Bob and Debbie Conroy - Enjoying the Journey Together!

From the mind of Bob: An apple a day is over 40,000 Calories a year. If we are stardust, it is a good thing that it cools down before we use it. Considering all of the things that could have gone wrong today but did not, it has been a good day.  An exception to an exception is a rule and all rules are created this way.  Making hydrogen into helium is quite simple if you start with a few thousand billion tons of hydrogen.  Did Pascal ever bet on the horses? Even Shakespeare made typos and grammatical errors but his became the preferred version. A significant event can happen at any moment but it can take years to recognize it happened. The greatest gift to give your descendants is a legacy of honor and integrity. A consistent approach, while good for a pilot, will grind innovation into the ground. A day spent golfing is lost forever.

I have all of the equipment at the agency to record, edit and publish videos.  This includes backgrounds in several colors including green as well as a professional lighting system. Watch out YouTube, here come the Conroys! Next on the bucket list is getting my Amateur Radio license and setting up a broadcast studio.  The books have been ordered.  ( Update: I passed the test for my Amateur Radio Technician license on 11/14/2015!) I am KE0GSH.

Les barbares sont à la porte.   Get your act together Europe!

2015 how did that happen! I took out a 30-year mortgage on my first house in 1973. The term ran to 2003 and that seemed so far in the future and impossible to comprehend. That was three states and six houses ago. Now 2003 seems like the distant past and impossible to comprehend!

I am still haunted by a mental image of two coeds that passed by me on an early morning walk to the football stadium in Iowa City a few years ago. They were wasted –obviously intoxicated from a binge that started at least the night before. Their eyes were bloodshot, with pupils dilated, set in sullen grey sockets on their slack faces as they stumbled down the street. I just saw another version of that look at a microbrewery on the south side of Des Moines. A microbrewery is not a typical hang spot for me but I was there for a meeting. I am a principal of a local flying club and the current board president selected this location due to the extreme cold at the airport hangers. There were about ten people in the large tasting room when I arrived for the meeting. During the hour-long meeting about ten drinkers left at random times while another ten arrived in almost perfect synchronicity. All but one was male, all were about 25-35 years old and well dressed. It was the look in th...

Football is like a bad joke with fans (fans is short for fanatics) cheering for their surrogates to inflict brutality on others. Not far removed from the days of the Roman gladiators.  As always, follow the money. It is the advertising dollars spent by the alcohol cartel that provides the money and the spin to keep it going.

When you feel the sting of the whip on your back does it matter if the whip is held by management or labor?  I have worked for many styles of management and to name a few: benevolent, respectful, absent, incompetent and evil. Regardless of the type of management, the whip was in play. I was a union member (Retail Clerks Local 876 AFL-CIO) while working for a grocery chain in Michigan from 1969 -1976. This merely transferred some control of the whip handle from management to the union but the sting was the same. There was some else, that was at first subtle, but over time was undeniable. The union rules required that the individual submits to the will of the masses and that was always the lowest common denominator. Initiative and hard work was “busting rate” and overtly punished. This inherently impacts an individual’s self-esteem and eventually devalues them to the status of a mere cog to be controlled – and always with a whip. Now that I am self-employed I see that the whi...