July 12, 2012 – A View From The Middle (Class)

My days have gotten to be quite interesting lately. Our water heater went out to start the week, and I had to see about getting a new one. I’m still doing trench digging work on an all-too-regular basis to keep a lazy, selfish person’s irrigating water from eroding away what could be a nice horse riding arena.

The job search continues. Just in the last couple of hours, I spoke on the phone with a guy at a consulting company about a job that’s right up my alley as far as computer programming. The job’s in Iowa, but I could apparently commute every week with expenses covered. A person has to do what they have to do to get a job these days, even if it means being away from the family four days out of the week.

That’s a taste of what my days are like lately — do some job search tasks, try and study material from career re-training that’s like knowing Greek and you suddenly need to learn Dutch quickly, take care of needs at home and close to home, and … oh, yeah, there’s this blogging thing.

At least I’m not sitting around getting bored.

I’m just wondering if I’ll be around home July 23-28 so I can take part in a big ALEC “welcoming committee” that’s going to be active in Salt Lake City.

What’s ALEC, you ask? It’s the American Legislative Exchange Council, they’re getting quite a reputation, and they’re going to be having a meeting here later this month.

If you want to know more about ALEC, feel free to click on the link below for a story that came out today in the newspaper Salt Lake City Weekly.

SALT LAKE CITY WEEKLY: ALEC is coming

After all this time, I could get a chance to participate in some real “Occupy” movement activity! Oh, goody! If I end up working in Iowa, my time with ALEC will be shortened. If not … well, I’m ready for ALEC. Not Alec Baldwin, though. He’s too much of a handful.

Suck on this ALEC. Your day is passing. (maureenholland.wordpress.com)
Remember ALEC – Five Major Corporations Ditch ALEC – A Total Of 25 Have Now Left – 11 July 2012 (lucas2012infos.wordpress.com)
Five Corporations Add Their Names to Growing List of Groups Dumping ALEC (commondreams.org)
Five more corporations distance themselves from ALEC (rawstory.com)
ALEC Launches Website Defending Their Extremism (crooksandliars.com)

Why have I been having a “renegade week” in the playlist, and why was it inspired by something that’s happening today? Because not many bands last for 50 years, and it was 50 years ago today that Mick Jagger played his first show with The Rolling Stones, the original rock-and-roll “renegades.”

English: Mick Jagger and Keith Richards in 197... — English: Mick Jagger and Keith Richards in 1972 tour at Winterland in San Francisco, in June (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Now, 50 years later, they’re still going strong despite “what a drag it is getting old” and there are rumblings about a 50th anniversary tour at some point.

But, today, it’s a celebration of 50 years since Jagger took the stage at London’s Marquee Club with guitarists Keith Richards and Brian Jones, bassist Dick Taylor, keyboard player Ian Stewart, and drummer Mick Avory, and they rocked the house.

Of course, there’ve been a few changes to the band since then — guys like Mick Taylor and Ronnie Wood coming in to play the guitar after Jones passed away, Bill Wyman taking over on bass for so many years, and Charlie Watts has been laying down one of the steadiest drum beats known to mankind since 1963.

Man, it’s a simple wonder that Richards himself has even lasted this long. But, without Richards, where would Johnny Depp have gotten his inspiration for “Jack Sparrow” in “Pirates of the Caribbean?”

Renegades = pirates = Jack Sparrow = Keith Richards = The Rolling Stones = the first “street fighting band” to make it not just “big” but “HUGE .” The first “bad boys” of rock, and we’re still paying attention to them 50 years later.

How many other bands can say that?

Rolling Stones hint at tour ahead of 50th anniversary celebration