The Griffin Family Website

Category: Random Articles

  • The Meaningless Fish

    You see a lot of bumper stickers, logos, brand names, and team spirit stickers of all kinds on just about every vehicle on the road today – any thing from the inane to the profound. I find the car with multiple stickers on it usually contradicts itself; a car with a “Leave no child a dime” sticker and an election sticker for a tax-and-spend candidate for example. I have no problem with this. It’s a free country so please, express yourself and your views; that is what so many have given their lives for, so that you may freely speak what’s on your mind. The only one that really gets my ire up is that infernal fish emblem; I don’t have a problem with the emblem, the statement it’s making, or the religion it represents, I have a problem with the vast majority of the people who put those on their car.

    Hypocrites, mostly.

    In my mind, that little fish emblem is proclaiming to the World that you are a God fearing believer in Jesus, that you are a follower of His teaching and, therefore, you honor and obey the law. How is it that these are the people I notice most running stop signs, red lights, and blowing by me at 85 in a 55 zone? Their cars, as with so many others out there, seem to have come without the optional turn signals or their turn signals are wired backwards. When traffic is backed up on the express way, they will zip past traffic by driving on the shoulder. When traffic is moving slowly and you need to merge, they are quick to close a gap so you can’t get in – to me, they might as well just give me the finger.

    For a group of people who follow the person who put everyone and everyone’s needs before Himself and His needs, they certainly are self-centered and self-serving. Take, for example, a recent encounter I had with an elderly woman who’s car had a flat tire. I was driving home from work, tired and wanting nothing more than to get home when I spotted a car on the sholder of the express way. I could tell the rear, passenger side tire was flat even a half mile away. The car to my left and two cars ahead of me each had a fish in one form or another on their cars. Did they stop to help? No. As I got closer, I made the decision to stop and fix her tire. It took maybe five minutes of my time and helped her when it appeared that no one else would.

    Don’t get me wrong, I’m in no way perfect or selfless. Two days later I saw a car with a flat tire in the exact same place and didn’t stop. I made all kinds of excuses in my mind – she had a cell phone, she was young, I’m more tired today – whatever the excuse was, I wish now I had stopped to help but I didn’t. The other extreme is the “fishy” people who do stop, not to help – NO – to berate those who also don’t stop to help. I’m serious. Again, I was on the express way in heavy traffiic, up ahead there was a stalled car in the right lane with two people pushing it onto the shoulder and a third person standing by his fish-emblemed car yelling at the cars that were driving by that they should stop and help. I’m not kidding. Instead of stopping and helping, his “selfless” act was to put a guilt trip on the people who didn’t stop. What about the two guys pushing the car? They were a couple of Mexicans in a rusty old pickup truck – no fish.

    My point isn’t really people who speed or who don’t help with flat tires or who lay a guilt trip on others, it’s that if you want to declare your faith and the beliefs that go with that faith, you better back it up with your actions or you’re nothing more than a hypocrite. That’s why you will not find a fish emblem on my car, not because I don’t believe in God but because I know I’m imperfect and human and that I have made some really bad choices and big mistakes – in short, I’m just another sinner like everyone else and capable of anything. If I fall, fine; I’m only human. If I have a selfless moment, great! I’ll move on and hope it happens again. Regardless of my being selfless from time to time and in a world that already has a scrutinous eye on religion and, especially, the Christian faiths, I’m not going to put a fish on my car and give the World a reason to persecute believers even more.

  • Dude, Where’s My Car?

    You know, it’s really easy to get into trouble just by browsing lists of cars for sale. Early in September, the transmission in my 2003 Honda Accord V6 died and not only was I left begging for transportation (thank you Nathan, for helping me out) but Honda wanted me to pay to have the transmisison replaced – that’s a whole ‘nuther story though. Because of this recent car trouble, I have been browsing cars for sale and, while searching for a BMW 540i to test drive, I decided to see if there were any M5’s out there. Well **** me; there is one. CarMax in Birmingham has a Black 2000 M5 with a black leather interior and a six-speed manual transmission. I must have it.

     As far as dream cars go, for me, a black-on-black M5 is second only to a black-on-black 850CSi. We’re talking a 5 liter V8 with 400hp and 395ft-lbs of torque; a 0-60 in 4.7 seconds (or 5.2, depending on who’s specs you go by…) and 60-0 in just 138 feet. This is a four door sedan that will compete with the likes of a Ferrari. How could I possibly pass this up? The only three things holding me back are: the fuel economy of 14mpg city/18mpg highway, the car I have now is paid off but I would have to finance part of the purchase of the M5, and lastly my wife gets car sick so the manual transmission could be a problem.

    After several weeks of pining over the car but not doing anything about it, I finally paid to have it transported from Birmingham to Memphis. I was told by CarMax that it would take up to 14 days, this was Saturday. I figured on it taking about a week and was blown away when they called on Wednesday to tell me it was here. Must test drive now!

    The wife and I headed up there to test drive it and, since it’s been something like seven years since I drove a manual, I made her good and car sick. Crap. The next evening I met my dad and his boss, Rob, up there for another test drive; Rob races cars and is something of a BMW fanatic so I figure his opinion will weigh in pretty heavily on whether or not to buy this beast. Of course, it’s been raining all week so it’s a bit difficult to really peg it to see what this car will do but Rob really ran it through its paces. The poor sales girl was probably a nervous wreck by the end of it all – what, with slamming on the brakes on well travelled roads, flooring the accellerator with and without the DSC on, careening around corners, and other fun maneuvers that most people don’t usually try when test driving. Rob told me to let him know if I didn’t buy the car ’cause he would.

    Since we did find a few things wrong with it like water in the headlights, a broken air vent, and a bad display on the instrument cluster, I didn’t buy the car that night. CarMax told me they would fix these problems for me and I needed a little more time to make my decision. Craig, one of the salesmen I’ve been working with, called me on Friday to see if I was going to come in to buy the car. I told him it might be Saturday or more likely Sunday.

    The wife and I show up today afternoon to buy the car; I’ve got everything they told me to bring and I’m ready to seal the deal. Just one problem – I don’t see the car anywhere. The first salesman I ever talked to, Steve, is on the management track and can’t help me with the car so he goes off to find the fourth salesman I’ve talked to, Chris. After 15 or 20 minutes Steve and Chris show up and Steve hands us off to Chris. Chris can’t find the car either so he heads off to see where it is. The wife and I are tired of sitting inside so we go outside and start browsing through the lot. When she finds an X5, I try to open the door so we can see the interior which sets off the rather obnoxious alarm. Chris shows up some time later and, after resetting the alarm on the X5, tells me that the M5 is in their shop and that there is no one there who is authorized to get it for us – that they are replacing the headlights and fixing the other problems we found. Chris tells us he will call to let us know if they will be able to get the car out for us tomorrow.

    I guess I have to finish this later once they can get the car out for us. Damn, I really wanted to show up at work in it on Monday.

  • Dr. Johnston on Katrina Victims

    Introduction: Dr. Richard L. Johnston, M.D., University of Mississippi Medical Center, posts the following observations from his experience as a volunteer helping Katrina refugees:

    Absolutely Disgusting Behavior – An M.D. Reports What the Network News Does Not Show…

    I thought I might inform the few friends I have on my recent traumatic experience. I am going to tell it straight, blunt, raw, and I don’t give a damn. Long read, I know; but please do read!

    I went to volunteer on Saturday at the George R. Brown (Houston) convention for two reasons:
    A: I wanted to help people to get a warm fuzzy feeling.
    B: Curiosity.

    I’ve been watching the news lately and have seen scenes that have made me want to vomit. And no, it wasn’t dead bodies, the city under water, or the sludge everywhere. It was PEOPLE”S BEHAVIOR. The people on T.V. (99% being Black) were DEMANDING help. They were not asking nicely; but demanding, as if society owed these people something. Well, the honest truth is WE DON’T.

    Help should be asked for in a kind manner and then appreciated. This is not what the press (FOX in particular) was showing, what I was seeing was a group of people who are yelling, demanding, looting, killing, raping, and SHOOTING back at the demanded help! So I’m thinking this can’t possibly be true… can it? So I decided to submit to the DEMAND for help out of SHOCK. I couldn’t believe this to be true of the majority of the people who are the weakest of society. So I went to volunteer and help folks out and see the truth. So I will tell the following story and you decide:

    I arrived at the Houston Astrodome only to find out that there are too many volunteers, and that volunteers were needed at the George R. Brown Convention Center. As I was walking up to the Convention Center I noticed a line of cars that wrapped around blocks filled with donations. These were ordinary Houstonians coming with truckloads and trunks full of water, diapers, clothes, blankets, food, all types of good stuff. And lots of it was NEW. I felt that warm fuzzy feeling while helping unload these vehicles of these wonderful human beings. I then went inside the building and noticed approximately 100,000 sq. ft. of clothes, shoes, jackets, toys and all types of goodies all organized and ready for the people in need. I signed up, received a name badge and was on my merry way excited to be useful.

    I toured the place to get familiar with my surrounding; the entire place is probably around 2 million sq. ft. I noticed rows as far as the eye can see of mattresses, not cots, BLOW UP MATTRESSES! All of which had nice pillows and plenty of blankets. 2 to 3 bottles of water lay on every bed. These full-size to queen size beds, by the way, were comfortable. I laid on one to see for myself. I went to look at the medical area. I couldn’t believe what my eyes were seeing! A makeshift hospital created in 24 hours! It was unbelievable, they even had a pharmacy. I also noticed that they created showers, which would also have hot water. I went upstairs to the third floor to find a HUGE cafeteria created in under 24 hours! Rows of tables, chairs and food everywhere – enough to feed an army!

    I’m not talking about crap food either. They had Jason’s deli food, apples, oranges, coke, diet coke, lemonade, orange juice, cookies, all types of chips and sandwiches. All the beverages by the way were put on ice and chilled! In a matter of about 24 hours or less an entire mini-city was erected by volunteers for the poor evacuees. This was not your rundown crap shelter, it was BUM HEAVEN.

    So that was the layout: great food, comfy beds, clean showers, free medical help. By the way there was a library, and a theatre room I forgot to mention. Great stuff right?

    Well here is what happened on my journey –

    I started by handing out COLD water bottles to evacuees as they got off the bus. Many would take them and only 20% or less said thank you. Lots of them would shake their heads and ask for sodas! So this went on for about 20-30 minutes until I was sick of being an unappreciated servant. I figured certainly these folks would appreciate some food! So, I went upstairs to serve these beloved evacuees some GOOD food that I wish I could have at the moment!

    The following statements are graphic, truthful, and disgusting, UNRATIONAL behavior!

    Evacuees came slowly to receive this mountain of food that is worth serving to a king! I tell them that we have two types of great deli sandwiches to choose from – ham and turkey. Many look at the food in disgust and DEMAND burgers, pizza, and even McDonalds! Jason’s deli is better than McDonalds! Only one out of ten people who took something would say “thank you” the rest took items as if it was their God given right to be served… without a shred of appreciation! They would ask for beer and liquor. They complained that we didn’t have good enough food. They refused food and laughed at us. They treated us volunteers as if we where SLAVES. No, not all of them of course, but 70% did! 20% where appreciative, 10% took the food without any comment and the other 70% had some disgusting comment to say. Some had the nerve to laugh at us. And when I snapped back at them for being mean, they would curse at me! Needless to say I was in utter shock.

    They would eat their food and leave their mess on the table. Some would pick up their stuff but most would leave it for the volunteers to pick up. I left that area real quick, to go down and help set up some more beds. I saw many young ladies carrying mattresses and I helped for a while. Then I realized that there were hundreds of able bodied young men who could help! I asked a group of young evacuees in their teens and early twenties to help. I got cursed at for asking them to help! One said “We just lost our f*cking homes and you want us to work!” The next said, “Ya Cracker, you got a home, we don’t.” I looked at them in disbelief. Here are women walking by carrying THEIR BEDS and they (young men) can’t lift a finger and help themselves!

    WHY SHOULD I HELP PEOPLE WHO DON’T WANT TO HELP THEM SELVES!!!!

    I waved them off and turned away and was laughed at, and more “white boy jokes” were made at me. I felt no need to waste my breath on a bunch of pitiful losers. I went to a nearby restroom where I noticed a man shaving. I used the restroom, washed my hands and saw this man throw his razor towards the trash can…he missed. He walked out leaving his disgusting razor on the floor for some other “cracker” to pick up. Even the little kids were demanding. I saw only ONE white family and only TWO Hispanic families. The rest where blacks: 20% to 30% decent blacks, and 70% LOSERS!!

    I would call them N*****S, but the actual definition of a n*****r is one who is ignorant. These people were not ignorant, they were ARROGANT ASSHOLES. The majority of which are thugs and lifetime, lazy-ass, welfare recipients. We are inviting the lowest of the low to Houston. And like idiots, we are serving the people who will soon steal our cars, rape, murder, and destroy our city while stealing from our pockets on a daily basis through the welfare checks they take. We will fund our own destruction.

    By “US” I don’t mean a specific race, I mean the people who work hard, work smart, have values and morals. Only people who want to help themselves should be helped, the others should be allowed to destroy themselves. I do not want to work hard, give the government close to half the money I earn, so they can in turn give it to a bunch of losers.

    I don’t believe in being poor for life. My family immigrated here. We came here poor, and now thank God, and due to HARD WORK, we are doing fine. If immigrants, who come here, don’t know the language can work and become successful … WHY CAN’T THE MAJORITY OF THE HOMEGROWN DO IT? If we continue to reward these losers then we will soon destroy our great country. I just witnessed selfish, arrogant, unappreciative behavior by the very people who need help the most. Now these same people… who cursed me, refused my city’s generosity, who refuse to help themselves are DEMANDING handouts on their own terms! They prance around as if they are owed something, and when they do receive a handout, they say it’s not good enough! Well, you know what? These types of people can go to hell for all I care!

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