then set aside a fund for plugging the dry oil wells up so that they do not pose a threat to the environment or to society for that matter This would not only impose a tax on the general public this would also impose a somewhat unnecessary tax to the oil companies that are already doing this Exxon for example As we hear from Ben Siebry a representative from the big oil businesses in Texas we are informed of this liability that these irresponsible oil drillers create The larger drilling companies have recently come together as of last summer to discuss the issue of dry wells being left as they were when the drilling was finished They have estimated that the amount of money that is necessary for this yearly operation is about 20 million In turn they have taken it upon themselves to raise the capital that is necessary but are fairly only able to allocate 12 million What they are now asking for is to be taxed the remaining 8 million that it will take to adequately clean and plug these drill holes for every drilling business in Texas I feel that this is the right thing to do and asking to be taxed to fix an environmental problem is a huge step for any big business to take The problem that they now face is that there has been another proposal for taxation which would allocate some 48 million towards this project They feel that this is completely unnecessary and that the extra 28 million will simply be wasted tax dollars that they as businesses will have to spend I fully agree with them being against this tax as they have taken it upon themselves to remedy the problem Obviously there are always hidden costs and such involved in the processes and it would be easy for them to simply argue that they have solved their own mess and have now created a solution because if it doesn t work as they planned they will still benefit and save over 40 million in tax dollars I also however feel that their tax proposal for 8 million should be taken seriously and that the ins and outs of it should be examined very closely by the House Perhaps in doing so a compromise can be made or their tax proposal could in fact be very sound in such a case it should be put into action

Colombian Travel vs American TSA photo 257711 740 200 right photo As I wind down my eight day voyage to Colombia I can t help but dwell upon the non sensible invasive and criminal sham that the United States travel policies have turned into Colombia perceived by Americans as a third world land of drug cartels kidnappings and guerrilla mercenaries none of which is really accurate has absolutely superior air travel service compared to the United States This is true both of the government policies surrounding travel and the actual service provided by at least one private domestic carrier Domestically a group of us flew from Bogot to Cartagena on a href http www avianca com Avianca Airlines a The experience could not have been more positive After quickly checking in with a friendly staff we proceeded to security The line was short We didn t remove our computers from our bag nor take off our shoes nor throw away our bottles of water Nobody intended to make us assume the position of a criminal and examine our naked body Nobody intended to feel our genitals nor to have us remove articles of clothing We put our carry on bags on a conveyor belt and comfortably walked through a metal detector Those of us who tripped it were not harassed but rather quickly wanded down and sent on our ways photo 257763 740 520 left A simple chart comparing the security protocols I experienced between the United States TSA and the Colombian airport security photo br style clear both It was everything a country like America em should em be capable of The only additional though arguably positive layer of security is that they check bag tickets after you pick up your bag on the conveyer Although this does slow the process down by a few minutes I can appreciate wanting to protect against private theft The airline itself was also phenomenal Avianca has a brand new Airbus fleet each seat fully loaded with televisions gaming devices and USB mounts All of the in flight services were completely free of charge despite the flight only being an hour As a strong proponent of allowing foreign carries into the US domestic fleets one of the US many anti competitive laws I would definitely welcome Avianca with open arms and in all likeliness become a frequent flyer Internationally the departure process has been almost as easy albeit with a few more steps After receiving our tax vouchers at one window and then checking in with United we proceeded through to immigration and had our passports stamped Security was almost identical to the domestic flight only they did ask us to remove our computers from carry on and place them in a bucket much like the TSA does There was no removal of shoes no trashing of water and food no groping no naked body scanning Rather just a simple metal detector with a follow up wand The only annoyance came after waiting at the gate for about an hour Evidently a secondary screening process was being setup and we had to leave the room and re enter through the secondary metal detector There was one bit of stupidity here I was allowed to bring my metal water bottle full of water through but I was em not em allowed to bring my half full plastic water through Curiously though I was allowed to pour the contents of the plastic bottle into my metal bottle and continue without further incident Go figure All in all though it was a pretty positive experience I spoke with a couple of Colombians about these processes and they agree that traveling around Colombia is a very pleasant experience They also said that they hated travel procedures of the United States citing that they re treated very badly generally as if they re terrorists I will continue to strongly oppose the TSA and all levels of government that use fear and American ignorance to strip individuals of Constitutional rights I strongly encourage others to do the same strong March 23 2012 5 13pm CST Edit strong After chatting with members of the Reddit community about this post I m told that my experience may have been unique Further discussion seems to suggest that the lighter security I experienced was due to my traveling during the low season Others have reported significantly more invasive scans albeit body scanning technologies are still not present

Hardwood Floors Installed So continuing on with the wonderful bus conversion we finally have hardwood floors installed It wasn t quite as trivial as I thought it would be even having installed a few floors before The problems mostly arose from the slight curvature of the 3 4 plywood surface the occasional screw or bolt that had not been fully countersunk and the glue I ve learned my lesson I will NEVER glue a floor surface on ever again The epoxy is not what I thought is incredibly difficult to work with and it gets everywhere including the skin But fear not because wood glue is one of the easiest glues to remove from one s skin and this is wood glue no I read the safety sheet AFTER the installation and discovered one is not supposed to work with NA 8500 adhesive without proper gloves I actually went so far as to call poison control late last night just to ask if there was anything I could do to get the glue off of us Unfortunately wait it out was the official answer soap detergent vegetable oil mineral oil and gasoline did not work So here I sit actually looking a bit like a leper as I type this my hands burned and peeling from this ber adhesive glue Be forewarned should you decide to wood glue your hardwood installation On the upside it s probably pretty damn effective Here are a few pics photo 258243 258221 0 center Caroline spreading some of the glue with our 1 4 x 1 4 glue trowel MUCH harder than it looks For reference always apply the glue orthogonal to the direction of the wood grain photo photo 258264 258221 0 center Mike Crockett was helping us to install the floors and took care of all of my wiring issues as well There were cheap reading lights all over that I had removed and capped the wires are good so may as well keep them handy and accessible photo photo 258265 258221 0 center Almost there photo photo 258256 258221 0 center I finished the front half of the bus myself this afternoon Relaxing after a lot of back breaking work The gluing really takes it out of you photo photo 258249 258221 0 center The final wood surface Unfortunately it got late by the time I finished so I couldn t grab one in the day light photo br style clear both

Interview With Catherine Kitty Ludlow photo 261526 740 200 right Catherine Ludlow during her interview photo On December 27th 2001 I conducted a brief interview with both of my grandparents father s side Catherine Kitty Ludlow and Howard T Ludlow known as Momma and Poppa respectively This is the interview with Catherine The total recorded interview is 7 minutes 49 seconds long I have transcribed the interview below and included applicable links detailing certain events and locations that my grandmother described namely using Wikipedia IMDB and Dictionary com table class BLOGNarration tr td colspan 2 b SETTING UP THE INTERVIEW CATHERINE IS TAKING HER SEAT b td tr tr td valign top Kevin td td Okay you heard all the questions that he got asked td tr tr td valign top Catherine td td Yes I don t remember them though td tr tr td valign top Kevin td td You forgot them all td tr tr td valign top Catherine td td No I didn t forget them all td tr tr td valign top Howard td td She s cheating td tr tr td valign top Catherine td td No td tr tr td valign top Kevin td td So you don t remember any of them td tr tr td valign top Catherine td td Yes I do td tr table br style clear both table class BLOGNarration tr td colspan 2 b CATHERINE BEGINS THE INTERVIEW HERSELF b td tr tr td valign top Catherine td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px I was born in the a href http en wikipedia org wiki Bronx Bronx a And I lived in the a href http en wikipedia org wiki Bronx Bronx a most of my grown up life as far as that s concerned My father worked in a bakery and my mother was at home And I have or had a sister and two brothers td tr tr td Kevin td td b i See you remember the questions i b td tr tr td valign top Catherine td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px Yes I do td tr tr td Kevin td td b i What year were you born in the Bronx i b td tr tr td valign top Catherine td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px 1925 td tr tr td Kevin td td b i What year was he born in the Bronx i b td tr tr td valign top Catherine td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px 1921 right td tr tr td valign top Howard td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px Yea I was born in 21 td tr tr td valign top Catherine td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px And I went to public school because my mother was a href http en wikipedia org wiki Catholic Catholic a but my father was a href http en wikipedia org wiki Protestant Protestant a so he couldn t let us go to any a href http en wikipedia org wiki Catholic_school Catholic school a in fact he was a very anti Catholic person for a long time He changed when he got older And um I went to a href http schools nycenet edu Region3 ps46 default html P S 46 a in the a href http en wikipedia org wiki Bronx Bronx a and I graduated from there And when I was in 8th grade they had a a href http en wikipedia org wiki Hunter_College Hunter College a which was a college in a href http en wikipedia org wiki New_york New York a had also a high school called it a href http en wikipedia org wiki Hunter_College_High_School Hunter College High School a but you had to take a test to get in And so a teacher said to me well you did pretty well take the test And I passed And I went into the highschool And when you graduated from a href http en wikipedia org wiki Hunter_College_High_School Hunter College High School a you automatically were eligible to go to a href http en wikipedia org wiki Hunter_College Hunter College a And uh so I did well and I graduated from a href http en wikipedia org wiki Hunter_College Hunter College a cause otherwise I wouldn t have been able to go my parents didn t have any money really And the tuition at that time I m pretty sure I m right but I might be wrong was like 45 a semester So it was not bad at all So I went there for umm I guess it was two years or so two and a half years and then it was the time around the war 1945 and I decided I would join the a href http en wikipedia org wiki Women 27s_Army_Corps WACs a And I did td tr tr td Kevin td td b i What is the WACs i b td tr tr td valign top Catherine td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px a href http en wikipedia org wiki Women 27s_Army_Corps Woman s Army Corps a And um I was sent to with a group to a href http en wikipedia org wiki Fort_Oglethorpe 2C_Georgia Fort Oglethorpe Georgia a Well I was 20 at the time so that s why I was able to do it My parent s didn t want me to do it but I I was a very disobedient child You know how that is td tr tr td td td LAUGHING td tr tr td Kevin td td b i I ve read about it i b td tr tr td valign top Catherine td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px And so I wanted to go and I did And we went do to a href http en wikipedia org wiki Fort_Oglethorpe 2C_Georgia Fort Oglethorpe Georgia a And that s where we took our training And then when we finished down there uh we were sent to different places and I went to Thomas M England general hospital It was a big hotel and they turned it into a hospital during the war So that s where I was and I worked as a medic a technician You know bringing um refreshments making beds and stuff like that And umm I was in for about almost 2 years when the war ended less than two years because the war then ended So you could stay in but they were going to send you overseas for two more years And uh I didn t want to do that so I got out and I went back to college And then I started to work I had a number of jobs and stuff like that And then um then I met I met Howard Oh we joined the a href http en wikipedia org wiki American_Legion American Legion a I was in the a href http en wikipedia org wiki American_Legion American Legion a And I met him I knew him and he came up to me one evening uh before the meeting started and he said I d like to ask you a question So I said ok go ahead ask He said I was in a post it was all female post it was a Joan of Arc post and our commander was a very cute little blonde her name was Sophie And that s what he came up to ask me if I thought Sophie would go out with him But I said to him I know that she won t because she has a husband who is very jealous and he won t like it td tr tr td td td LAUGHING td tr tr td valign top Catherine td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px So he said well thank you very much then he went and sat down That was before the meeting After the meeting was over he came over and he said to me I really shouldn t have asked you that and it really wasn t very nice And he told me the situation He had just broken up with a girl and he had a formal coming up He belonged to this group that um it was um the Naval Cadets that s what it was called It s for like boys and everything to train them Well I had just broken up with somebody too So anyway I said no I d be glad to go with you p p And that s how we started to go out together And um so then we got married in uh June 28th uhh 1950 was it 1952 that we got married td tr tr td valign top Howard td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px Could be td tr tr td td td LAUGHING td tr tr td valign top Catherine td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px And um then the next year we had a baby but the baby died I was only 7 months and the baby died So then then we had Maureen and then we had Howard your father and then we had Frank We had three of them And we lived in a href http en wikipedia org wiki New_jersey New Jersey a We had a small house real small but we had never lived in a house before we lived in an apartment And I used to tell everybody we have a big house and of course when people would come to see it they would realize it wasn t a big house But after about half a dozen or so years we moved to a bigger house much bigger house And we stayed there And then of course the kids everybody grew up and got married and left and then we they said it was the three kids that you can t stay here up in the north it s too cold and stuff like that So we Howard retired I retired and so then we moved down where we are right now And that s kind of up to date td tr tr td td td LAUGHING td tr tr td Kevin td td b i That was pretty precise i b td tr tr td valign top Catherine td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px Ok td tr tr td Kevin td td b i That was pretty full Any other good stories for my interview i b td tr tr td valign top Catherine td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px Well I don t know Your father was a wild and wooly one But td tr tr td Kevin td td b i And he had a motorcycle i b td tr tr td valign top Catherine td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px Oh yes he had a motorcycle He had he had a motorcycle which I didn t want him to have td tr tr td Kevin td td b i But he had one anyways i b td tr tr td valign top Catherine td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px He had one anyway yea td tr tr td Kevin td td b i Sounds about right i b td tr tr td valign top Catherine td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px But all three of them turned out really well and they re doing really well and Then once he met your mother he kind of straight straightened out td tr tr td Kevin td td b i That s how the story goes i b td tr tr td valign top Catherine td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px Yea She was um very uh what do you call it td tr tr td Kevin td td b i Proper i b td tr tr td valign top Catherine td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px Proper influence well yea she was a good influence on him And he s really done very well td tr tr td Kevin td td b i Well that s good i b td tr tr td valign top Catherine td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px And I like all three of them I like all of their umm I like Maureen s husband and I like Howie s wife and of course I like your father s wife too far as that s concerned It s been very very happy a very very happy life as far as that s concerned td tr tr td Kevin td td b i That s good i b td tr tr td valign top Catherine td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px Ok td tr tr td Kevin td td b i Good job i b td tr tr td valign top Catherine td td style padding left 20px padding bottom 20px I hope so td tr table

Howard Ludlow Sr Labor Day 1960 photo 294075 740 250 right The Akai GX 280D SS Reel to Reel player recorder I purchased for digitizing my grandfather s tapes photo photo 294076 740 250 right One of the reel to reel tape boxes from the 50s 60s photo When my grandfather died in 2005 he left behind a handful of reel to reel audio tapes all of which my father kept Of course my father also had no way of listening to these tapes nor do most people I purchased an old reel to reel machine for a few hundred dollars and went about digitizing the old reels One of them contained a speech my grandfather had prepared for Labor Day of 1960 It was a speech to his Catholic Parish regarding the general lack of responsibility permeating between union officials and management leaders Sadly the topic is even more relevant today than it was 52 years ago when he spoke it Unfortunately for preservation sake his recording reel must have been broken because the rate of recording speed was variably inconsistent across the entire speech This resulted in the beginning of the tape sounding very high pitched like a chipmunk and gradually slowing to his normal voice You can listen to the em unedited em MP3 at the bottom of this post to hear what I mean I ve spoken with many audio experts online and all seem to agree the problem must have resided with the original recording device In the end and with the help of a href http audacity sourceforge net Audacity a I was painstakingly able to reconstruct my grandfather s voice to match what it should have sounded like The last minute or so of the tape had been unaffected and thus is his actual voice I used that as the baseline for comparison That all said there may be certain sections that sound slightly off This is because I not only had to reconstruct the pitch but also the speed at which the words were spoken it was a pretty challenging project I have a few other reels and am trying to reconstruct them in my spare time They re VERY difficult because they contain singing who knows of what His full speech is transcribed below the video iframe width 519 height 292 src http www youtube com embed 8vFEGYbpL7Y frameborder 0 allowfullscreen iframe em This speech is being specially recorded Irene Ludlow Your Excellency Right Reverend Monsignori Reverend Fathers ladies and gentlemen This morning I had the pleasure of joining with you at Holy Mass as part of our celebration of Labor Day To many people such a religious beginning for what is simply a very popular American holiday may appear to be rather strange They know that a href http en wikipedia org wiki Peter_J _McGuire Peter McGuire a suggested the holiday in 1882 as a demonstration of fraternity and the harbinger of a better age when labor shall be best honored and well rewarded Today labor has that better age and it has been both honored and rewarded Indeed it enjoys every right and privilege that legal procedures can provide But we as Catholics know that while Labor Day as a legal holiday quite properly commemorates the attainment of labor s rights that these same rights and privileges call forth equal duties and responsibilities to the rest of society I think that it is almost as if labor s rights and labor s responsibilities were two sides of the same coin And unfortunately we do not have to look very far to find ample evidence that the responsibility side of the coin is too often turned under so that only the side which emphasizes labor s rights seems to be visible Perhaps the working man the employer and the union official all need to be reminded of the ethical requirement that demands just actions and morally correct decisions and not merely popular answers or victory over the opposition at any price What of the union leader who insists upon a course of action during a labor dispute even though he knows in his conscience that his demands are unreasonable He will attempt to explain away his actions on the grounds that he has been elected by the membership and must not offend the union rank and file for fear of losing his office Tell me is he a politician looking for votes or is he truly a leader who recognizes his responsibility to set an example by acting in a reasonable and just manner And what of the union leader who fears to lead and who looks to someone else to take his irons out of the fire for him He is the type of official who hesitates to rule against one of his members during a grievance hearing and who sends the dispute to arbitration Of course he knows from the evidence already in his possession that the union cannot hope to obtain a favorable award But the union s money can be spent the member can be given false hope and when the decision is finally handed down this type of union leader is in the clear the arbitrator is the villain who is to blame Speaking of arbitration it should be noted that this particular form of dispute settlement has increased tremendously in popularity in New Jersey in recent years In all fairness I believe it should be recognized that this increase in the arbitration caseload shows that our labor leaders are constantly striving to improve their service to the union membership and this is a fine example of responsible leadership on their part However there are some irresponsible aspects of this which also need a few minutes of our attention Our nation s largest railroad system was brought to a halt last week even though two separate arbitrators had made settlement proposals Now I do not propose to question the merits of the union s position in the strike but you cannot very well have a binding type of collective bargaining action like arbitration which can be ignored at will Nor is management altogether innocent of wrongdoing when arbitration abuses are discussed How many companies throw almost every grievance into arbitration in order to weaken the union s treasuries For many industrial relations managers the word responsibility exists only in the dictionary and the social implications of their jobs are never allowed to overshadow the legal status given to them by their corporations They may control the job destinies of thousands of their fellow men but they never forget the source of their paychecks And when there are sweetheart contracts or other illegal relationships with dishonest unions the public is often lead to believe that only labor is at fault and we are asked to conveniently forget that there are two sides to that coin also That the dishonest union leader cannot succeed without his management counterpart All of this talk of responsibility reminds me of the article written several years ago by one of our American Bishops on what he called the Philosophy of Excuse The author s contention was that far too many Americans occupy their time trying to think up suitable reasons for not doing what they are supposed to instead of carrying out their duties in accordance with their vocations in life Unfortunately I believe that this Philosophy of Excuse permeates far too large a segment of those who are engaged with labor management relations The working man who justifies his support of dishonest labor leaders on the grounds that they take pretty good care of him at contract time The management man who always opposes anything asked by the union because he feels that that is the role that he is supposed to play The union official who asks the impossible at a bargaining session because he believes that his members will appreciate his show of strength All are guilty of adhering to the Philosophy of Excuse instead of acting in a proper and responsible manner In our own state we have the unique situation whereby the AFL and CIO have been unable to join forces as on the national level Questions of dues leadership jurisdiction all enter into the arguments against the proposed merger Good reasons I am sure but isn t there at least some of that excuse philosophy also present Many of you are leaders within the labor movement and you may feel that I have been too harsh in my remarks this morning On the other hand management representatives may accuse me of emphasizing a labor position too much In this connection I am reminded of the story told of the management official who had had a very bad day in dealing with his union at a bargaining session Everything had gone in favor of the union and he had received quite a pushing around from labor s representatives To make matters worse on the way home from his unsuccessful negotiations with the union our management man was hit by a car and was taken to a hospital to be treated Even then he had problems because the operating room was occupied at the time by a woman patient and the injured management official had to wait in the hall outside Being angry and in pain and as our union friends would say acting like a true management man our management friend began to demand some treatment He told the nurse to get the woman patient out of the operating room so that he could be treated for his injuries But I m sorry sir said the nurse But we cannot get the woman out of there You see she is in labor In labor screamed the management man All day I ve gotten that kind of argument and now even at the hospital That s the trouble today It s everything for labor and nothing for management Well as we celebrate this Labor Day of 1960 we do not believe that it is everything for either labor or management As Catholics we recognize the rights of both sides and we are happy to pay tribute to those who have struggled to improve the fraternity of labor that was spoken of by Peter McGuire seventy eight years ago But also as Catholics we recognize the other size of that coin The side devoted to responsibility and we urge the representatives of both labor and management to have led the fight for economic success in America to battle with equal vigor along the ethical path to true social justice Thank you for the privilege of speaking to you on this beautiful Labor Day morning And thank you doll my toothless little friend em Full speech audio unedited a href files music 1960 09 04_HowardLudlow_LaborDay_Unedited mp3 1960 09 04_HowardLudlow_LaborDay_Unedited mp3 a 11 0mb Full speech audio edited a href files music 1960 09 04_HowardLudlow_LaborDay_Edited mp3 1960 09 04_HowardLudlow_LaborDay_Edited mp3 a 9 1mb

Window Resealing Experiment One of the problems we ve had to deal with are some leaky windows This problem was unfortunately made clear to us about a month ago after a solid week of storms rolled through The coach portion of the bus has 12 square windows 1 large rectangular window in the rear and 2 convex port hole windows towards the front Of those at least 4 of the square windows leak pretty significantly as does the large rectangular one A few of the other ones only let in a little moisture in a torrential downpour But in keeping with the restoration the plan has been to go ahead and reseal all of them We went ahead and completed one of them this evening just to get a feel for how long the process would take Although it took us about an hour to do it I think we could probably do them all at once and spend maybe 20 minutes per window still about a 6 hour project In our case the inside bolts holding the window frame in are about 30 years old so we went ahead and replaced all of them with machine screws from Austin Bolt Company The new screws actually make the interior em much em nicer with their shininess Tools necessary ul li 1 4 Socket and Phillips Screwdriver li li Butyl Tape li li Putty Knife li li Razor Blades li li Rubber Gloves li li Silicon Caulk li li Caulk Gun li li Cloth or Paper Towels excess Caulk li ul photo 269466 258221 0 center The side of the bus with the first window removed photo photo 269469 258221 0 center Caroline using a putty knife to remove all of the old sealant tape from the window frame photo photo 269480 258221 0 center Caroline applying the butyl tape around the perimeter of the window opening The corners were a little trickier to do photo photo 269477 258221 0 center With the window back in place we just had to cut the excess butyl tape off The 2 width I purchased was WAY too much but I didn t know how far in the seal went One inch would have been just fine but fortunately it cuts very easily with a razor blade photo photo 269478 258221 0 center Finally all that was left was to seal the edges with some clear silicon sealant Once it dries this window should be good for another 30 years photo