“In spite of their best efforts, negotiations are at a stand still.  No progress is being made.”  Such are the headlines as of date.

Unfortunately, the headlines could apply to either the Federal budget or the NHL.  Sad.

I recently purchased some new knives for my kitchen.  They are Shun and are razor sharp.  But, because they are so sharp, they make cutting a breeze.  Unfortunately, they will cut your finger off just as easily as they will slice an onion so need to treat them with respect.

One of the casualties of the “right to work” protests in Lansing was a 63 year old hot dog vendor.   Apparently, some union folks didn’t like the idea that he was selling hot dogs to “right to work” supporters.  So, a couple of these union supporters decided to teach the 63 year old man a lesson by trashing his weenie wagon.  Fortunately, the man escaped alive.

While I realize that these two “Thugs” are not representative of the unions as a whole, no one stepped in to restrain them.  I guess you could compare it to Germany in the 30’s.

Ok, they couldn’t afford yellow brick, so they did the next best thing; yellow tape.

The red brick area is heated for melting snow.  But, just in case you couldn’t tell the difference between the walkway with snow and the walkway without snow, we have been instructed to follow the yellow tape.

Unfortunately, there are those who still won’t know which side of the tape to walk on.  I guess for them, the best bet would be to walk on the tape.

Well, it was a busy day in Lansing to day.  The Legislature passed the right to work bill and the Governor signed it.

Thousands of protesters were present at the Capitol and the authorities were prepared for riots.  But, all and all, it was peaceful.

Originally, it was speculated that the Governor would sign the bill on Wednesday.  This would have added another 24 hours to the tension.   But, fortunately, the Governor signed the bill late this afternoon.

Hopefully, tomorrow will be a calmer day.

In preparation for tomorrows “right to work” bill signing, the State Police are back in force on the Capitol Complex.  The building in the back ground is the Capitol of the State of Michigan.  This photo was taken outside of my office building.

Tomorrow, the streets around the Capitol will be closed as they are expecting 20,000 + protesters.  The Capitol is about 100 yards away from where I work.  If things turn ugly, I might have to spend the night in my office as I would not be able to leave.

I guess I will have to pack the essentials with me just in case.

I pray that everything is peaceful.

For the past few days, the walkways outside of our buildings has been converted into a parking lot for about 50 State Police cruisers.  Apparently, with both the House and the Senate voting on the “right to work” laws, there was concern about maintaining law and order on the Capital complex.

So, it was a tense few days for the folks working downtown.  But, the laws were passed and only a few demonstrators were maced and arrested.  And, all of the hookers and drug dealers temporarily moved out of down town.

The other day, I decided to try the Cinnamon Bites at Micky Ds.  While I was expecting bread nuggets with cinnamon and sugar on them, I wasn’t expecting the whole serving to be covered in frosting.

They were way too sweet for me and I ended up scraping the frosting off.  But, just because I thought that they were too sweet, others thought that they were lacking and proceeded to add a couple of packets of pancake syrup to them.

Well, what ever.

Dave Brubeck, one of America’s finest jazz musicians passed away yesterday at the age of  92.  We will always remember “Take 5”.  Thanks for all that you did for us Dave.  We will miss you.

I am a sucker for cinnamon rolls.  My late wife made the very best cinnamon rolls in the world.  So, when I saw a box of “heat and serve” cinnamon rolls at Meijer (regional grocery chain), I thought, why not give them a try.  After all, I needed something to serve my guests for breakfast over the holidays.

When I opened the box, the rolls were nice and big and covered with frosting.  They looked yummy!

The instructions said to heat each roll individually, so I sliced out a roll and popped it into the microwave.  A few seconds later, my frosting was slowly melting into my roll.  Great!

I put my roll on the table and went at it with a knife and fork.  But, to my dismay, this roll was the same as any other roll in the pastry section.  The only difference was that this roll was warm, a state that I could have obtained by nuking  any pastry in the store.

In short, there was nothing special about these cinnamon rolls.  My guests were just as disappointed as I was.  I ended up throwing most of them into the trash.