If You Want It, Go For It!

Arrived at Bobby's: Sat, Feb 25, 2017, @ 7:30 AM.

#SecuredThePorch: Accomplished

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BK Movie Review submitted by Team Widdoss

My wife and I have been trying to see as many of the Oscar-nominated movies as we can before the Oscars air on TV. Recently we saw three movies about three very different real life stories (Patriot’s Day, The Founder and Hidden Numbers).  To me, each movie has the same underlying theme. The theme being that despite numerous setbacks and poor odds if you set a goal and have the determination to keep going forward you will succeed.  

Patriot’s Day tells the story of the capture of the Boston Marathon bombers. The determination of the multiple law enforcement teams and civilians was apparent as thousands of pieces of evidence were analyzed including store security cameras, civilian cell phones and television network’s footage of the marathon. The smallest clues were pieced together and eventually led to the capture of the bombers in five days.   This feat was in a city of 48 square miles with a population of close to 675,000 people where the bombers had no previous arrest records.  

The Founder tells the story of Ray Kroc a moderately successful traveling salesman who always wanted more success. When selling milkshake machines he stumbled across the McDonald Brothers. The brothers’ ingenuity and packaging of food created a very successful hamburger walk-up restaurant.  Ray Kroc had the vision and determination to use the McDonald Brother’s concept  as the nucleus to create an empire. Today, McDonald's is one of the world's largest restaurant chains, serving approximately 68 million customers daily in 119 countries across approximately 36,615 outlets.

Hidden Figures tells the story of three black women (Katherine G. Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson) working at NASA as female black mathematicians in the early 1960’s.  Katherine’s job title was a “computer” and she was the only black women on her team. Katherine eventually proved to be instrumental in many of the NASA missions at the time. Most notably  she served a key role in the launch of astronaut John Glenn into orbit. Dorothy was a supervisor without the title of supervisor title since supervisors could not be black.  Dorothy had the vision and determination to teach herself and then the other black mathematicians she supervised how to program “the IBM”. Mary Jackson persevered and overcame segregation in the classroom to earn her engineering degree and become NASA's first black female engineer.  All three women overcame many obstacles through perseverance and determination that eventually led them to their successes.

Each of these 3 stories ended in a success because they had a goal and the determination to achieve that goal. 

I tell this tale as a reminder to us all that in this great country we live in if you want it bad enough the only thing stopping you from achieving your goal is not being determined enough to do whatever it takes to get you there.  You can catch a bomber, build an empire, or fly into space to name a few things if you just keep at it.

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On Saturday, Feb 25, 2017,  all participants in the BKWRP(Breakfast Club Weight Reduction Program) weighed in. This marks the end of the 8th week with only 2 weeks remaining.  From week 4 to week 8, we have 2 entrants who gained weight, 2 who lost weight, 1 stayed the same and 1 declined to weigh in. The excitement of winning has been greatly diminished when $100 of entrance fees were wagered on the Super Bowl and lost leaving only $20 for the winner. However, there still appears to be a very tight race between BC-3 & BC-6. BC-6's failure to weigh in could be all part of a sophisticated plan to gain a mental edge leading up to the final weigh-in on Saturday, Mar 11. But, I'm not sure if BC-3 is going to let up.

Key:
BKWRP - Breakfast Club Weight Reduction Program
BC-x - Beauty Contestant

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It was great seeing Rob Sarosy & Billy Rooney this Saturday. It's always good to hear some fresh ideas. God knows the BK Club can get pretty stale at times.

I did hear some rumblings about me being very generous with my selection of Vince Vaughn to play me in the BK Comes to Broadway play. All I have to say is I think I was VERY generous with everyone. 

Mike Ballanco has been removed from the BK Lottery Board. It had something to do with the abysmal return during his tenure but great thanks have been extended for his service.

There have been several updates made to the BK Club Bylaws as reported by Coach Al, the BK Recording Secretary.  The updates appear to be very benign and fail to address the retirement issue, i.e. when a member retires, receives a retirement party, goes back to work and retires for the 2nd time, is a 2nd retirement party warranted? Hey - sounds like a good excuse for all of us to get together and have a few laughs. 

I have been asked to back up a claim I made stating, "since Obama was elected President in 2008, the Democrats have lost significant ground on the local, state and federal levels." (Because I exaggerate a claim every now and then I get put in the "must fact check" box. Geesh!!!) Here is a sampling. 

House of Representatives
Pre-2007 D-236, R-199
2008 election D-257, R-178
2016 election D-194, R-241

Senate
Pre-2008 D-49, R-49, I-2
2008 election D-57, R-41, I-2
2016 election D-46, R-52

Govenors
Pre-2008 D-28, R-22
2008 election D-29, R-21
2016 election D-16, R-33

Any bets on this trend reversing with the 2018 & 2020 elections?