Someone shouted, on Digg, an article on Asylum.com about which candidate would be preferred in the unlikely event that aliens landed on our blue orb.  The author, a Mr. Taylor, gives some slightly humorous pros and cons for both John McCain and Barack Obama.  He, however, doesn’t specifically tell us which candidate he would prefer in an alien encounter.  Mr. Taylor calls out a couple of US Senators as full blooded aliens, Christopher Dodd and Sam Nunn, because he feels that they are on Obama’s short list for VP.

For me the selection of President based on a potential alien incursion is easy.  There are basically two main options on how aliens would behave.  They will either be friendly or hostile.  If we could anticipate which behavior that the aliens would have we could select a President based on that known variable.  But since that variable is unknown we would need to select a President that would be at least adequate in either situation.

I will make my selection from the six “major” candidates.

Using the unknown variable criteria I can eliminate Cynthia Ann McKinney of the Green Party, Peace and Freedom coalition pretty quickly.  Obviously if the aliens are hostile her peace and freedom views will not serve us well.

Next to be removed is Robert Laurence ‘Bob’ Barr of the Libertarian Party.  Come on look at the guy.  Do you really think that aliens would take us serious if we elected this guy?  It wouldn’t matter if they were friendly or hostile, there is no way that he would be able to negotiate himself out of a paper bag much less an intergalactic feud.

Moving on to Ralph Nader.  This five time Presidential candidate just doesn’t know when to quit.  Maybe that would be a good thing when dealing with aliens…maybe not.  Nader is just to crotchety [look at his pic...he can't even give a real smile] to play nice with aliens so he is out.  He would make sure that any imported spacecraft from Alpha Centauri would have the proper safety features though.

That leaves my top three candidates.

Tied for second place are Barack Hussein Obamaof the Democratic Party and Charles O. ‘Chuck’ Baldwin of the Constitution Party.  Chuck Baldwin is an interesting possibility with is background as a minister he may have a hard time believing that aliens have actually landed due to his ferverent religious beliefs.  He would be well suited to standing up to them if he happened to believe what his eyes were telling him.

Barack on the other hand has attended radical religious sermons so he maybe able to see the aliens for what they are and respond accordingly, although his reluctance to stand and deliver may become the downfall of humanity.

Of course the best Presidential candidate for the extreme situation of an alien visitation would be John Sidney McCain of the Republican Party.  This maverick would stand up to the hostile aliens or negotiate with the friendly ones.  Whatever intergalatic traveler happened to land on the White House lawn John would deal with accordingly.  He understands the importance of military might and he has a MILF for a wife so what the heck let’s all vote for McCain just in case the aliens come in the next four years.

But the best possible outcome from an alien visit would be all nations and religions coming together to peacefully meet with our little grey but big glassy eyed visitors.

I thought that playing volleyball would be tough because of my tweaked ankle but it turned out fine.  I didn’t even think about it while I was playing.  The only time that I have noticed it in the last couple of days was going up and down the stairs.

We had players for four on four.  It was another good night for me even though we lost twice.  We did win three times but should have won one more.  I’m getting to the point where I just might try to jump serve.  It has been a couple of years since I’ve tried but I think that it is time to pull that trick out of my tool belt.  Not that I was ever great at it.

I’ve been slacking and have not removed the final stump from in front of the house.  And now the stump total has risen to two.  I guess I will need to grip the axe and shovel and get to work.  Maybe get my Archimedian lever working too.

I have been working a little bit here and there on the landscaping in front of the house.  Mostly raking stones out of the dirt directly in front of the house so we can plant hostas. The front of the house looks a lot better since we started this landscaping project.

I took Monday off from work.  I was planning a trip to South Haven but the weather in the morning kept me home.  I ended up mowing the lawn before the rain and then getting a hair cut afterwords.

Over the weekend I was playing frisbee by the pool with my brother and almost sprained my ankle.  I spent the rest of the evening limping around the backyard.  I felt an occasional twinge from the ankle the remander of the weekend.  But I think I’m ready to play volleyball tonight.

It was nice to know that I had three days off.  It was a relaxing time and I didn’t even get sunburnt.

Tuesday was a great day to play volleyball outdoors in the sand [where volleyball is meant to be played].  The number of player coming out for the weekly games has been dwindling each time we meet.  This week we were down to six players so we played three on three.

It was another good showing for me.  My team won all four games.  My serve was cooking and the team’s bump set spike was working pretty well.   By the end of the night I was covered in sand and very happy.  After washing the sand off in the creek it was time to hit the pool.

<sarcasm>Life of a beach bum is so rough.</sarcasm>

Last night I had a slew of blogs that for what ever reason wanted to advertise on this blog.  Cool, so I decided to seach Entrecard’s most expense ad spots and discovered that today mine is the fourth most expensive.  I’m not sure how many Entrecard credits I’ll actually earn because these other blogs piled on overnight so I didn’t approve them one by one.  I’m thinking that I will receive the price that was set before the first one bought for all of them.

Oh well.   At least I’m more popular than John Chow .

Now is the perfect opportunity to do a little advertising with me using those EC’s that you’ve been hording before the price gets way out of reach.  Of course you could always refinance your house in order to buy some EC’s directly from Entrecard in order to get placed on my widget.

There are other alternatives.  Contact me via a comment for a direct ad sale.  Or wait for me to get a Project Wonderful ad box up and running.

Due to the flooding and downed trees from the storm last week we didn’t play volleyball last night.  My friend who has the volleyball court had plenty of troubles to recover from so he called off last night’s games.  I actually didn’t mind.  I was hoping for a rainout.

No reason really…I just wasn’t in the mood for physical activity yesterday.  I visited Surfin’ Sid and we played his son’s PS3 while his son was at soccer practice.  After I walked home I made sure the recycling was out to the curb and spent the rest of the night either online or watching TV.  A nice relaxing night.

I had plans to go to Holland State Park and hangout at the beach.  But due to the cleanup of both my father-in-laws’ yard and my own after the storm on Wednesday no trip to the beach.  It was, however, a beautiful three day weekend.  Even without power.

It was interesting to walk around the neighborhood and see what damage was done.  It was amazing to see all the large trees that had fallen and very little damage to homes and vehicles.  It brought the neighbors together a little bit.  People helping the older neighbors picking up sticks or cutting up larger limbs.  It was nice to see.

I helped Surfin’ Sid [ok he's not that much older but I helped him anyway ] move a large limb off his driveway.  After helping Surfin’ Sid I noticed that I had a huge limb that had cracked but not fallen from the big oak tree in the front yard.  I guess at some point I’m going to be forced to cut it down so it doesn’t fall on someone.  I probably should do it in the next day or two.

Yesterday a severe, I mean SEVERE , thunderstorm rolled through the area knocking out power to over 100,000 homes.  I know this is nothing compared to other natural disasters throughout the world but it is the most significant one to affect me since 1980.  In 1980 a tornado came to town and knocked over homes and other buildings.

I’m unable to post from home until probably Saturday which is the estimated date for power restoration.  Bummer for me.  This morning I was forced to brush my teeth and wash my hair with pool water.  It was a bit cool this morning for these activities to take place outside.  At least I have a water source that I can use unlike my neighbors.  Obviously I live far enough away from town that I have well water.

I would have called in to work [yes I do have a regular job] but it is the first part of the month which is the busy part for me.  And yes I am writing this post at work on company time using company resources while on my lunch break.  I will be incomuncato for a few days.  Right when EntreCard’s Graham is encouraging all of the EntreCard masses to create a great Digg nation that will rule the Internet.  I guess I’ll have work to do with my blogs once I get power back.

Do I have to click every one of Graham’s friends???? Or is there a quick one click button to add all of them at once?  I so hope that there is a single button.  I get so tired of clicking all day long….ee oorld

ldr

For last weeks beach volleyball we had three teams of three.  The noobs from the prior week went missing as well as one of the regulars.  We did have a new noob that helped fill the gap.  Once again my team was on the short end of the score more often than not.  I think it was my shorts.  The waist band was kinda loose so I had to keep pulling them up.

Yesterday, with new shorts securely hung from my waist, I arrived at the volleyball court ready to play.  This time we had enough for two teams of four.  Going into the first game I thought that we were out manned, the other team was a good mix of height, skill and athleticism.  Our team was scrappy.  In fact, scrappy enough to win the first game.  After a short water break it was time for game two.  Again we were scrappy enough to win.  This time by double digits.  By this time the other team was quite unhappy.

Game three saw a reversal of fortune.  We lost after a mighty rally that failed.  We ran off seven straight points as they sat at on game point.  Unfortunately their early success in game three carried them to victory.  In the final game of the night [shortened to 11 points] we again were not the team to get to game point first.  Down 7-10, my serves brought us to 9-10.  We got a quick side out and regained the serve.  With the serve we aere able to get three in a row for the win.

It was my best showing this year.  My serve was on target with velocity, my play at the net was excellent and I was covering a lot of court diving for balls.  I had begun thinking that my best volleyball playing days were behind me.  Not anymore.