Please Pass The Snitzel, Wurst, & "Rinder Rouladen"

And You Better Super-Size My Lederhosen While You're At It...


Funny thing...

In my cooking adventures over the past ten or fifteen years I've discovered that in order to perfect any given dish I generally have to cook it three or four times in the space of ten days or two weeks in order to understand the process and fine tune the results.

I just can't cook something new and different once and then come back to it six months or a year later--particularly when I might be under the pressure of cooking for guests--and really know what I'm doing and have all of the subtleties and nuances of the flavors involved under control.

For instance, my basic German cooking has progressed from just slopping some canned Sauerkraut into a skillet to heat beside some unidentified sausage to today toasting Caraway seeds in a skillet, rendering some crispy bacon for the grease, and then cooking a premium Kraut down in the grease and some beef or chicken stock until it's tender and brown and serving with some nice hot seared Bratwurst and Knackwurst and two or three kinds of spicy mustard.

Moving a step further, I've been working on the seasoning and breading of Pork and chicken to produce authentic "Schnitzel" (hint...pound the meat flat with a hammer or old shoe or a meat mallet if you have one, then dip in flour, egg wash, and plain cracker crumbs and fry lightly in peanut oil.)

Hey...I think that I just wrote the shortest recipe ever

Ahem...now back to this afternoon's oratory...

Then this week after buying some really nice looking beef tenderloins, in the process of butchering them down into 1-1/4 to 1-1/2" thick steaks I am also cutting out some nice thin "butterfly portions" about a quarter inch thick and tonight I'm cooking a dish called Rouladen (or Rinder Rouladen i.e. German Beef) for the second time in three days.

According to my Internet research it's usually made with round steak or flank steak or some of the other lower cuts of Beef, but since I'm a self proclaimed "steak snob" and I have plenty of Tenderloin handy, here's the Recipe if you want to try it and cook along with me:

German Rinder Rouladen for Two

The Bill of Materials:

2 thin fillets of Beef Tenderloin, butterflyed open and about 3/16" to 1/4" thick
3 or 4 slices bacon-cooked crisp
Dill Pickle spears, cut in half down the middle
Julienned Carrot sticks (optional)
1/4 medium onion sliced thin
1 can beef broth

Spicy mustard
salt
fresh ground black pepper
TBSP or two of flour
1/4 stick of butter
Cooked Egg noodles, or Linguine/Fettuccine pasta, al dente


The Construction Procedure:

Cut your Bacon strips in half and toss them in a heavy skillet on medium heat and cook until they are done and as crispy as you like them, then saute your onion slivers/slices in the left over grease and reserve with the bacon on the side on some paper towels.

Now kick the heat up a little on the skillet and sear your tenderloin butterflies lightly on both sides, being careful not to cook things too done (it's not going to be rare or even medium rare unless you modify the process but still you don't want to make shoe leather out of premium beef.)

Pull them out of the skillet and add your broth and start it simmering, and spread a uniform layer of your mustard on one side of each of the beef slabs.

Add a slice of bacon or bacon crumbles (your choice) and then the dill pickle spear (and carrot slice if you want) and roll the whole thing up and pin it closed with toothpicks.

Doesn't that look yummy?

Now put it in the skillet in your broth and cook covered over low/medium low heat for about 30 to 45 minutes, stopping back by to turn things over after the first 15 or 20 minutes.

When it's all nice and hot you can pull out your Rouladen and sprinkle in a little flour and butter and stir up some gravy from the left over juice.

I plan on serving mine tonight over some Fettuccine (no egg noodles in the building and I'm too lazy to go back to the Grocer) with some warm Red Cabbage slaw on the side.

Enjoy Yall...

The Redneck Gourmet

Strange New World

Snow In Eastern Tennessee...


Hey...who painted the ground white?








Pizza may be breaking out in the Kitchen tonight...

Am I A Grocery Store Junkie?

A Shamefully Short Distance Away From Wearing Sans-A-Belt Pants and Owning My Own Flea Market Booth...


The good news is that we've been eating pretty good here this week at the Turbo Pup Compound on the banks of the Mighty Tennessee River.

The bad news is the freezer compartment on one of my two refrigerators and my Deep Freezer are all FULL of giant portions of meat (and some corn on the cob purchased for $0.10 per ear last fall)....I can't stuff much of anything else in there until we do some more eating.

This week the local Kroger had a "One Day Sale" featuring Snow Crab Clusters for $3.99 a pound and giant chunks of of Beef Tenderloin for $6.99/lb.

I found out about the deals on Sunday and I hate to admit that I spent the week like a kid waiting on Christmas or the Easter Bunny and ended up going to two different nearby Kroger stores in order to spend $100 on crustaceans and prime beef in a single day.

Then last night I started fooling around looking for a creative way to do "surf and turf."

It had to be something that could successfully follow Wednesday's "Chicken Fried Cube Steak" extravaganza I put on and Thursday's "Unofficial Official German Night" where I did Chicken Schnitzel and a funky German beef dish called "Rouladens" that was basically thin butterflied portions of tenderloin stuffed with bacon, mustard, dill pickles, and sauteed onions.

(Don't freak out, it was dang fine food and I know my German fare because I've spent a good deal of time studying Bavarian cuisine.)

So any way, last night I ended up just steaming some crab clusters after soaking them in some water with lemon juice to take the stink off, and then I kicked out some Mongolian Beef served over rice and based on a recipe I found which claimed to mimic the dish served at P.F. Chang's Restaurant.

I intend to write everything up and publish it here on the blogs later this weekend, but right now I'm too tired from sitting up most of the evening beating on a couple of technical problems I'm having on my pneumatic air valve rebuilds.

And don't even get me started about "climategate" and the Obamamaniacs' "Jobs Summit" BS bouncing around in the news.

In the mean time...feel free to entertain yourselves...

Best Intentions

If It Was Easy...Everyone Could Do It...


So if you couldn't tell from my earlier posting, I'm stumped in two basic areas of my current professional endeavors.

I've got a PLC that doesn't seem to want to get along with my temperature probes (or any other analogue input for that matter), and now I have a box load of fancy pneumatic valves that but for a $0.50 part moving out of the way could already be rebuilt and back in a box on a Big Brown Truck on Monday Afternoon.

As I like to say..."WHO'S IDEAS WAS ALL OF THIS ANY WAY?"

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

(DON'T HOLD YOUR BREATH...IT'S STILLL COMING OUT...) Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh


In case you weren't paying attention...you might wonder if I said:

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

OK, here's a translation...for the hearing impaired...

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

And here it is in authentic Chinese...

Huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

here it is in Mandarin (a variation on Chinese?):

EYouuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

and here it is from your lawyer:

Sueeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

here it is in South American (do they have an "official language?")

heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

and here it is in lower Alabama...ian...

yeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEee...haaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

and all of that said, that will be ALL...

FOR NOW...

I'm Off To See The Wizard Buy More Tools

Things Women Should Know...


I'm taking a risk here this morning making this confession, but in the spirit of the Holiday Season I think that I will tender the following insight on male thinking to the fairer sex--for those that haven't already figured it out some time ago (like the week after your Honeymoon.)

A man...rather...a real MAN...will use any given project at any given time as an excuse to purchase a tool.

Maybe several.

And given only the limitations of things like income and credit limits will the size and complexity of the tool be thereby specified and determined (specifications and determinations being beyond the scope of this discussion this morning.)

For instance, say that you are sitting happily in your new house and everyone decided that your gutters and roof need cleaning?

Why settle for this...



when you might possibly talk your wife or girlfriend (or significant other) into letting you buy this...



Or say that you want to rotate the tires on your mini-van once in a while to save $31.97 every six months?

Everyone knows your task could be accomplished with one of these and a couple of jack stands....



But wouldn't this look really cool in your garage or carport (and of course you'd have to buy the ATV's/jet skis and the vintage Camaro just to complete the set...it is...after all...a SET...Honey...



That's exactly the position I find myself in this morning...deciding between the minimal tools I "really need", things I "have to have", and the stuff that would really be cool and if I'm doing it why not go all the way because...

"I'll just end up buying one of "ABC" at some time in the future..."

That said it's time to get moving in the shop and finish the day's "tool purchase list," then head over to Mecca Northern Tool.

(I get all a tingle just thinking about it...)

Weird Internet Stuff

Things Most People Never See...


I have to admit that I've become more than just an Amateur E-Bay Junkie over the past half decade.

Looking around my office I have to ask you who else you know other than me that in the past few years has bought dozens of early original editions of books published before 1900 (Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn, a Bible and a Websters Dictionary among other titles), a real rosewood Chinese Abacus, a Remington "noiseless" portable typewriter built in the late 1930's in excellent condition, numerous vintage engineering text and reference books, and three antique radios all built before WWII (two of which work and one built in the 1920's that's battery powered and will work when I get through with repairing it)?

Sometimes packages show up at my door and I can't even remember what exactly it is that I ordered or won at auction this week.

That said, here's the header from a yahoo E-mail I received this morning from China...about some oscilloscope Probes I ordered (electronic test equipment) on E-Bay.

发件人： Virgil Rogers
发送时间： 2009-12-03 15:47:55
收件人： njlasz
主题： Got the probes

I received your shipment...and gave you a five star rating on E-bay.

Thanks for the gift also.

The guy sent me a little hand woven bangle that sort of looked like the tassel kids wear on their Mortar boards during High School or College Graduation ceremonies.

I've been up most of the night fooling with the PLC project and inspecting another shipment of fancy pneumatic valves I have to rebuild over the next week...so it's time to hit the bed for a while and dream about a trip I have planned to Home Depot, Northern Tool, and Ace Hardware later this morning.

I don't know for sure if it's good thing or a bad thing when you reach the point in life as a man where going to the hardware store is more exciting than going to Hooters to eat wings and drink beer and ogle bawdy lasses with their extremities hanging out of their clothing, but right now I'm lusting after a digital Micrometer, a portable parts wash cabinet, and an adjustable set of snap ring pliers and I don't see much of anything or anyone being capable of deflecting me on my journey.

Regards Y'all

There's An Idiot In Every Crowd

I Just Try To Not Let It Be Me Each Day...


One of the coolest things about living on St. Simons Island was the pet friendly nature of the people and businesses there.

It was almost like they issued dogs when you moved there because almost everyone had at least one four legged family member and even I--having been a cat man for most of my life--ended up getting little Missy the Turbo Pup in February of 2007.

She went EVERYWHERE with us. The beach. The Condo pool. She rode in a basket on Pat's bike or jogged on her leash along side of my bike on the abundant bike trails interlaced around the island.

And perhaps the best thing was that when we got hungry and wanted to eat or just got tired and wanted a drink most of the restaurants had outdoor seating areas and everyone ended up knowing The Turbo Pup and enjoyed watching her grow from 2 lbs to her present 11 pound adult weight.

She was practically a fixture on the patio of the Sea Palms Country Club which was next door to our Condo because we could walk or ride over there in about three minutes and they had a good happy hour and specials food menu.

In fact if I went over to buy a newspaper at noon and didn't bring the Turbo Pup people came outside and inquired about her...they didn't care about me they just wanted to pet my dog.

So any way, things aren't so pet friendly here in Knoxtown, but the good news is that the state passed a law this legislative session allowing local Cities and Municipalities that regulate restaurants to decide if the outdoor patio seating areas will be pet friendly.

A story in today's Knoxville News Sentinel gives me hope of having Missy back in our dining out dinner plans by next spring/summer, but part of the story also makes my head spin because of the position of the mandatory "activist."

I think that there must be a rule or law somewhere that says that there has to be an "activist" present any time more than two people get together and try to do anything (except possibly drink beer...but even then you risk someone from MADD showing up and ruining every ones buzz.)

And you can always spot the "activist" in any proceeding because 9 times out of 10 they're the bleeding heart, emotionally bruised, bleary eyed (and possibly sniveling, booger eating, tree hugging, tye dyed, patchouli stinking) person siting in the back row intent that nothing gets done because it will adversely affect their "cause."

So at this week's meeting of the Knoxville City Council they were discussing the new "Pooches on the patio" ordinance and right on que the lady from the "Mayor's Council on Disability Issues" had to jump out of her chair (or wheelchair I suppose) and "[express] concerns that pet dogs might interfere with service animals used by the disabled..."

All I have to say is..."Give me a %$#@ing break here Lady."

I've lived in West Knoxville for almost two years and I'll swear on a stack of bibles that only once has anyone come into a restaurant with a "service animal" be it a dog or a Monkey or a Possum or a Thompson's Gazelle.

And if they did I would definitely keep our little Turbo Pup away from them because all larger dogs want to generally do is step on her or try to hump her.

You see people, it's like this with all of these "activists"...they want to spread the suffering and misery around.

A few years ago it was smoking in restaurants, today it's "service animals" being distracted in restaurants, coming soon it's 500 pound people oozing over the armrest into your space on an airliner and bitching about having to pay for two seats...

If we left everything up to the "Activists"???

No one but the "handicapped" and "disabled" and "morbidly obese" would go anywhere and do anything.

Instead of the first four parking spaces ON EVERY SINGLE ROW AT HOME DEPOT being handicapped, the whole damn parking lot at Home Depot would be handicapped only and I'd have to ride home on the bus with a load of duct tape, plywood and two by fours.

Am I wrong here, or am I just being my normal insensitive self?

Seriously, I think that if everyone within a five mile radius of our local Home Depot that really needed and deserved a handicapped parking Sticker (which would exclude all of the people that use their Grandma's permits to get good parking spaces at the mall while Christmas shopping) came out today at Noon and bought a load of lumber we couldn't legitimately fill up all of the handicapped parking spaces, yet I'm stuck parking 75 feet from the store and walking past empty spaces because some "activist" got the government to say that for every so many thousand square feet of retail space you have to have a given number of spaces designated for "handicapped parking."

Don't get me wrong here because I believe that people deserve a break and some accommodation for "disabilities," but still the trend to shove every single whim and desire of these hysterical "activists" (and I mean hysterical in a crazy sense not a ha ha funny sense) down everyone's throats has gotten just a little out of control in today's politically correct culture, society, and political climate.

I say the government should get the heck out of the way and let the RESTAURANT OWNERS...private citizens decide if people can bring their dogs around their establishments and still maintain sanitary food service conditions.

If you operate a curbside Cafe and have a large clientele of people with service animals and some guy's Pet Baboon's Purple Snout and Rosy Red protruding Anus makes the "Seeing Eye" Dogs whimper and disturbs peoples enjoyment of their Crepes and Lattes, then let THE OWNER post a sign saying "No Apes with red snouts and protruding genitalia Allowed"

Why should it be up to the government to decide? If the owner lets enough crazy crap go on he'll either develope a share of the market that enjoys the same or can tolerate it else he'll get no business at all. Instead of the government, let the owner and the customers decide.

And you know what else bugs the crap out of me?

People can CHOOSE to not go into an establishment in the first place if there are conditions which they find objectionable.

If you don't want to smell like smoke when you come home from dinner and drinks?

Don't go where people exercise their right to smoke (government's pretty well run over that right already in most states.)

You don't want to see naked women?

Stay out of the Strip Clubs and the ladies dressing room at Belks.

Don't want to see pot bellyed men walking around in tiny little Speedo bathing suits?

Stay off the beach in France or Jamaica.

Don't want to be over run by pimple faced kids blabbing or texting on cell phones?

Stay out of the school teacher business and out of the Mall and Movie Theaters on Saturday Night.

Seems pretty simple to me, how about you?

We don't need a LAW, we just all need to exercise some common sense.

Why should all of the wimps rely on government to pass laws to make every restaurant patio a "pet free zone" when they never set foot in 99% of the restaurants in any given area?

These same people that want the government telling business owners where their clients can park and where and when and if their clients can smoke are the exact same people that would never stick a gun in your ribs and demand money for their health care or food...but they have no problem electing representatives that will pass laws and come to my house and use the threat of DEADLY FORCE to take money from me and give it to them for the exact same purposes.

Right?

All I know is that it's a screwed up world we live in Ladies and Gentlemen, and I have to stop writing now and stop thinking about crap like this before my head explodes.

Y'all have a lovely afternoon...

Was It Something I Said?

Or Didn't Say Yet?


OK ...could I ask everyone to get off of Tiger Woods Ass?

So the King of Golf is reaping what he has sewn over the past few years...wild oats and whatever...and his lovely fashion model/virgin/bride come mother of his children apparently has a temper, BUT...

In my opinion he doesn't owe you or me or anyone else on the planet ANYTHING except to tell you/us to shut the hell up, butt the hell out, and get the hell out of his face, because the entire "incident" occurred on private property...

HIS property.

And the Florida State Patrol and Fox News can go to hell also.

I know that there are people out there that read this blog and complain that I'm "Sexist" and "Racist" and "whatever-ist" but I'm here to defend Mr. Woods to the end as a Gentleman and a Class Act without "acting"...the man couldn't get through 33years without stumbling if he was/is anything other than what his father raised him to be--A Great American.

Speaking from the viewpoint of having learned some really hard lessons in life, I can personally testify that a Women...good ones and bad ones and everything in between...can and will make a man do some crazy crap and I say that Tiger has only to own up to the circumstances and learn a lesson if there is one burried in there.

Everybody else just needs to keep on sweeping around their own front doors and let the man be, in my considered Redneck opinion.

Then again I like to wear black T-shirts and I listen to Pink Floyd and Bob Marley and I think George Wallace might have been a good president if some Liberal Asshole hadn't shot him in a shopping center parking lot in Maryland...



(yeah...GEORGE WALLACE...that will make everyone's head spin...)

UN Won't Budge On "Climate Change"?

Global Warming Buffoons Don't Give An Inch...


Excuse me if I come across as Pissed Off this morning, BUT...

I take the current "Global Warming" debate pretty seriously, and just for fun let's play this game where I put up photos and you guess who's in charge of the United Nations "Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change" (IPCC).

Is it this guy?

Or this fellow?


If you guessed the first photo you'd be right, but you also probably get my point.

What got me started on the subject (Global Warming) this morning is this Guardian UK story about how the UN doesn't care that the data no longer exists to support the claims of a few scientists dependent on government dollars to support their careers.

Unfortunately this issue, like many other important stories, has somehow been manipulated by the lamestream media into a liberal/conservative Democrat/Republican black and white controversy when it really is a fairly complex subject...unfortunately above the heads and education level of probably three quarters of the population.

Thus the "average voter" is forced to listen to token phrases and "jingo-isms" while the World's school children are fed a rancid pablum laced with melting ice caps and dead polar bears and extinct Lions and Tigers.

Let me say this...about that...

I've spent literally HUNDREDS OF HOURS reading on the subject of "Global Warming," particularly when it comes to the "anthropogenic" (Man Made) form, and as far as I can tell IT JUST DOESN'T EXIST. I'm not talking about news stories either, I've paid for copies of the underlying scientific papers behind all of this mess and as far as I can tell...

M A N M A D E G L O B A L W A R M I N G = BULLSHIT

This whole thing is yet another scam put together by a rag tag band of international intellectual pirates--led by the likes of Tennessee's professional political Asshole Owl Gore--and designed to get into YOUR WALLET and ship the money to "poor nations" which will be allowed to burn Bunny Rabbits and Rhino poop or anything else they can find to burn in their stoves and fireplaces while Americans are restricted from breathing or owning a Bic lighter or striking a match without paying some TAX or getting ticketed by some Tye Dyed, Patchouli Stinking Climate Police Faggot from San Francisco or Tacoma.

I'm not saying that we should go back to the turn of the 20th century and start spewing black smoke out of every chimney and breaking thermometers and spilling Mercury everywhere, but if you let Pelosi and Reid pass their Tax and Cap bill and you let this Mulatto President go over to Europe and kiss every Swedish and Dutch and African Butt presented for kissing, then you might as well have a chunk of your paycheck deducted and mailed to the UN offices in NY City because the US and Japan and possibly the Germans are the only ones that are going to be forced to pay and change one damn thing we do in the name of "preventing climate change."

That will be all...for now...

dammit

(If you have an hour or so to kill and want to read a good basic summary of things I already know about this BS. go here and take a look: http://www.nolanchart.com/article805.html.

What should piss you off like it does me isn't that they're all just WRONG accidentally, but that they know that the data doesn't support their assertions and they're knowingly telling un-truths to get your money and change your life to their own warped standards)

Busy Weak Week Ahead

Who's Idea Was This Anyway?


OK...it's Monday after Thanksgiving...

and I hate to be the bearer of bad news but here goes...

Everybody...

yes YOU...

you there reading my rantings....

YOU...hurry up and GET BACK TO WORK so I can get something done today.

You see, I spent most all of last Wednesday afternoon trying to find people in "Tech Support" on the telephone and only the Horner PLC folks were on hand to answer my questions, so as a result I'm a half a week behind on my personal self-imposed schedule.

And I've learned through the grape vine that I have an additional purchase order coming in the door this week on a rush schedule and I'm in the unfortunate position of having to take their money and actually produce something in the process.

So EVERYBODY GET TO WORK!!!

(hey...a vigorous schedule will at least help dump the five pounds worth of turkey weight we all put on while sitting around watching football...)

That will be all...for now...

Oh Well...

Georgia 30...GT 24


The good news is that having followed this team for 32 years, at the end of the day my heart's not broken by a late season loss to our hated cross state rivals.

And it was fun while it lasted, but in typical Georgia Tech fashion the 2009 edition of their football team found a way to sink back from a position of being considered pretty good to being just slightly above average.

Unlike some sports addicts, I know I'm the same man on Monday morning win or lose...something it took a few years to understand in my youth.

Georgia Tech Versus Georgia

8:00 PM On National TV (ESPN/ABC)


You better be there if you want to watch good football...

Words From Paul "The Bear" Bryant

Useful Adages For A Football Saturday...


"But I learned that the lessons my mama taught me were always right.

It don't cost nuthin' to be nice.

It don't cost nuthin' to do the right thing most of the time,

and it costs a lot to lose your good name by breakin ' your word to someone."

Organizing My Cooking?

OK...I'll Settle For Writing It All Down Before I Forget...


So it turns out that I've spent most of the past couple of years pretty much ignoring my other blog...my Cooking Blog...called The Redneck Gourmet .

Looking at the stats it turns out that I published about 95 recipes from 2004 to 2006, and since then I've basically sat around doing nothing been too apathetic to take the time to write much of anything down on the computer because I hate just publishing ingredient lists.

My original goals and quality standards involved trying to actually describe how to cook the dish in detail, and even possibly inject some humor into the process...but it's all been beyond my mental limits and personal attitude and stamina for various reasons beyond the scope of this discussion.

Thinking back, it seems that in recent years I've been trying to "shake things up" while cooking during the holidays instead of just having the same old...same old...bird and beans and stuffing all the time.

I have to admit that sometimes my efforts have been received with a bit of trepidation or even indifference, but regardless I continue to move forward in my normal headstrong fashion...and thus...

I cooked a couple of quick appetizers yesterday which I don't think I've written up previously (and I'm too lazy to look at my archives) so I thought I'd do a double posting here this morning on this blog and over at The Redneck Gourmet.

That said, here's my method of how to cook "Oysters Rockefeller" and "Prosciutto Wrapped Scallops"


Oysters Rockefeller (by the dozen)

12 fresh oysters
1 tbsp lemon juice
3 tbsp butter
6 tbsp minced fresh spinach (or a part of a pack of frozen chopped spinach...WELL drained)
2 tbsp finely diced green onions
2 tbsp diced stemmed Italian flat leaf Parsley
breadcrumbs (as much as you need...hang on)
a few dashes of your favorite hot sauce (I use Crystal)
1/3 tsp Annisette Liquor (or Herbsaint or Pernod)
1/4 tsp salt
Box of Rock salt
1/4 cup of grated Parmesan cheese
Lemon wedges

OK...here we go...first crank on the oven to 350 degrees

Meanwhile shuck your Oysters. Cut those suckers out of their shell making sure to keep the sand and crumbs out of things and set aside the better looking deeper halves of each shell to use later in the process.

Redneck Aside:

Let me remind you that real men shuck oysters...but if you aren't a real man or you're female and don't have a real man handy you can buy them (the Oysters) already shucked but then you have to also get those little sanitized store bought shells if you absolutely have to.

I, personally, having grown up in Lower Alabama in a place less than two hours from the best oysters in the world in Apalachicola Bay Florida, refuse to buy anything but fresh oysters.

(I guess that means I'm saying not to cook this recipe unless you can find fresh oysters in the shell, but I digress...)

Meanwhile...back to the preparation of our Oysters...

In a heavy skillet, melt your butter (and add some bacon grease if you have it handy), then add the spinach, onion, parsley, Anisette, hot sauce, and salt.

Now sprinkle a few tablespoons of bread crumbs on top and start stirring as things thicken. As the juice cooks out of the spinach , pay attention and if you need more bread crumbs don't just stand there...put them in the pot and keep stirring...don't look at me...

After about 10 minutes consider turning the heat off and pulling the skillet off the hot eye and then let it cool down (you can even make this stuff as much as a day early and refrigerate until you need it, but let it come up to room temperature or it will effect your cooking time.)

After you've shucked your oysters and picked out and scrubbed off your serving shells, add about a 1/2" deep layer of rock salt to a oven proof platter or cookie sheet and lay out your shells evenly spaced over the surface of the salt. The salt helps evenly transfer heat during the cooking process and also keeps the shells stable while you're filling them.

Now add one oyster back to each shell. It doesn't matter that they go back into their original shells but it helps if you put your bigger oysters in the larger shells and reserve the smaller ones for the little guys.

Place equal amounts of the spinach mixture over each oyster and spread to the rim of the shell if possible.

Slide the whole concoction into the oven and let things go for about ten minutes, then pull them back out and distribute your grated cheese on top and lightly sprinkle with more bread crumbs, return to the oven and kick on the Broiler to 500.

Let things go another five minutes or so, then pull out and serve.


Prosciutto-Wrapped Scallops

The Ingredients:

12 medium sea scallops
12 slices of thinly sliced Prosciutto Ham
1/4 cup chopped sun dried tomatoes
2 tbsp chopped fresh basil leaves
2 tbsp sliced black olives
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
sea salt
lemon juice
1/4 stick of butter
fresh ground black pepper
2 cups baby salad greens

First the credits. This recipe is based on one published by Food Network's Cooking Diva Giada de Laurentiis, except I've made some procedural and serving changes to accommodate a platter presentation with more readily available ingredients.

And here's how I put things together...

Heat the oven to 350 degrees F, and toss a large heavy skillet on the stove top on medium heat and put in your butter to melt.

Rinse your scallops and remove the tough "foot" or "tendon" on the side if it's still present. Put your cleaned scallops in a shallow dish and pour in a little lemon juice and let them swim around while you make the other preparations.

Toss your tomatoes, olives, and basil into a food processor and chop things finely as you slowly pour in your olive oil. Don't add all of it at once and stop occasionally to scrape down the sides of the processor bowl. Keep adding oil and processing to you have a thin, chunky paste...not a slurry.

Now back to your scallops. Are they still swimming in lemon juice?

Well dump out the juice, and move them into your melted butter and lightly sear them on the two flat sides. Be careful not to fully cook them now, they'll have plenty of time in the oven later to get to a medium or medium well temperature.

Turn off your heat and take them out and lightly sprinkle them on all sides with salt and pepper.

Now lay out two strips of Prosciutto and fold them in half long ways, spoon a little of your tomato/olive mixture out in the middle of each slice and top each with a scallop.

Stay with me here now, we're on the home stretch...grab some toothpicks, fold the prosciutto up around the scallops and pin the two flaps together with the toothpick vertically.

Do the same procedure with each scallop and place them in a buttered pyrex dish and pop them into the oven for about 15 minutes.

Now go pour yourself a mixed drink or a glass of wine, but stop back by and check their progress at the ten minute point. If you like your scallops well done just be careful to not dry out the prosciutto too much.

Spread your salad greens out on a large plate or platter and arrange your hot wrapped scallops around the greens, garnish with some lemon wedges, and try to not get trampled when you bring them out of the kitchen to your guests.

Regards Y'all

The Redneck Gourmet

Update Photos Show My Progress And Insanity

Webcam Headcam Images From My Life...


OK folks, I'm sitting here in the International Headquarters of my infant company, weak and sleepy and slightly buzzed and full of confessions.

You'd be too if you were so full of Turkey and Dressing and various and sundry Casseroles and vegetable dishes and my own Seafood Extravaganza of Oysters and Scallops and frankly...

Here's how things would look from the executive offices while gazing over the monitor of my Network Server PC:



(that's a 9' wide x 5' high vintage i.e. 20 year old yet brand-new hand sewn American Flag from the "Valley Forge Flag Company" hanging there on the wall--Betsy Ross was unavailable for my commissioning efforts...)

And here's a long overdue photo of little Missy the Turbo Pup cruising down the road in her deluxe coachman sleeper area of the Chrysler 300 on the way to Indianapolis earlier this month...



And just because this came up when I dumped the digital Camera here's a look at a giant 16" Lodge cast iron skillet full of cornbread I did a couple of weeks ago to go along with a gallon cooking of my soon to be world famous "Green Butt" White Pork Chili...



Finally to the project at hand, here's the lonely metal "electrical enclosure" with some holes cut in and a terminal strip and a 24 volt power supply mounted on a DIN rail with some terminal strip modules...





I keep trying to keep the belly button high electronics workbench cleaned off but things like the giant magnifying glass to assist 50 year old eyes keep getting in the way..."the better to see you with...My DEAR..."



And here is the neural network of my new business enterprise--"Mission Control"--fully outfitted and operational as shown here:

Top shelf Radio with Rush Lindbaugh and TV with Food Network.

Mid Shelf with 400 Watt 24 Volt power supply and the Horner project PLC

Bottom shelf with "old HP laptop", IR Temperature probes, and insulated mug of Wine



Hot wire (red) installed...PROGRESS...



Warning lights this morning added..."Danger...Danger...Will Robinson..."



And soon to be finished up this weekend and delivered to the job site...resulting in ...

CASH FLOW (I hope)




Stay tuned to this channel for more engineering antics...

Avoiding A Turkey Malfunction

Tropical Thanksgiving???


Here's hoping that you don't open your oven at lunch or dinner today and find something that looks like this looking back at you...

(Idea and Image Shamelessly stolen from here)

Happy Thanksgiving Y'all....



Heh...

Government Insanity...My Personal Experience

Can I Get The Responsible Politicians To Bend Over?


The past month, in my spare time...you know...

"spare time"

that would be my time not spent chasing goblins in my computers or working in my basement trying to make a dime building things or driving across country to spend time and money taking programming classes...

that time...

I've been spending my spare time opening mail from various and sundry local, state, and federal Government agencies, all welcoming me and my new company to the business world. Of course in the process they also enthusiastically tell me how much it's going to cost me to try to do business in their city, county, state, and/or country and attempt to earn some semblance of a living.

Don't get me wrong...I knew it was ultimately coming.

You see, having owned most if not all of three Georgia Corporations back in the 1990's, and having been in a senior management position in another company in the 1980's, I'm well aware of the bullshit the government puts you through when you try to earn a living on your own and possibly create a few jobs for others in the process.

But still...

The tone of the current bureaucratic onslaught has tilted me back on my heals a bit because of their insidious, terse, even desperate-for-cash tone delivered in their correspondence.

It's like they believe any money you have already belongs to the government before you earn it or at least collect it from your customers.

These bastards are already overtly threatening me with penalties and interest if I don't comply to the letter of their confiscatory laws (with all of the associated I's dotted and T's crossed) even before I've made one single penny, and their "fees" and "assessments" and "licenses" are starting to add up.

And doing business in the state of Tennessee is cheap compared to many if not most states, BUT...

I just want to ask this this morning...

WHO THE %$#@ DO THESE PEOPLE THINK THEY ARE?

Further, where the #$%@ do they think the money they're asking for comes from and how do they expect anyone to produce anything and offer employment to anyone else when they make it virtually impossible to do business without a lawyer and accountant looking over your shoulder every minute of every day?

Hello...

I'm waiting for an answer...

(que the sounds of the crickets chirping)

You want details?

It costs $100, paid to the Tennessee Secretary of State, to file incorporation papers establishing Plastics Engineering Technologies.

OK?

Then Knox County (or any other Tennessee county for that matter) wants a minimum "fee" of $24 for a "Business License", even if I never sell anything delivered in the entire state of Tennessee or more specifically Knox County or the City of Knoxville.

And then the Imperial Federal Government of the By-God United States of 'Merica's Internal Revenue Service let me elect to be a "Sub chapter S" Corporation for tax purposes (for "FREE"), but they also sent me a letter warning about using Dividends to pay Owners and Corporate Officers rather than paying taxable salaries and let me know that they have already set up a direct deposit electronic funds transfer account in the Corporation's name.

Gee...THANKS Mr./Mrs. IRS employees...

Meanwhile, back at the state level I was just blindsided with the Tennessee Franchise and Excise Tax last weekend.

Thankfully the Tennessee Department of Revenue helpfully sent me a letter indicating that they had already considerately set up an account in the company's name and let me know that our$100 minimum "Franchise and Excise Tax" fee was due and payable by April 15th next year.

Boy...I was happy that they took care of that for me.

In that same letter they also reminded me that I have to apply for a Tennessee Sales Tax Number (I already knew that and was putting it off) even though again I'll probably not sell or deliver anything into the state of Tennessee in 2009.

The thing I learned about "State sales tax numbers" while living and doing business in Georgia is that even if you owe no sales tax, if you don't fill out the forms and make the filings on time the assholes charge you a penalty for late filing.

I ended up paying Georgia near $100 a year for a couple of years for late quarterly tax forms until I decided to start paying "Bob the Accountant" a couple of thousand dollars a year to keep the Feds and State and City and County and Herpes and Gonorrhea and Aids and Fleas and Ticks and Athletes Foot and Jock Itch out of and off of me and my property.

I guess my point here in closing is this. It's easy for the population and the media to lament the current business climate and the lack of employment for so many Americans, but then again...look at the Crap Government makes people do when all they want to accomplish is earn a living.

I say if the Government would get out of the way and get their hands out of people's pockets the level of pain and suffering would be greatly reduced and go away all together about ten times faster than it will with them standing in the way of progress.

What about this concept is there to not understand?

Is it just ME?

that will be all...for now...dammit

Free At Last...Free At Last

Thank Anyone But Bill Gates...I'm Free At Last...


Well Ladies and Gentlemen, I have to hand it to the Norton 360 software people, because after FOUR full scans lasting about 15 hours over THREE days, today's Virus Update Download finally caught up with the bull crap that had my old HP laptop tied in knots since last Friday.

A quick scan after downloading the newest descriptions took care of things, and then I ran the free download version of the software from Malwarebytes and it found another EIGHTY things lurking on my hard drive and after evaporating them with the click of a mouse I feel Twenty years younger and thirty pounds lighter.

I also ran the Malwarebytes program on my server and it found another five things Norton didn't find.

I swear if you use your computer for anything but Facebook and games and you're online with any frequency you absolutely HAVE TO have a strict anti-virus and spyware program and further...

you have to use it regularly, if not EVERY DAY.

Look at what this recent BS has cost me...and what it could have cost me if I didn't have three computers or if it had happened a week earlier when I was out of town in the training class.

Just remember if you're a spammer or virus writer or other sniveling booger eating purveyor of computer diseases and I ever find you that there is a high probability I'll be spending three or four years in prison while you spend the rest of your life with my amputated foot/tennis shoe up your ass or sticking out of your ear.

That will be all...for now...

I Wish I Could Do Stuff Like This

Dang......


There was a time...from about 1965 until about 1975--before I got my first car and discovered "women" and Frisbee--when I spent most of my spare time building models.

Mainly flying model airplanes.

You know, those things made out of balsa wood and tissue with noisy smelly little nitro-methane powered engines?

Today's hobbyists have the luxury of using really high powered electric motors and expensive lithium batteries and designs have been built that are tiny and can be flown by remote control in your back yard or a small public park, and even inside a school gymnasium.

Check out this guy's skill in the "Indoor Acrobatics Championships":




(Of course the pilot looks to be about 18 years old and still can see and has his other God Given senses and reflexes intact...I'd probably kill myself or a bystander as any plane being flown by me going through those gyrations would be doing so totally by accident...)

Who The Heck Got To Decide Puppies Couldn't Eat Onions & Chocolate?

I'd Dang Sure Change Things If I were In Charge


Ladies...

Wouldn't it be nice if your Boyfriend's/Husband's breath didn't smell any worse than your DOG's breath?

Or vice versa?

After all, for many households that would be a MAJOR IMPROVEMENT (and you know who you are when I say that...)

And to all of my fellow Male contemporaries out there (of all races, creeds, and national origins) finding yourself in relationships of various definitions and descriptions with anyone from "that girl/woman I met last night" or "that crazy insane bitch I met last year" and proceeding all the way to "my last year on this planet because I think that she's just hanging around to piss me off..."

I want to make a valid point here...But I digress...

You see, what got this rant started is that this holiday season finds be for once in a LooooOnNNNNG time not in charge of "ALL" or "Most of" or "a Significant Segment of" the Thanksgiving Day meal.

Since we're stuck in town this year in the process of finishing "The Epic PLC Panel Project" in time for a November 30th shipment, our next door neighbors invited us to come over to their family gathering on Thursday.

I think that it really should be considered a relief, but at the same time I'm afraid that I'm going into "cooking withdrawal" because I keep offering to make things and they keep turning me down and in spite of their refusals I'll probably come up with some appetizer like Oysters Rockefeller or Angels on Horseback or a seafood dip (but not Kitty food) or something.

These days I find that I have the overwhelming urge TO COOK SOMETHING SUBSTANTIAL at least every 48 hours.

And it has to take at least two hours to prepare.

Heck, in a pinch I've been known to take one of the Food Network's Rachael Ray's "Thirty Minute" meals, drink a gallon of wine or a pint of Vodka in front of the stove, and end up stretching that sucker out to 125 minutes, then spend the next day washing the car and the dog and the ceiling to get the grease and tomato stains off everything.

It was still FUN, and it usually ends up tasting pretty good.

In recent years I cooked Christmas dinner for SEVENTEEN...plus or minus...with a little help here and there from Pat and from attendees with desert, and that took most of TWO DAY's in prep and final heating and I had to borrow a friend's oven because we'd moved out of the Island Condo with the double oven by then and I had every pot and bowl in the kitchen dirty in the end.

So this week all I have to do is show up if I want to, but back to my original point...

Isn't it weird that Puppies can't eat (or aren't supposed to eat)Onions and Garlic and Chocolate?

Seriously, I have to make a conscious effort to control the onion content of my dinner meals which Missy the Turbo Pup always generally enjoys with us each evening.

Last night I did an original dish I call "Caribbean Perogies" which features Mrs Paul's Three Cheese Potato Perogies and a mixture of Black Beans, Yellow Hominy Corn, along with Cumin and other spicy Mexican/Caribbean seasonings and ...

tons of ONIONS and GARLIC.

(somewhere there's a group of people of Polish descent shaking their heads...)

Any way, I have to leave the ONIONS and GARLIC out of the mixture until I can spoon the Turbo Pup's portion out of the pot, then toss them in.

This because our Vet says little pups shouldn't eat onions and garlic because they're toxic just like chocolate to them.

That's somehow just WRONG.

Then she has to sit there and Yip at me begging for a bite of my evening portion extra dark chocolate.

And another thing...it's possibly a two way street on the restrictions I guess.

If Missy can't have onions and garlic will someone please tell me if I have to stop eating a bowl full of her Milk Bone Tarter Control with my milk this morning?

Slaying The Dragon

Day Two With The Computer Version Of H1N1?


I'm really dreading going downstairs this morning...thus my reason for waiting past 10 AM to make the first journey.

I have to fire up the old HP laptop and wrestle around with the Norton Antivirus/Anti Spyware software and hopefully exorcise the demons out of it's system registers and start up files before anything productive can be accomplished.

I'm thinking I'll give the process another hour or so of my time this morning, then if I'm not successful I may reluctantly hand the machine over to Staples or Best Buy for a "PC tune up" and see if they can do anything with the stupid thing.

In the mean time I guess I'll be forced to bring the PLC and 24 volt power supply and infrared sensors and associated stuff UPSTAIRS into my office and live with tripping over the wiring this week until things get straightened out.

It's really frustrating to finally have the shop finished and the Internet installed and everything working, only to have some asshole break into my house through the wiring and give me this computer venereal disease.

I think we should catch the people that think it's funny or that financially prosper by writing viruses and other forms of "malware" and send them to Malasya or somewhere, try them, convict them, and thrash them within an inch of their lives by caining them with the kind of passion and vigor I feel right now.

I find this crap to be no less damaging than if they had pryed open one of my windows or doors and came inside and set my TV or some other expensive piece of electronic equipment on fire.

I have to go now and try to get something done, because writing about it makes me think about it and further thinking is going to make my head explode...

dammit...

Karaoke Night In Knoxville

I Can Almost Sing This Song This Well





hey...it's really easy...everybody should try it...a couple of drinks makes you bullet proof...

D E T A I L S

"The Devil Lies Therein..."


Needless to say, as on any pioneering adventure, I'm about to run myself to death finding last minutes scraps and parts to finish putting this PLC Control Panel together.

Apparently the people that sell this stuff never actually BUILD anything with any of it, at least anything that has to do tricky tasks like actually WORK when the dust and insulation scraps settle to the shop floor.

For instance, I have to cut four holes in the bottom of the panel to let wires run in/out in the plant: one for the 120 VAC power feed, two for the fancy non-contact infrared temperature probes on the bottle conveyor line, and one to power a pneumatic solenoid valve that is responsible for "kicking" any faulty bottles we find off the conveyor line.

The "strain relief" connectors that mount in these holes designed to keep you from ripping the cords out of the panel when some oaf trips over or pulls on the wiring are easy enough to buy at Home Depot, but NoooooooOOOOOO...I opted to use some shiny fancy knurled aluminum connectors I had to order and wait three days to receive.

Funny thing, but they sell the lock nuts separate for the connectors, but I opted to order the 3/8" size rather than the standard 1/2" and now I have $35 worth of connectors and neither Home Depot or even the place I bought them from sells 3/8" lock nuts!

WTF?

So now I have to go back across West Knoxville and return my connectors and order five more 1/2" sized--and most importantly the lock nuts--and wait until Monday or Tuesday for them to come in and drive back over and pick them up.

Of course they can ship to my house but in that event it would cost me an extra $10 UPS charge and take five days for ground service.

And the list goes on and on with nagging things like that which I won't bore you with the details of this morning, but it's obvious that spending the last $100 of a nearly $3,000parts order is going to cause much of the remaining hair on my ever greying, ever balding head to fall to the floor (or take root on my back and behind...)

Bottom line is I've wasted all the time I have to waste and next week's Thanksgiving and everything will come to a standstill for two days and then comes the delivery deadline of November 30th and so now I have to get off my butt and produce...and I can't do it if I've screwed up the parts list.

Thus it's time for me to head over to the electronics supply store and get things moving.

OH...and y'all have a LOVELY day...if you will...

I'm Resisting Throwing My Computer In The Lake

Comcast Haunts Me...


Dang it people...

It's really frightening the coincidence of our cable/Internet service interruptions over the past month with my attempts to make wiring modifications to our home data/TV network.

Once again, TODAY, for the SECOND time in the past 30 days, the local cable/Internet signal has been going on and off and on and off and On and Off and ON and OFF all FREAKING morning, while I've been running up and down the stairs trying to resist the urge to commit suicide with a little set of pliers or drive down to the Comcast office and make the headlines on FOX News holding everyone hostage with a roll of electrical tape and a Phillips head screwdriver.

WTF?

It's hard enough having to drill holes through studs and fight squinting my way through wood chips and dangling 45 years of spider webs lurking in the recesses of the sub-flooring, but then the nerds over at Comcast clicking the signal on and off every fifteen minutes makes sanity and progress nearly impossible.

Like I predicted earlier, the proposed two hour long task is well on it's way to taking three or four hours to complete, but complete it I will, dang it...else I'll end up needing some sort of mental analysis and medical treatment for self induced insanity and high blood pressure.

oh...oH...OH...Ah..AH...Ahhhhhhhh....AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
clunk...

(the sound of me falling out of my chair)

that will be all...for now...

My Head Hurts

I Just Can't Leave Well Enough Alone...


The day we closed on this old house I live in today, while the movers were still backing into the driveway with boxes containing all of our "stuff", at the same time I had the Comcast Cable guys drilling holes in my wall and checking TV and Internet connections on old wiring that had been around in the building for at least 20 years.

Since I didn't want to pay them $50 an hour to do wiring inside the house, I just asked that they get me a working feed to a spot inside my "third bedroom" office and figured that I'd handle working out the details needed to get Internet and a TV signal to the other rooms.

Things have sort of proceeded on a "helter skelter" basis since then with the addition of an under counter TV in the Kitchen and TV's in the living room, Master bedroom, and a cable flopping around in the basement that served the shop and laundry area.

The living room TV signal has been annoying on certain channels apparently because of the aged wiring, and with other recent technical revelations...I've decided that now it's time to "Pay the Piper" and straighten things out for good.

You see, yesterday I moved my old HP laptop into the new World Headquarters of Plastics Engineering Technologies upon receipt of a shipment of the last cables and technical do-dads relating to uploading my new program to the Horner PLC, and in the process I learned...

gasp...

my Linksys wireless signal doesn't reach through the 1963 vintage concrete walls and heart oak flooring and framing from the first floor to the basement.

Now it looks like I have to go with a CAT 5 hard wire from the router to be able to Google and Blog from my area of the basement.

Dangit...

Of course if I'm going to start moving ceiling tiles and drilling holes I might as well re-wire the crappy vintage cable TV wiring at the same time, so a couple hours of this morning will have to be dedicated to pulling out and replacing the old cable wires to a couple of rooms and putting in a new CAT 5 feed to the computer workstation in the shop.

And of course when they added central air conditioning to the house in the 1970's they ran the central trunk duct work down the middle of the basement, right underneath the spots where I want to drill holes and make cable drops against the baseboards on the first floor, so instead of two hours I'll probably actually spend four hours cursing and banging my knuckles and fishing around with a bent coat hanger for wires rendered invisible by the duct work.

Oh well.

It has to be done...and I'm the cheapest technician I know that can get it accomplished.

Is it just me, or am I getting too old to do this crap?

Silence Is Golden

Too Busy To Write Or Talk...


After spending most of the past three days of "Indian Summer" here in Eastern Tennessee on the Banks of the Mighty Tennessee River finishing up the seasonal details in my yard and other outdoor endeavors, today found me with a basement workshop full of fancy do-dads and "electronic components" needing drilling and bolting and wiring together...

thus the silence here on the blog for the past day and one half.

I've got an owners manual to write and a PLC program to finish and a bunch of metal chips to make and wiring to run and you'll just have to excuse me if the words are few and far between for a while.

Of course there's always the chance that I'll hear or see something that will cause my head to explode but in the mean time feel free to entertain yourselves.

Regards Y'all...

Amen...And Bow Wow...

Monday Morning Smiles...





Thanks for the link Rodger...

I Wanna Go To Miami

It's Not Just A Famous Jewish Whine...


I did that...just take off for Miami...on a whim once about this time in November about fifteen years ago...

I say that you're definitely getting old when you spend all of your time comparing or explaining what you're doing today with what you were doing more than five or ten years past on the calendar.

Unfortunately I'm in that situation this week as I look at the weather forecast for south Florida and find myself wishing I could just buy a couple of tickets and jump on an airplane and a few short hours later walk out into their airport parking lot into the 80 degree late fall dry heat and put my cares behind me.

Then I'd get a Taxi and wander over to South Beach District and find a little hotel with a room to stay in a few blocks from the beach, and I'd find a nearby Cuban restaurant and eat their ethnic food and watch the crazy things going on (like the bar fight I saw once that lasted for near a half hour...), then tonight after watching Georgia Tech pound Duke in College Football I'd stagger back home to the hotel and curl up in the bed and let my ever greying, ever balding head rest for five or six hours.

Things sure have changed since those days...some good...some bad...and I guess Miami is beyond my reach now but you can't blame an old Ramblin' Wreck for wishing...

Go YELLOW JACKETS!!!

Every Game's A Critical Game

If Your Life Is Football...


OK...I hate to admit that I've planned my past TWO Saturdays around the TV schedule, and this Saturday is no exception.

I can do anything I want today except between 12 Noon and about 4 PM, when Georgia Tech is being televised trying to extend their win streak to eight in a row in this season--bringing the total to ten wins against one loss with Georgia and the ACC championship game left to play later this month and in early December.

Of course as is usual in college football and particularly as I've seen in my 32 years following Georgia Tech...ANYTHING can happen today...but regardless I seem to have an all consuming urge to watch the proceedings because it's been nearly TWENTY years since the North Avenue Trade School had anything close to the kind of team they're fielding this year.

It's not often Tech's in the top 10 in the sport, and today they put their Number 7 ranking on the line and with the other match ups out there Tech could advance a notch or two if there happens to be an upset like Alabama getting beat by Mississippi State.

Now it's time to get back to programming I guess...

Back Home

And Busy As Heck...


So we're back home and now I'm up to my armpits in paperwork and boxes of "stuff" that arrived on my carport in my absence.

It's almost like Christmas morning except I'm five decades old and the "toys" are electronic hardware and technical publications and other nerdy do-dads.

I've been up since 2:30 AM sorting mail and stumbling around in the mire and mess which has ensued since depositing Missy the Turbo Pup and her Lockers and Sea Chests back in the living room.

The lawn guy has already been by with his leaf blower raising a dust storm in an effort to piss me off, and now I'm seriously leaning toward taking a shower and declaring an early happy hour before coming home and warming up some of my thawed out "Green Butt" White Chili and making a giant pone of cornbread.

Time to make some calls and chase the yard guy around with a check I guess.

Regards Y'all...

South Bound Again

Afternoon Journey...


Man...the past two days have been a whirlwind of mental activity here in Indianapolis.

The PLC (programmable logic controller) class was free, but in my opinion it was one of the best if not the best technical classes I've ever attended.

The people at Horner go out of their way to give you a good understanding of their products and their proprietary programming environment, and every one of the twenty plus people in attendance either already had their equipment in their plants or like me were building new products based on one of their controllers.

Everyone was on time every morning and sat there for eight hours (they fed us lunch also) and absorbed information like a room full of sponges.

My head is about to explode with ideas and I can't wait to get back home and get started building this first custom control panel and writing the software to control it before I forget something.

We have another session today that's scheduled to last until 2 PM, but I think I'll be able to slide out the door around lunch and be back on the banks of the Mighty Tennessee River at the Turbo Pup compound by Happy Hour.

Wish us a safe journey free of encounters with texting morons driving habits...if you will...

Have you Asked Your Doctor About "Dememetiaforyou"?

(Hexamexatexa-ibuprofin HCL)


Picture a TV ad scene with a middle aged couple walking barefoot on the beach.

Now Que the baritone announcer's voice:


"Feeling Stupid?

Feeling Sad?

Feeling Broke?

Feeling Bad?

Got Bunions?

Ingrown Toe nails?

Got an Attitude?

Or Just don't give a damn?

Then Dementiaforyou may be just for you...ask your doctor for a dose or two..

That's right folks...

Hang around until we all have the Democrat's "Universal Health care," and maybe your doctor will subscribe prescribe some for you.

Dementiaforyou--the all-in-one FDA approved chemical solution for all those little nagging problems in life...

After all...You're only half a person without it.***"

Now the disclaimer scrolls past in the final five seconds:

*** THE FINE PRINT
May cause hives; hernias; hemorrhoids; heat rash; hacking; hypertension; hepatitis; homosexuality; homophobia; sleepwalking; sleep talking; whooping cough; anal seepage; rectal bleeding; incontinence; excessive desires to gamble; being unusually happy; being unusually sad; becoming suicidal; erections lasting longer than 4 hours; no erection at all; sex change; being an angry insensitive blogger; unusual desires for sex involving weed eaters, chickens, kitchen appliances, shop tools, fruits, vegetables, and antique automobiles; death; stroke; strange food craveings; cancer; constipation; conniption fits and/or Shivering Shaking Screaming Heebie Jeebies.

Consult your physician if any or all of the above symptoms or conditions occur.




Heh...

The World According To Archie Bunker

I Agree Completely...









(that was broadcast over twenty years ago, and it's frightening how true it still is today...)

"She Slopped Her Dripper"

Hee Haw Greatest Hits


I remember watching this live back when it first ran on TV...



If you're not from the south you may not laugh, but I remember the skit and many of the words to this day

The Cone Of Death Approaches

Governor Jindal Trys To Make Lingering Katrina "Victims" Get The Heck Out...


So I'm sitting here checking out the weather this morning and notice that my Mom and the Family Farm may be in the path of Hurricane Cousin Ida when she comes calling later this week.

But wait a minute, I also heard earlier where Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal had already declared a state of emergency in New Orleans for fear that Carl Rove and George Bush were sending another Hurricane after the poor and disenfranchised residents of the lower fifth ward and other areas of the city STILL FIRMLY SITUATED BELOW SEA LEVEL FOUR YEARS after Katrina swamped the place.

Any way, it looks like the storm is going to take an eastward turn and be further downgraded into a weak hurricane or a strong tropical storm as it comes inland somewhere between the Mississippi/Alabama line and Appalachacola, FL.

Me and members of my family have been there and done this drill dozens of times in the past 75 years and as I see it there's no reason to run to the grocery store and buy all of the bread and milk and peanut butter--but I'll leave the decision up to each individual.

We've never once in the middle of the aftermath of a half dozen strikes and near misses by the eyes of Hurricanes (Opal and Elloise come to mind) seen hide nor hair of FEMA at our houses and we're still alive and paying "our fair share" of taxes today.

If I were not going to be 450 miles north of ground zero I would gas up my car and probably make sure I had batteries for the radio and flashlights, but then again I did that every year in the spring when I lived within a mile of the Atlantic on the Georgia Coast and a hundred yards from the beach on the Gulf in Mexico Beach, FL.

I never ONCE had to sit around and wait for the GOVERNMENT to knock on my door and tell me to take steps to protect my life and property.

Did I mention that I still have a 1.5 KW generator packaged in the original shrink wrap box...left over from when we moved to St. Simons Island in 2003?

So I can just hear it now...after a quiet Atlantic/Gulf hurricane season, the wild eyed, sniveling, booger eating, eco-friendly tree hugging patchouli tie-died smelly former hippy tree huggers will announce, at a press conference with Owl Gore, that this mid-November Hurricane is yet additional PROOF of anthropological (i.e. man made for those of you that attended business admin classes at the University of Georgia) climate change.

Just watch...

They will...

Bet me...

OK...I'm shifting gears here now Boss...

What really got me started yelling this morning was when I started calculating the total amount of atmosphric Oxygen a valve I'm rebuilding sees in the process of handling 650 CFM of air, 24/7, 51 weeks a year at 40 bars of pressure (588 pounds per square inch.)

I had to look up a chart with the composition of air in order to run the calculations, and when I did I found this chart:

Check that crap out...BY WEIGHT...

Nitrogen 75.5%

Oxygen 23.2%

and the HATED Global warming Villain...Carbon Dioxide???

CO2 equals only...

Ready?

0.05% of our ENTIRE ATMOSPHERE

That's FIVE ONE HUNDRETHS OF ONE PERCENT...

Got that?

So IF I continue to smoke Cigars...

And IF I continue to drive my old Suburban getting 9 MPG

And IF I continue to burn my branches and leaves in my back yard in a big smoky pile

And IF I continue to use my charcoal grill

And IF I continue to just not give a crap in general about my "Carbon Footprint"...

And IF I continue to run my mouth at an accelerated rate...

Then...

after all of that stuff happens without government intervention.

AND THE LEVELS OF ATMOSPHERIC CARBON DIOXIDE DOUBLE OVER THE REST OF MY LIFE...

Carbon dioxide will still, on that horrible, yes even possibly cataclysmic day in the eyes of Owl Gore and the sniveling booger eating crowd et. al.

...

Only be...

0.10% of the total mass of our atmosphere.

Now in light of these statistics, DOES anybody else out there besides me wonder what all the noise is about?


Yea...I thought so...

Dammit...

The Turbo Pup's Back On The Road

And The Blog Silence Might Be Deafening...


About 9 AM this morning, after the local rush hour settles down, Missy the Turbo Pup and her entourage are blasting out of Knoxtown up I-75 toward a rendezvous with a 2-1/2 day technical training class in Indianapolis, Indiana.

This will be her...

Wait...how many states has the Turbo Pup visited since she was born in 2006?

Let's see...

Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi (she was born there), Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia ...

So now with the addition of Indiana Missy the Turbo Pup will have traveled to SIXTEEN STATES in her soon to be three year long life.

Not bad for a little 11 pound miniature long haired Dachshund, eh?

I keep talking about getting some of those state stickers like people put on the back of their motor homes and travel trailers and putting them on the outside of her travel crate.

She's been crate trained since she was 2 months old and weighed 2 pounds, but we never lock her up in the thing. She just uses it like a den or "safety deposit box" and wanders in and out on her own hiding left over pieces of rawhide chews and wads of napkin and old paper towel tubes we give her to play with.

Still, if we have the room (thus far only one exception last summer) the crate, her bed, her blankets, and a giant assortment of toys go along with her in the back of the old Chrysler 300 when she hits the road.

Half the back seat is generally enough room for her royalness and her "lockers and sea chests" as I call them.

I get one seat and space in half of two suitcases along with room for a few hanging clothes, and of course the gasoline bills.

The weather over our route both ways looks good so far, and it will be good to get to interact in person with some of my technical peers for a change since I've basically been a hermit working alone from my office since my employer closed down last December 19th.

Time now to clean up my desk and do some final packing, and maybe catch another hour or two of sleep before hitting the road.

Wish us a safe trip and protection from the driving/texting morons...if you will...

Engineer(s) Gone Wild?

One Went "Postal" In Orlando...


Anyone but me wonder what the heck was/is going on down in Orlando this week?

First I hear that some guy has run into an office building in downtown and shot the place up, killing one person and wounding five more.

Then I hear that the guy was shooting in the offices of an engineering firm and was an engineer himself.

I know that for various product related reasons that some people might want to kill engineers--like I for a while wanted to maim the guys that designed the 1984 Pontiac Fiero when it spent most of its first six months of my ownership in the Dealer's shop rather than in my Garage.

But still...

Engineers SHOOTING PEOPLE?

I thought that usually if an engineer wanted to kill you, their weapon of choice would be to BORE YOU TO DEATH.

You know--talking about interesting things like fluid flow and heat transfer coefficients, soil bearing capacity, electrical impedance, or the effect of long chain polymer chemistry on the tensil strength of ultra high density polyethylene (UHDPE for short.)

Although I can talk about all of that stuff, I generally don't break it out in casual conversation in a bar or at Thanksgiving dinner...BUT...

If I really wanted to hurt you I would generally assault you through your ears and mind (and possibly your eyes if you had to look at me while I was talking.)

On second thought, I guess that some people could think that engineers routinely kill people when airliners fall out of the sky or bridges collapse or their new white Toyota Prias squashes like a grape when it comes in contact with the front bumper of my old Chevy Suburban at 60 MPH.

Problem is, those events are hardly ever attributed to an actual engineering design flaw...they're usually owner and/or operator induced failures.

For instance, most "uncontrolled contact with terrain events" a.k.a. "air disasters" are initially caused by inexperienced pilots flying into bad weather or running a perfectly good airplane out of gas.

And military and commercial aircraft, while closely scrutinized, usually fail because of the enormous numbers of hours that they're in the air and issues relating to maintenance mistakes or the shear parts fatigue of their demanding daily operations.

And you certainly can't blame the engineers when they are technically unable to build a box with an electric motor and wheels that gets 50 MPG and can also withstand a potential assault by a 6,000 pound Suburban or a 80,000 tractor trailer rig when they try to occupy the same piece of asphalt.

All of these theoretical incidents involve owners and operators assuming what they believe to be an acceptable amount of calculated RISK based on the initial cost of the equipment and the operating and maintenance cost of the systems (plane, train, car, bridge, whatever) after purchase.

Bridges that have lasted 40 years don't fall down because of an engineering design flaw, they generally fail because the local, state, and federal governments take the gas taxes from the bridge users at the gas pump and spend the "highway" money in other areas like child welfare programs or "stimulus packages" rather than inspecting and repairing and possibly REPLACING the bridge before it drops a couple of mini-vans full of children into the Ohio River.

And modern airliners don't fly safely for 10 years and then have a wing or engine tear off while your tray table and seat back are in the upright and locked position. It's not the guy with the calculator and pocket protector's inadequacy.

Things end up breaking off these days as a result of everyone wanting to fly from Atlanta to Detroit for $199 a seat--a price less that the cost of the gasoline I'd burn in my Suburban-and the Airlines having to cut costs to provide that kind of ticket pricing and still stay solvent.

As a result of the flying public wanting cheap air fair, the airlines are forced to cut quality of service, charge fees for everything except using the restroom, and fly older and older planes by doing things like major rebuilds--called "life cycle extension programs."

Then they and their low fair paying passengers end up together in uncharted performance territory in a process of delaying or avoiding the purchase of new zillion dollar airplanes.

And what is the one additional thing that the safety of bridges and airplanes and automobile have in common?

G O V E R N M E N T.

We have the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration), the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board), and the NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) all spending BILLIONS if not TRILLIONS of taxpayer dollars each year writing laws and rules and legislating things like that your car has to automatically lock the doors and turn on the headlights, yet about 44,000 people die each year in auto accidents.

And all of the states have passed seat belt laws, but don't a bunch of people still die while not wearing a seat belt? They drive at the risk of paying a "fine"--actually more practically a tax--for exercising their free choice and thereby assuming a level of risk they are personally accountable for.

...taking a big breath here...

Now back to my original point.

I bet $20 bucks that within the MONTH that some stupid eco friendly sniveling, booger eating, tree hugging liberal progressive politician is going to call for congressional hearings on gun control and trying to bring back the "Brady Bill" and the so called "Assault Weapons Ban."

They just can't help themselves, and with the events of the past week their "never waste an disaster" mentality will drive them over the edge again.

I repeat over and over and over that we don't need new laws limiting LAW ABIDING citizens rights of gun ownership and further, their rights to carry a gun.

IT'S ALREADY AGAINST THE LAW TO WALK UP AND SHOOT SOMEONE, and if more trained and licensed private citizens were allowed to legally carry guns into churches and theaters and on college campuses, most of the events making the news over the past ten or twenty years would have been limited else prevented outright.

Further, it was already ILLEGAL--an outright gun ban was in place-- on of all places the military base in Texas, yet that asshole simply drove on base with not one but two guns and shot a bunch of un-armed soldiers and civilians.

I somehow find it amazing that the military has taken a policy of locking almost every one of their guns and ammo up and relying on the MP's and private security forces to maintain their security functions.

I bet if the guy had walked into a US military base in 1944 or 1952, pulled out a gun and fired a shot, that twenty different people would have drawn their own weapons and blown his miserable head off.

Instead, in 2009 some guy walks into a government mandated "gun free zone" and fires OVER A HUNDRED FREAKING ROUNDS before someone manages to draw a bead on him and drop him (I wish they had killed the bastard so we won't have to spend ten million on a trial.)

I see it like this...most of these crazy spineless morons like the Texas and Florida (and Virginia Tech and Columbine) shooters would never walk into a Saloon in California in 1875 and start shooting if they knew that everyone else in the room had one if not two guns on their person, would they?

If they did they would get what they deserved and the only "due process" remaining when the smoke cleared would be to pick up the pieces and mop the floor.

Anybody agree with me here?

Yes?

No?

Well, finally, in closing (and in jest,) don't be surprised if, as a result of the Orlando shootings, some kook legislator will try to pass a new law designed to require Engineers to register in a database like "sexual predators." (I think maybe they call it the State PE Licensing Board...Roy)

As a result they'll also probably want to make us stay at least a hundred yards away from libraries and technical bookstores.

And then if someone opens a computer store in my neighborhood, being an engineer I'd likely be forced to sell my house and move at least a mile away.

These same kinds of laws and procedures and mandates are in effect today at government mandate in the name of "protecting women and children", and you see the outcome...children are still disappearing and dieing at an alarming rate.

Government can't control anyone but law abiding citizens, and all I'm saying here Ladies and Gentlemen is that you just watch what happens, and try to think logically and intelligently rather than reacting emotionally.

In my considered Redneck opinion, "There aught to be a law..." isn't always true, and I don't want to give up any more of my Constitutional and God given freedoms to our hysterical, power grabbing government.

Ultimate Home Workshop

I'm Now So Organized...I Can't Find Anything...


Sorry about the light blogging recently, but I have a good excuse...I'm happy to report that the last dust settled in my Basement yesterday afternoon.

OK...maybe the next to last dust.

That would be because like most men's home workshops...they're always a work in progress.

That said, I say that I'm finished with mine for now because:

A. I've run out of money

B. I'm tired of building the shop and I believe that it's time to actually get some WORK done in my "workshop."

In the past four weeks I've taken every single tool I own, and almost every single nut and bolt and nail--or at least the boxes containing same--and dusted them off and cleaned things out and sorted like things in with like things to the point that when everything went back on the shelves and bunkers and bins this morning I find myself wandering around in my own basement like an Alzheimer's patient in a Nuclear Plant (or maybe a shopping mall.)

For your enjoyment, here's a photo looking at the entry wall of the 20'x12' shop area. All of the doors in these pictures are recycled Luan doors I pulled out of the main house when I replaced them with painted 6 panel slabs last year.



The bi fold doors cover a computer workstation with keyboard shelf and room for a file cabinet and my technical books. Of course there's also the obligatory TV and radio...if I could get a recliner in the room Pat and Missy the Turbo Pup would never see me again except at dinner I'm afraid.



Here's a look at the old workbench that was in that spot in the basement when we bought the house. It's build out of giant salvage lumber from the original home owner's farm and weighs about 500# I guess. Like that red door there covering my paint cans and WD-40?



Here's the wall opposite the entry, again showing our old closet doors covering a whole wall of storage shelves that came with the house...



Here's the same wall with the doors open showing where all the tools and supplies I've carefully put away and then forgotten which storage tub they reside in...



And finally, here's the new electronics workbench, made out of the old master bathroom door and covered with a sheet of 3/4" plywood. If you look closely you'll notice that the legs fold up and the whole thing is hinged to the wall (the entire wall is made of old doors except about 6" in one corner) so it can fold down out of the way if I ever decide to build a 16' sail boat or an experimental airplane in my old age...



There's still new 50 Amp 220 Volt and 20 Amp 110 Volt electrical circuits to install for future equipment like a small welding machine and larger capacity air compressor, but in the mean time I'm settling for the rewired and extended 1963 electrical circuits augmented with a new #6 grounding wire/rod circuit in an effort to reduce the chances of frying either myself or the sensitive equipment that will take form on the new bench.

Any way...back to my original point, I need to build something...and to that end I've had UPS dropping off multiple boxes almost every day this week, and I did another trip today to the Home Depot electrical isle for things like wire ties and wire labels and other wiring management stuff.

There's still a wire and tool trip to Radio Shack and Granger and possibly Northern Tool, and in the mean time I'm still waiting on the touch screen PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) to arrive from Indianapolis.

Speaking of Indianapolis, coincidentally Pat and Missy the Turbo Pup and I will be up there next week for a three day training class on the PLC company's unique programming software. It's free if you'll pay your own per diem and we couldn't pass up the opportunity.

That, and we hadn't made a road trip in about a month and I didn't want to violate my personal and now company travel policies--one adventure every thirty days of at LEAST eight hours in round trip duration.

I'm so excited about this chance to advance skills I haven't used since back in the early 1980's, and things have come so far technically since then (i.e. SIMPLER TO UNDERSTAND THAN EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPHICS) that I hope it's true that almost anyone with programming experience can become a PLC expert in short order.

I guess that it's time to do some paper work and a little news surfing...and why don't you join me in praying for the dead and wounded and their families out at Ft. Hood--yet additional victims of another wild eyed believer in that ever peaceful religion of Islam.



(&%$#@!ing towel heads...)

Stinky Cheese And Web Page Printing

Things I Keep Forgetting To Admit Or Complain About...


Tonight I'm feeling lazy and distracted as seems to be usual recently, but while eating some leftovers as a snack and printing some vendor data sheets on laser measurement systems (try not to swoon) I remembered a couple of things I've thought about writing about but never can remember when I get the Blogger dashboard open and my fingers on the keyboard.

First of all, anyone but me out there like "stinky cheese??"

(Wipe the foot and genitalia images out of your mind and try to stay with me here...I'm trying to make a point.)

Seriously, today in my household we hardly ever or never buy "American Cheese" slices any more or generic orange blocks of Velveeta "cheese food products" or anything else without the word "Swiss" or "Gouda" or "Sharp" on the label.

Things get stranger and more expensive every day it seems.

Just show me the words:

Cow Feta?

Horse Feta?

Sheep Feta?

Deep Veined Blue Cheese?

Imported Organic Crumbly Goat Cheese?

(and possibly make me have to take out a loan to buy a couple of pounds of the stuff?)

NOW YOU'RE TALKING...

Let's face it...I like my stinky cheese these days, and the older I get the stronger I like it.

Maybe it's because I'm trying to have an excuse for my breath and armpits and butt smelling like they do (OK TMI), or it's just that possibly I'm hoping that the cheese covers the odors I emit after a couple of days wandering around the Turbo Pup compound in the same pair of socks.

Any way, what brought this to mind was that last night we thawed out a couple of medium sized Beef tenderloins--about an inch and a half thick each--and I sliced a big pocket into the inside of each of them and then seared everything on each side in a big skillet on the stove, then finished them to about medium doneness in the oven.

Then I danced around opening their insides up and I stuffed those suckers with a portion of nice strong crumbled blue cheese.

After adding some bacon and sauteed mushrooms on top and some smashed red potatoes containing a quarter pound of butter and more blue cheese on the side, Pat and Missy the Turbo Pup and I dined, and then I collapsed back into the bed on top of the omni-present heating pad to recover from the day's basement shop construction efforts.

Then about 1 AM I awakened and decided to work on some more paperwork and do some more work on the Internet...bringing me to my final bitching moment this morning...

Ready?

Does anyone but me think that all website designers also own stock in the office paper companies?

No?

Yes?

I think that they do.

Otherwise, why is it that almost every time you print out a web page you get one or two or three pages, followed by that infuriating LAST page that has nothing but possibly a disclaimer and a header/footer?

Understand?

I've got near an entire REAM of paper in my recycle/reuse bin with only one or two lines of text on them...all MEANINGLESS AND USELESS to the task at hand when I was printing.

Am I nuts?

Am I petty?

Am I just Paranoid?

OK

In the words of PopEye..."I am what I am and that's all that I am..."

Regards Y'all...

Waking The Dead

I Should Have Thought Of These Alarm Clocks...

A New Load Of Lumber

And A Sore Back...


Yet another truck showed up in my driveway yesterday afternoon.

It was my fault, because I stopped by and ordered it from a local building supply (not Lowe's or Home Depot) after making the obligatory bi-weekly trip to Staples and Home Depot.

I don't know what I'm thinking sometimes when the 75 pound slabs of 3/4 inch thick plywood show up in my carport.

How do you get a 4 foot by 8 foot sheet of wood into your basement past a kitchen and dining room table, around a corner through a door, down the stairs, around another 90 degree turn into it's future resting place?

My only solution is to cut it up into the slabs and strips in the sizes it will ultimately reside in, then make three or four trips with Pat and Missy the Turbo Pup hanging onto the other end rather than falling down the stairway on my head with the full sized slab of laminated wood on top of me.

In addition to A/B grade plywood, there was also five sheets of 1/4 pegboard intended to line the open spaces in the new wall framework and cover part of the freshly painted concrete wall.

Bad news is my back and right shoulder is giving me fits so I've been relegated to slumping at my desk and hanging out in the bed reclining on the heating pad for part of the past 48 hours.

Add to that organic pain the neurological costs of the spasms sent through my spine when I read the newspaper and watch the TV news and I hope you understand why I'm currently feeling every single minute of my past 50 years in my forehead and butt.

Time to go clean my guns and hone my blades I guess...

They Changed My Clock

And Winter Came Sneaking Back (and Obscure facts no one but me cares about)...


Spring forward...Fall back.

Today is possibly my least favorite day in every year because I'm forced to give up an hour of late afternoon daylight in return for early morning daylight...something those that know me also know is of little value to me personally most of the time.

Thinking about it, isn't it amazing that we allow the GOVERNMENT to control something as simple as our Clocks and the time displayed thereon?

I know that it sounds like a good idea in some ways, but seriously...

Today even the counting and progression of time has slowly been politicized over the past 140 or so years since Sir Sandford Flemming, a Canadian Railway Planner and Engineer came up with the ideal of dividing the planet into 24 "Meridian" time zones running North/South around the globe.

This National Geographic article gives even more information which I previously didn't know but had seen the results of previously...that being that the individual STATE governments have more control over the time on your VCR (you know, that thing in your living or bedroom continuously flashing 12:00 all the time) than the federal government actually has.

The Feds only control the the actual time zones, not the recognition of daylight savings time.

As I understand it, through the years the boundaries of time zones and recognition of "Daylight Savings Time" have been manipulated for personal and political reasons...generally in the name of money and/or "commerce."

For instance, there are two good examples I personally know about here in the south--one involving a large textile company and the second a Paper Mill which has gone out of business and been torn down.

If you look at this map:



you'd think that the division between the central and eastern time zone runs exactly down the border between Alabama and Georgia---picking up the Chattahoochee River around West Point Georgia and continuing across the Florida Panhandle on the river basin to the Gulf of Mexico.

If that were the case, you'd be WRONG.

I can't find a detailed map but I know from driving up and down I-85 about a million times since the late 1970's that the now defunct company West Point Pepperell Mills was able to get the eastern time zone extended down US 29 (and now Interstate 85) in Eastern Alabama in order to have all of their plants between West Point, Georgia and Lanette, Alabama on the same clock each day.

Makes sense I guess that all of the employees working on both sides of the river were working on the same clock time, but it took an act of congress to pass a law saying what time was on individual citizens clocks on the nightstands and wrist watches.

Then down in Gulf County, Florida things are even more convoluted...based on the whims of the Old Saint Joe Paper Company...now called simply "St. Joe" and existing solely as a real estate development and timber company. Today they are either the first or second largest land owner in the entire state of Florida depending on whose statistics you're quoting.

Here's the map showing how the Eastern Time Zone again marches off to the west off the basin of what has become at this point the Apalachicola River (the merger of the Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers into lake Seminole.


(From 12 Mile Circle)

The neat thing was that when I spent a year living in nearby Mexico Beach, Florida on New Years we were able to go east a couple of miles to Beacon Hill, celebrate at midnight, then come back across the time zone line and do it all again an hour later.

Simple things for simple minds I guess, but I take my entertainment where I can find it these days.

Time to go work on a proposal now...y'all try to get your internal clocks adjusted and get some sleep.

Last Vestiges of Summer

The Leaves Are Falling And It's WARM...


So I'm sitting here in the wee hours of the morning, pounding away on the computer keys getting some paperwork done in between fits of reading the news and shuffling files in my office--the newly declared International Headquarters of Plastics Engineering Technologies...situated on the lovely banks of the Mighty Tennessee River (IHPETSOLBMTR for short.)

Then I just noticed that it's Seventy Three Degrees Fahrenheit at 3:10 AM.

My front porch is beckoning...cigar and my partially read copy of Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" in hand.

See y'all later...

My Life's Kicking My Butt

Who's Idea Was This Anyway???


OK

I've got two new exterior doors that still need staining and finishing. One still needs the holes and slots cut for the knobs and hinges and dead bolt.

I've got two sets of closet bi fold doors that need painting.

I've got two fluorescent lights to finish wiring and hang in the basement.

I've got a load of 1x4 and 1x2 trim lumber to install in the new and improved workshop and International World Headquarters for my new company...

(drum roll please...)

Plastics Engineering Technologies, Inc.

We got our first order for a PLC control panel last Friday and I've been pulling what little hair I have left out trying to get all the components on order.

And in the mean time I have near a half acre of yard that really needs some TLC and general fall maintenance and since today is the last 70 degree day in sight and it's supposed to rain for most of the next week...

you'll have to excuse me if the blogging continues to be sporadic at best.

Regards Y'all

First New Manned Rocket In 30 Years?

Obama Has File On Desk Under Afghanistan Troop Plans...


While the media was busy writing about "The Balloon Boy" and the President's basketball skills and FOX News obvious Right Wing bias, I've been paying attention to NASA's being busy readying the first test flight of a new generation of space vehicles designed to place men in orbit after the Space Shuttles retire...eventually evolving into having the capability to put Homo Sapiens back on the moon sometime in the year 3000 or something.

Take a look at the Ares I-X rocket on the pad in the background with the Space Shuttle in the foreground...

(From http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/091026-nasa-ares-1x-shuttle-snapshots.html)

While I'm happy that NASA has finally been allowed to address the replacement of the aging shuttle fleet, it also disgusts me that it's going to take longer to get a new spacecraft developed and get back to the Moon than it did in the 1960's.

How can it take a few rooms full of men wielding calculators with more computational power than the original Apollo Command Module's computer LONGER than it did a bunch of nerds with slide rules and pocket protectors to design a new moon rocket?

Have we fallen that far intellectually?

Or is the problem more insidious and basic?

Besides the obvious POLITICAL over/undertones, could it be that we as Americans--American Engineers--aren't cut from the same cloth as our predecessors of 40 years ago?

Do we not have the design and conceptual skills, are our colleges not teaching the fundamentals and leading us to prosper mentally and advance science at the same rate seen in the second half of the 20th century?

Or is it just that EVERYTHING is so damned %$#@ up and mucked up and glued together with the slimy funk of cultural and social decay...weighted down with the dumbing down of the American people in general...and held back by artificial demands for considerations of false self esteem...bankrupt under the burden of government mandates and funding of social "entitlement" programs which divert perfectly good money to the clamoring masses with baggy assed pants singing the lyrics of the latest rap/hip-hop song from memory while at the same time being unable to quote the pythagarean theorem.

Naaaaa...it's probably just bad luck or a result of the war on Terror/Al Quaeda and possibly the effects of global warming I guess...


That will be all...for now...

Dammit...

Only The G O V E R N M E N T...

Would Make A Company Write Something Like This


So there I was, happily minding my own business when I found these words written in a "Green" bid solicitation this evening:

"While performing the duties of this job, the employee is frequently required to stand; walk; sit; and use hands to finger, handle, or feel. The employee is occasionally required to reach with hands and arms and talk or hear. The employee must occasionally lift and/or move up to 10 pounds. Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision, distance vision, and ability to adjust focus."


But wait a minute...here I was thinking that "finger[ing], handling, and feeling" had pretty much been outlawed as being against the law in every state but San Francisco and Holland?

Any way, after I wiped the spit off my flat screen 22" HP monitor I ended up writing about it here on the blog tonight.

I've already wasted thirty minutes on the concept pacing around the room and pulling at what little hair I have on my head...

It's really a wonder I ever get anything done because I come across stupid crap like this all the time, but then I remember that my dear Mother told me the old "not saying anything nice...say nothing at all thing" adage but if I actually followed that...

I'd never say anyting at all.

Then I probably could get a G O V E R N M E N T J-O-B because everyone would think I was deaf and dumb "physically challenged" because all I would ever do is grunt and puff my cheeks up in an attempt to add extra volume to my head in order to keep it from EXPLODING.

Now where's my giant tub of ice water and my snorkel???

My Thought For The Day

Mispelling Leads To Deep Philisophical Insight...


"The only thing between having a hose and a house is u."



(If you have to ask you probably blame the government for being homeless.)



heh...

I Feel Like A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court

Actually More Like An Alabama Redneck In A Sea Of Orange...


Have I mentioned that living in a "college town" pretty much sucks if you happen to not have attended the "town's college"?

Well...it does...at least until the team that's in season (as opposed to the game that's in hunting season like "wabbits" or ducks) loses three or four games.

Then things settle down and quieten up a good bit and you can stand to wander around in public without being assaulted.

Thus my situation here this morning on the banks of the mighty Tennessee River...in the middle of the 2009 College football season.

When you do go out for drinks or dinner or shopping here even with U of T's three losses to date we still see probably 50% of the people wearing orange or at least sporting a big orange T on their heads and breasts and backs and butt and feet and car bumpers.

The local newspaper--the Knoxville Sentinel--is equally difficult to stomach.

If the team is winning, the front page has a story and three quarters of the sports section is UT blaa blaaa blaaaaaa.

Likewise, if the team is losing, the front page has a story and three quarters of the sports section is UT boo hooo hooooo.

You can hardly EVER find any mention of anything except SEC sports...they'll instead print stories about the recruiting prospects of the UT Pick-up-sticks and bowling teams rather than write about anything going on in Atlanta or the ACC or in anywhere else in the country for that matter.

I guess I can understand, but still...the Oak Ridge National Lab and ranks of Tennessee Valley Authority offices are full of Auburn and Clemson and more importantly...

GEORGIA TECH ENGINEERS.

Yet God forbid they should ever mention GT's success thus far this season as UT faces being stomped by Alabama on Saturday.

And ME?

I'm faced knowing the Tech faces the University of Virginia at noon today in Charlottesville and I'm afraid that the Raycom broadcast won't be on our local moronic Comcast schedule.

So any way, I've been wandering around town in my GT shirts just for fun and last night at dinner I happened to end up sitting adjacent to an older Tech alum who was equally happy to find a fellow Rambling Wreck to talk to.

We spent a half hour swapping stories about the good old days down at the North Avenue Trade School, then I came home and went back to my new grind managing a new Website I'm developing and working on some proposals.

BTW...the company I incorporated just got it's first small order yesterday, so we're off and running and hopefully I'm no longer semi-retired/unemployed.

Of course it will take about twenty more orders like this to make some semblance of a living, but it's a start after a great deal of soul searching and planning and false starts over the past 10 months in limbo.

Time for a nap now...and wish me luck...if you will...

Slackard Video Blogging

I'm Still VERY Busy...


Take a look/listen at George Carlin's take on "Saving The Planet"...

(WARNING: George's usual coarse language...probably not safe for work if you work somewhere which monitors your internet usage...)







All I have to say is heh...

Today's Humor

Lazy Bloggin Yields New Commedian?


Anyone but me never heard of "Mrs. Hughes"?

Here...take a listen and try not to blow your coffee out your nose...





Thanks again as always to Rodger over at Curmudgeonly & Skeptical

Haunted By "Cash For Clunkers"

I Told Everyone So...


I think some people thought I was crazy when I got heated up when I wrote More thoughts on cash for clunkers earlier.

Well...it looks like my predictions and economic analysis was was pretty darn spot-on, as reported in this News Paper story:

Berks dealers say federal clunkers program has made cheap, used vehicles harder to find

Dealers say program has made cheap, used vehicles harder to find
By Mike Urban
Reading Eagle

In her search for a cheap, used minivan for her and her husband, Krissy Dieroff has visited seven dealerships across Berks and Schuylkill counties in the last week, but to no avail.

"There's not much to pick from, and the ones we do find are overpriced," said Dieroff of Auburn, Schuylkill County, while browsing the lot of a city dealership on Monday.

Dieroff blames the shortage of inexpensive used cars on the federal cash-for-clunkers program, in which almost 700,000 used vehicles were traded in for newer, more fuel-efficient vehicles, and then scrapped.

continue reading here...

See ladies & gentlemen, the sniveling, booger eating, tree hugging, Kumbaya singing patchouli stinking, grown-up 1960's hippies currently residing in Washington DC working under job titles with the words "Economic" or "Economics" in them don't really know shit from shineola...

of if they do they just ignore the realities in pursuit of their own hidden agenda.

Either way the Voters should be PISSED OFF when things like this...so called "Government" taking 700,000 vehicles off the road in the name of helping prevent climate change...ends up hurting the very people they claim to be helping in the process.

Now just you wait for phase two of this government program to kick in...GIVING vouchers to "working families" to help offset the higher vehicle costs coming as result of phase one. Or maybe like some kind of mutant game show or Publishers Clearinghouse they'll just show up in peoples driveways with a new Prius or Corvette.

As usual, I have to go now and soak my head...

Wookin' Pa Nub In Ah Da Wong Paces

Having One Of My Buh-Weet Moments...


Sorry, but I don't have crap to say worth listening to this morning.

Imagine that?

I guess some say that's true most of the time, BUT...

In lieu of my normal original piercing political commentary and insightful wit, I suggest that you just go here and watch this silly video from the Eddie Murphy's SNL days:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHiZ15x6Vt4


Then laugh with me at this clip:




Finally, I couldn't stop Googling and as a result I found another one of my SNL favorites of Dan Aykroyd doing a drunken Julia Child:




And thus this morning's blogging is saved with cheap Internet Videos.

heh ...

I have "Zero Tolerance" For "Zero Tolerance"

Dumbasses Take Control Of Our Planet and Edumacational System?


I happily, heartily, and with great hubris admit today that in my day I brought all kinds of stupid, non-essential crap to various public schools in the late 1960's and early to mid 1970's.

That said, I'm also sorry to report that if it were up to the current bunch of spineless, mindless so-called teachers and "administrators", emasculated eviscerated by and because of the pandering politicians making things represented to be "LAWS" over the past 35 years, I'd never have made it past the 11th grade because I'd have spent all of my time wearing prison pinstripes.

Then in college I proceeded to build things out of Plexiglas's tubing designed to break national and international drug laws, and spent a good deal of time carrying around a trumpet and a bottle of Jack Daniels in my boot when it was outlawed in a college football stadium.

Yet today I survived without killing anyone I'm aware of (unless they died laughing at my antics) and I sit here realizing that my punishment is watching how SUTPID many Americans have become.

That will be all...for now...

Donna Shalala Speaks...

Think About This Government Issued Bullshit...


(paraphrasing)

"those of us that have coverage [health insurance]...can't afford to continue to pay for those of us that don't under our current system..."


I ended up spitting on my computer monitor as I watched this former Clinton era Head of the Department of Health and Human Resources bumble around talking to FOX News Mike Huckaby...

because I have to remind everyone of this.

(taking a big breath here...)

THE GOVERNMENT HAS NO MONEY TO PAY FOR ANYTHING.


They print money, but unless SOMEONE works to pay for it in exchange, it's worth nothing.

Thus the government has to come to a house, knock on a door, point a gun, and proceed to STEAL the MONEY from SOMEONE in order to GIVE it to SOMEONE ELSE.

Food, clothing, a roof, or "HEALTHCARE", it's still paid for with someone else's money if you don't pay for it.

Are you actually willing to demand a portion of someone else's life, energy, and efforts in order to pay for something you mistakenly believe you have a RIGHT to?

Mathmatically Challenged Dumbasses Allowed To Ruin Run The Country

"Sports Writers" Only Marginally More Impaired Than "Political Pundits"...


I'm sorry Folks...but this rant has been coming on for a number of years now.

OK...having been a Georgia Tech sports fan...you can make that a little over thirty years now.

It's not anything contagious or genetic that makes my head spin when it comes to the topic of the politics of "sports rankings."

I guess it's basically just the rank odor which ALWAYS to my way of thinking seems to emanate from that little column in the newspaper and now on the Internet when you see how the minds of so-called "Sports writers" work...and then by default how the balance of college sports ranking systems work when everything is all said and done.

Unfortunately I think that the determination of political candidates on a national level (and possibly a state and local level) also suffers from a related fatal viral illness--but I'll get to that topic later if I have the time and energy.

Any hoooo, most of those of you that don't live under a rock or in a discarded packing crate under a bridge somewhere outside of Macon, Georgia probably know that the College Football rankings come out every Sunday afternoon/evening in the months of August through early January.

This year again is no exception.

I just tuned in my computer and found this evening's latest posting--looking for my GT Yellow Jackets to have launched into the top ten in the national rankings.

WRONG...

Solidly beating the number 4 team...Virginia Tech... a team which has occupied the spots of #6, #5, and then #4 in the AP "sports writers" poll for the past three weeks...only gets them the number 11 spot in the minds of these rocket scientists.

This after crashing out of their national rankings after falling from the number 14 spot because of getting beat by the AP's #20 ranked Miami team a month ago...the VERY SAME MIAMI TEAM which rose up to NUMBER NINE in the rankings that week after beating Georgia Tech at number 14?

WTF?

Let's face it people, if you are a college sports fan you have to understand the bias which exists in the "sports media" just like it exists in the national media covering everything from "the balloon boy" to political races.

Sports writers are, in my personal considered Redneck opinion, biased, narcissistic, idiotic assholes which let their personal interests and opinions threaten and influence what has grown over the past fifty years to be a MULTI-BILLION DOLLAR enterprise...

the final outcome of each season of NCAA DIVISION I COLLEGE FOOTBALL.

And that's the reason I don't run around baseing my self worth and public stature on something which is so arbitrarily determined by a bunch of idiots that couldn't make 20 on the ACT or 1200 on the SAT before going to the local community college to get their journalistic education.

And I suspect that three quarters of these "sports writers" were also relegated to the position of "bench warmer" during their limited high school or college "sports careers."

"Sports Writers" or just "Monday Morning Quarterbacks," I totally hate people that spend their lives running around like walking billboards with University of Florida or Miami or Ohio State clothing, when the only time they ever likely set foot on a given College Campus was on Saturday afternoon trying to buy scalper tickets to "THE BIG GAME."

True sports fans are exactly that...FANS

"Sports Writers" should be neutral, but that's not going to ever happen...as evidenced by teams like Boise State and Iowa and Cincinnati hanging around endlessly in the top rankings of their Fraternity poll while at the same time none of these impotent teams ever manage to actually PLAY anyone with any credentials except their own conference "straw man" dummy teams.

In closing I have this to say about THAT to all of the people running around wearing a closet load of RED or Orange or GREEN or whatever color clothes with a big W or T or U on their chest or ass...

GET A REAL LIFE!!

Dammit

Georgia Tech "Up-ends" Virginia Tech 28-23

Wramblings From An Old Rambling Wreck...


As my regular readers know, unlike most if not many men, I rarely spend much time watching or talking about sports.

On this blog you hardly ever see any time or words devoted to the topic.

It's not because I'm entirely unfamiliar with the subject, it's just that I've chosen such a difficult faction of sports enterprises to follow through the years.

Starting with the Atlanta Braves on Ted Turner's Channel 17 TBS Cable network during the Dale Murphy/Phil Nekro era...

and then including the NFL's Atlanta Falcons living and dieing with Steve Bartkowski in the 1970's, my understandably jaded long suffering professional sports affection/affliction has be relegated these days to yelling occasionally about Pat's beloved Pittsburgh Steelers

...else nothing at all.

On the college front, long after the tenure of Heisman, Alexander, and Dodd (and Rodgers and Curry and Ross) and having attended virtually every home football game on North Avenue at historic Grant Field in Atlanta from 1977 until the late 1990's following Georgia Tech, and having season tickets to their basketball program's games throughout the 1990's, I feel I can speak authoritatively to topics relating to young men battling their way through their academic career on the gridiron or basketball court, yet today I spend a limited amount of time and money following those sports on any basis that could be considered anything beyond casual interest.

That said, this 2009 NCAA Division I College football season has again brought my attention back to the TV screen because of Georgia Tech's potential re-emergence on the national football scene.

After losing badly while ranked #13 to a lower ranked Miami team and being dropped from the national rankings, the Yellow Jackets have scratched and clawed and stung their way back past the likes of North Carolina and survived a game with nearly 100 points combined against Florida State...

to culminate last night in pushing past number 4 ranked VIRGINIA TECH with a solid second half performance.

Georgia Tech didn't "dominate", but they (notice I say "they", not "WE" because I didn't play there in my years on campus) won in the end, and for the first time since their 1990 National Championship Season I'm a little bit excited about the possibilities for the balance of this season.

The single loss to date at Miami will most likely keep the team from vying for the national title, but a nice New Years Bowl invitation and a better outcome than last year's debacle in the Georgia Dome against LSU (I spent a couple hundred dollars attending that event) could be in the making for the "Old White and Gold" team.

I'm not making any predictions, but then again things could be pretty interesting come December.

Go Jackets...

Today's 1980's Audio Flashback

The Church..."Under The Milky Way Tonight"



UPDATE: 10/19/09

I did this song at the local Karaoke Bar Saturday night...easy for my vocal range and it got a good crowd response because no one ever does it but everyone remembers it when you sing it.

This Weekend's Audio Flashback

Mushy Mid 1970's Music...




Can anyone believe I used to have hair sorta like that?

One Bad Apple Spoils Every Barrel

Being Your Own Worse Enemy...


I just had an interesting experience this noontime today.

I called the US office of a company based in France which builds a machine that I have the opportunity to support on an O&M basis, and much to my surprise...

THEY WON'T SELL ME PARTS FOR THEIR MACHINE.

Without "Permission."

Paraphrasing the conversation with the polite lady with the title of "Spare Parts Manager":

"We have to have a letter from the company that owns our machine telling us that you are authorized to work on on their machines else we can't even QUOTE YOU PRICES for spare parts."

[silence...heavy breathing]

(Taking a big breath here boss)

WTF?

I guess that now I have to remind everyone of the story of Apple Computer Corporation, the company that owned the "Personal Computer" market until 1982/1983 when IBM came on the scene.

You see, Apple's downfall and relegation to second tier status in the computer business...living a life as the machine favored by the "arty/farty, dope smoking, patchouli stinking hippy and sniveling, booger eating, tree hugger crowd"...was their insistence on clinging to a "closed" hardware/software system architecture where the only innovations and advancements came from within APPLE and their tightly controlled community of software developers.

IBM, on the other hand, virtually gave away their drawings of their computer and begged smart people to write programs and build expansion cards for their "open architecture."

Anyone but me ever buy a "QuadRAM board with extra serial I/O ports" to get a PC with a system clock with a battery back up?

And the end result?

There's a ZILLION IBM PC clones out there today built by companies with names from Acer to Zenith, and computer store isles are filled with software to support the machines based on the ancestry of the old Intel 8080 CPU chip.

Meanwhile Apple languishes in a small back corner area of those same stores, having recently resorted to building their own machines that can act like a "normal" APPLE Computer while at the same time imitating a "REAL" IBM PC clone machine in order to try to draw in a larger user base. (A business associate of mine bought one for about $4000 and absolutely hates it and nevers uses it in "APPLE" mode.)


Needless to say that these French Assholes haven't heard the last from me, because I already have pricing from regular industrial supply houses for a box full of o-rings and gaskets and for the time being I'll just make do without them...probably giving my customer a LOWER price in the process.

Free trade isn't FREE, but my money is as green as the next guy's/gal's and I have a LONG memory and little allegiance to anything without red/white/blue on the label.

Dammit...

Stupid Crap Keeps Happening And The News People Swallow It...

Hook Line And Stinker Sinker


OK Everybody...I'm taking up a collection and building a really big balloon, and then I'm going to spend the afternoon hiding in my attic after I launch it.

Here's my design, modeled after the locally famous "peach" water tower up off I-85 in Gaffney, SC. (Just in case you're wondering, my next balloon design will be modeled after a giant tube of "Preparation H.")



If you see me coming you better watch out and AVOID anything falling out that you see heading your way...

after all...

If the US Congress can Crap all over everyone...

I don't see why I can't take the opportunity to fly past and dump a little well intended feces in your life just to show you that I care.

Heh...

Replacement Terminology For My "Sniveling, Booger Eating, Bed Wetting, Eco-Friendly, Communist, Global Warming Believing Socialist Liberals..."

I Need A New "Anachronism..."


All Liberals are democrats, and all democrats are twig eatin', tofu fartin', lily livered, Prius driving, America-hating, bleeding heart liberal, blinkered, Starbucks drinking, elitist, can't-we-all-just-get-along, granola eating, namby-pamby, Birkenstock wearing, tree hugging, long haired, pansy-assed, kumbaya-singing, Earth First, bed-wetting, patchouli wearing, dirty, smelly, dope smoking, bongo playing, arm pit haired women and feminized, armpit shaved men crying "Mother Earth is Gaia," tortured "artiste" types, Kennedy DNA bearing slugs

Thanks Again Rodge

Slackard Blogging

I Wish I'd Thought Of This Stuff First...


If a conservative doesn't like guns, he doesn't buy one.

If a liberal doesn't like guns, he wants all guns outlawed.


If a conservative is a vegetarian, he doesn't eat meat.

If a liberal is a vegetarian, he wants all meat products banned for everyone.


If a conservative is homosexual, he quietly leads his life.

If a liberal is homosexual, he demands legislated respect.


If a conservative is down-and-out, he thinks about how to better his situation.

If A liberal is facing living on the street, he demands to know who is going to take care of him.


If a conservative doesn’t like a talk show host, he switches channels.

Liberals demand that those they don’t like be shut down.


If a conservative is a non-believer, he doesn’t go to church.

A liberal non-believer wants any mention of God and religion silenced. (Unless it’s a foreign religion, of course!)


If a conservative decides he needs health care, he goes about shopping for it, or may choose a job that provides it.

A liberal with a festering foot or ear lobe...demands that the rest of us pay for his.


If a conservative slips and falls in a store, he gets up, laughs and is embarrassed.

If a liberal slips and falls in his own apartment, he grabs his neck, moans like he's in labor and then sues the apartment management.


If a conservative reads this, he'll forward it so his friends can have a good laugh.

A liberal, moving his lips as he scans these lines, will delete it because he's "offended"
(or comment anonymously calling me a racist and bigot.)

Slightly edited from my Blog Idol Rodger over at Curmudgeonly & Skeptical

Take A Look At This Crap

Then Join Me In Soaking Our Heads In Ice Water... (I'll Buy The Ice)

http://www.usdebtclock.org/

Will Somebody Call Someone...Will Somebody Do SOMETHING???

Here...Read These Words...


From my Blog Idols over at Powerline blog:

...What is meant by a "weak mandate" is that, in the current version of the Baucus bill, there is no requirement to buy health insurance at all until after 2013, and by 2017 the penalty for failing to buy health insurance still amounts to only about 15% of the cost of the insurance. Now, think about it: if you know that you don't have to buy health insurance when you are young and healthy, but if you should get sick, or just get older, you can apply for health insurance at any time and it will be illegal for the insurance company to turn you down, what would you do? Obviously, you would defer buying insurance unless and until you get sick. This means that the pool of those who are insured will be lower quality, and the cost therefore higher for everyone who buys insurance. It is as though you could wait until you die, and then your heirs can buy life insurance on you.

This isn't reform, it is stupidity.

It actually would be very easy to make health insurance cheaper. All we have to do is allow insurance companies to compete nationally instead of state-by-state and eliminate all mandates that limit consumer choice. It has been estimated that these simple reforms--which are not part of any of the Democrats' "reform" bills, for obvious reasons--would reduce health care costs by one-quarter to one-third. Instead of such common-sense reforms, the Dems are proposing Rube Goldberg measures that will make health care more expensive. Instead of eliminating mandates, their measures, including the Baucus bill, increase them--in effect making cheaper health insurance illegal.

Once more: this isn't reform, it is stupidity.

I have to go now and fill the kitchen sink with ice and soak my head...If you're interested in this topic , Go here and read the whole blog article.

Nobel Committee Slights Obama

Prize In Economics Goes To Michael Vick


Coming up for air after working in my basement shop all morning, I was cruising Drudge Report trying to find out what was happening in the world when I saw this Wall Street Journal Story lamenting President Obama NOT receiving the Nobel Prize in Economics this year.

With a little more Googling I found this secret photo of the Nobel Committee deliberating their internationally significant earth-shattering decisions:

Obama has as much business winning the Nobel Prize in ANYTHING...Economics, Physics, Peace, or Bungee Jumping...as I have showing up at the Super Bowl in a Helmet, pads, and a Football Uniform.

Speaking of Football, here's a photo of this years Nobel Economics winner prior to declaring bankruptcy after going to jail and forfeiting his Zillion dollar a year contract with the Atlanta Falcons...

You got to love a Brother with spirit...

Heh.

New Dairy Queen Blizzard Flavor

"Chunky Nobel Peace Prize"


Here...take a look at the new DQ menu item celebrating our President receiving his latest round of international recognition...





I guess it's good that you get to keep the cup, but then again... I suspect that the aftertaste will never fade...


(yes...it's me and my Photoshop at it again...)

Foreign Socialists Continue To Meddle

Nobel Prizes Made Of Silly Putty and Dog Poop...


So there I was this morning, pounding away on a proposal with one hand and wiggling my mouse doing an AutoCAD drawing with the other, when I decided to break the silence in my office by tuning in to Neal Boortz's streaming broadcast on the Web this morning.

Then the first thing I heard was President Obama giving some kind of speech.

Then my face fell off as my head exploded as I realized that this wasn't a "hope and change" speech or a "government health care reform" speech....

this empty suit was delivering his "ACCEPTING THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE" speech.

As I picked my face up off the floor and stuffed my Cerebellum and Medulla Oblongata back into my fractured cranium I felt a little better because I remembered that this same bunch of foreign sniveling booger eating eco friendly climate change disciples had also previously handed the same prize to the likes of Yasser Arafat and Jimmuh Carter.

Still, it pisses me off that they hand the thing to Obamarama after being in office for less than ten months and having accomplished WHAT?

Nothing

Nada

Buttkiss

I seem to remember in spite of his January pledges that Gitmo's still full of abused naked peaceful Muslim "detainees" being forced to watch Koran's being flushed down the toilet.

And aren't Americans are still dropping on the under staffed battlefields of Afghanistan and Pakistan?

The only thing Obamamrama has done to date is run around the planet apologizing for imagined mistakes and wrongs committed over the past 233 years...

and telling the Israelis to stop building houses and play nice with the Palestinians and Hammas.

Some %$#@ Peacemaker.

I say if SURRENDER and APPEASEMENT is the only thing necessary to win a Nobe Peace Prize, they aught to just print them up and sell them in flea markets and at yard sales.

Dammit...

Paducah Manusha

Road Rumblings--Day Two


After an uneventful trip of reasonable length yesterday, we managed to rumble into Western Kentucky in time for happy hour and dinner at "The Texas Roadhouse" adjacent to our hotel parking lot.

As usual when recovering from a multi day bout of "Internet Deprivation Syndrome," I was up half the night to all hours doing some work and catching up on the news on Drudge and the Blogs.

Now it's time to jump in the shower, reload the Turbo pups lockers and sea chests in the car, and blast on across Kentucky/Tennessee in time for a mid afternoon arrival at the Turbo Pup compound.

Regards Y'all

Eastward Bound

Ready To Sleep In My Own Bed...


We woke up to a light frost on the roofs here this morning in Western Missouri.

There's a busy day ahead for everyone packing the Turbo Pup's lockers and sea chests into the Chrysler 300 in preparation of making the first leg of our journey over to Paducah, Kentucky by mid afternoon, then on back to the banks of the Mighty Tennessee River on Thursday morning.

Pat's been able to spend a week with a daughter and two soon-to-be grown granddaughters and I've made some substantial headway on the professional front and all and all I'd have to declare this to have been a successful trip...assuming that we have a safe return journey over the upcoming 725 miles of interstate highway insanity.

I still haven't had time to come up with anything creative to say regarding the stuffed shirts up in Washington DC or the other world insanities going on which hasn't already been said on FOX News or talk radio, but it's been sort of nice to act like most "regular" Americans and be so distracted I don't have a clue what's going on.

I'm sure that by Friday or Saturday I'll have developed another full "head" of steam and be spouting off about something that's making my head spin at "orbital rotational velocity."

In the mean time wish us a safe trip and continue to feel free to entertain yourselves...

if you will...

Regards Y'all

A Basement Without Internet

Is a Dungeon...


You can probably tell that I've not had much time or energy to write anything here on the blog the past few days during the daylight hours.

Thus since I only have sporatic wireless capability that makes the signal come and go with the phases of the moon and some sort of other mystical phenomena, night time blogging is virtually impossible.

I've had to just learn to live with only two or three hours of Internet...it's been a rather cathartic, soul cleansing experience.

I have a sales meeting with the local production facility for a international plastics products company later this afternoon regarding an enterprise which I still don't feel at liberty to discuss here on the blog, then we head back toward the banks of the Mighty Tennessee River tomorrow stopping overnight in the metropolis of Paducah, Kentucky overnight.

Time to go now and finish my sales outline I guess.

Will someone find me something in the news to be mad about in the mean time?

Weekend Overload

Kansas City Rockin'


If you didn't have to work or spend time mowing the lawn...Man you should have been out here in Kansas City this weekend.

This place was rocking.

Besides the American Royal BBQ event, the city also hosted the NASCAR race and the NFL home football game on Sunday.

Giant crowds everywhere but where we were because other than the Royal BBQ the members of our extended household managed to stay safely away in the KC suburb of Liberty, MO.

On the college football front I was happy to see Georgia Tech beat Mississippi State and Auburn stomped on Tennessee (thus keeping things a little quieter when we return to the Turbo Pup Compound.)

So now there's a little professional business to take care of over the next couple of days as we continue to enjoy fall in the Midwest, then back toward the east on Wednesday.

I'll try to catch up on the news this morning and see if I can find something to complain about here on the Internet.

In the mean time, feel free to entertain yourselves...

Oh By The Way...

In Other News...Remember This promise???


Yes?

Well...take a look at the reality:

and I guess that it's OK that they just keep on keeping on?

(From my Blog Idols over at Powerline)

Let's All Go To Rio...

Yeaaaahhhh...Hurraahhhh....Whaaaaattt?









Heh...

Hittin' The "Reset Button"

Maybe He Pushed It Too Hard...


After hacking into a neighbor's unsecured wireless network (the home we're staying in has wired Internet) I've been spazing most of mid-day today watching some training DVD's and not living on the Internet as I usually do.

Regardless, I had to chuckle when I skipped over to Drudge Report and learned that Rio de Janeiro beat out Japan, Madrid, and Chicago to host the 2016 Olympics.

You see, I'm not just happy (or maybe just not unhappy) about the defeat because Obama and his fellow Chicago Political Democratic Thugs Obamamaniacs had spent a zillion dollars of taxpayer money on their bid...seeing the President make a personal appearance in support of the effort.

No, I'm happy to see a City/County in South America get the Olympics on the Continent for the VERY FIRST TIME and further...

if you read the fine print it's going to SAVE all of us American TAXPAYERS tens of zillions of dollars because in reality the City of Chicago is NEARLY BROKE and was counting on Obama to toss "stimulus funds" in their direction to pay for new stadiums and parks and bridges.

I personally lived through the Atlanta Olympic bid process in the late 1980's and saw the results of the infighting, political double dealing, and outright theft that occurred in my City by the time the actual Games arrived in the summer of 1996. I was so enthused I LEFT TOWN and didn't manage to make or spend a single dime on the Olympics or Olympics paraphernalia.

And then there were all of the rumors of insider dealings already underway giving away political favors and government funding to people inside the White House to do things like renovate dilapidated housing or even build new housing for Olympic athletes which would be turned over to private citizens or companies when the games were over (see Napolitano, Janet.)

When it's all said and done, I believe in all seriousness that it's a GOOD THING Chicago's Olympics Bid ended up "going south", as I resist wanting to drop onto the ground laughing hysterically at yet another event showing our dictator/terrorist butt kissing President/Savior what "TALKING" and "ENGAGING" and "APOLOGIZING" for things we as a country haven't done to the world over the past 223 years gets him and more importantly...

gets US...

YOU and ME as American citizens and taxpayers.

That would be N O T H I N G...

N A D A

Z E R O

Z I L C H.

All of his smiling and romancing and proclaiming he's a different kind of president in charge of a country that has learned our lesson couldn't save an Olympic bid any more than it's going to stop the Koreans or Iranians from building warheads and loaning them to the next wild eyed virgin seeker with a few million of al Queda's cash in their backpack.

Got my point?

Now it's time to watch some more videos I guess

On The Road Again

Low Battery Limits Blogging...


Disagreeable weather today will delay our departure on the second leg of our cross country trip.

An then my ignoring an ongoing power adapter plug problem on the old HP laptop has me sitting here typing with one hand while I hold the power cable with the other.

Feel free to read a few stories of ratbastard Democratic insanity on Drudgereport and then raise heck in the manner you would expect me to in the mean time

They Already Have The Christmas Stuff Out???

And I haven't Even Carved My Pumpkin And Made My Scarecrow...


So there I was, back in Home Depot this morning...making my bi-weekly visit to the "return counter" (this time with receipt in hand...got a cash refund...Woo Hoooo...)

While wandering away into the sea of "home improvement" products counting my change I momentarily noticed something I had failed to comment on EARLIER and which I was JUST again reminded of by a TV commercial on FOX News advertising something defined as "seasonal music."

What I'm talking about is that here it is...the thirtieth day of September...and Home Depot and the late night TV advertisers are already talking about trying to get me to spend money on of all things...

C H R I S T M A S ?

Further...

Christmas Decorations?

Let me ask everyone...IF I bought lights and a boat load of shiny tinsel, where am I supposed to put these trapping to store them between now and the time I can legitimately hang them out on my front door and along the eaves of my house?

Am I supposed to have a pumpkin with colored lights and fake snow and a herd of Reindeer grazing on the lawn nearby?

Or could I erect a display on my lawn of Pilgrims eating the first Thanksgiving Feast with a "weird beard" Santa and a flock of mutant radio active turkeys from the TV series South Park looking on?

Not to worry...being the ultimate "non-consumer" I'll easily pass the animated cackling witches and the smiling and nodding Santa mannequins and keep myself focused on the Tapcon Concrete fasteners and the products on the electrical isles.

In other news, later this morning I'm loading Pat and Missy the Turbo Pup and all of their luggage and lockers and sea chests up in the newly washed and serviced Chrysler 300 and we're heading off toward Kansas City, Missouri for a week or so, stopping over night in St. Louis to break the west bound trip into two smaller segments.

In addition to visiting with Pat's family and celebrating a Grand Daughter's 18th birthday, we also have the privilege of attending a private party at the American Royal BBQ Event on Friday night and then there's a bunch of other business stuff going on which I'm not at liberty to talk about publicly yet.

Once again the Internet availability will be somewhat questionable along the way, but I ask that if you don't hear from me within three or four days that somebody please send up a flare and organize a search party.

Regards Y'all...

This Is The Level We've All Sunk To

Ninnys versus Nannys


So I hear that out at LAX this afternoon some poor unfortunate guy with a rumbling stomach was guilty of ignoring the stewardess...wait I mean waitress in a crappy restaurant in the sky ...no...rather today they're called "flight attendants' " FAA approved mandate that everyone stay in their seats while the airplane was taxi-ing out to the runway for takeoff.

You probably know the rest...things escallate out of control because of new government laws and mandates, then the Police were called and they boarded the plane once it returned to the gate and took the offender (UPDATE 2 AM: and his "companion" ) off the flight...poopy pants and all.

FOX news reports as of 3 PM that the plane had been emptied while "officials" searched the nooks and crannys and all of the passengers were re screened.

They're lucky it wasn't me on board trying to struggle to the phonebooth restroom or I'd probably have left them a loaf posessing an aroma and stain so mighty that Ajax won't get the smell out of the plane for months, and if they hadn't let me into the closet they call a bathroom I guess I'd have had to drop it under the seat cushion (which normally can be utilized as a flotation device.)

I'm fairly certain some socialist democrat "Nervous Nelly" type preppy soccer mom probably was responsible for the origination and reporting of the so-called "INCIDENT."

Oh Crap...now I've done it...

Now I guess that I'll be called a chauvinistic pig for denigrating women...

Ask me if I care?

(and NO..."Denigrating" does not mean a situation where the "authorities" make all of the Rappers and Professional Basketball players leave the room...)

Anyone Want To Join My "Racist" Club?

"Here...Have a White Sheet And Some Scissors"


I love the way most people like to "hit and run" "comment and run" when they find something on a blog which appears to go against their government educated beliefs and/or offends their delicate multi-cultural racial/sexual sensibilities.

It doesn't matter what you say or how you say it, it never fails that if you address certain topics or use certain words at least SOMEONE is going to speak up and object. cry and snivel and complain.

I'm surprised it took as long as it did to get someone's ears smoking with this posting from last Wednesday which I titled "One Dumb Stupid Mulatto Negro Black Man African American."

As I posted earlier, the commenter said "How nice of you to inject race into your blog, President Jimmy Carter Got it right. And you Sir, live in the wrong time."

Then they added "Don't bother replying to my comment, I won't be back to read it."

OK...(taking a big breath)...let's get a few thing straight.

NUMBER 1. It's my Blog and I'll say anything I want to here (except things that would make Google shut down my free site or specifically threaten the lives of the President and other high ranking officials.)

NUMBER 2. In writing the words "Mulatto" or "Negro" or "Black Man" in front of the words "African American," I knew that I was going to make some people wince and piss a few others off completely, BUT...

I'd like to point out that each and every one of those words have legitimately been used in my lifetime i.e. the past 50 years in this county by polite "non-colored" citizenry when referring to people of dark skin color descending genetically from the continent of Africa.

When I was a kid in rural Alabama in the 1960's, being polite white people of anglo European descent, I was taught that the word "Nigger" was offensive and instead refered to our maid and other "black" persons as "Negro" or "Niggra" or simply "colored."

I guess that "niggra" was too close to "Nigger" and "colored" left open the answer to the question "what color?", so then sometime in the 1970's, in an effort to keep all the White folks off balance and inject the latest distillations of the current cultural movements from NY and Detroit and LA into everyone's lives, all of us "crackers" were told that "Negro" and Niggra" and "colored" was inaccurate and offensive, we should just call a proud black man a "black man" or a dark skinned woman a "black woman."

By the way...anyone but me ever wondered why the people living here from Southeast Asia and the Caribbean/South America didn't get on the same bandwagon or start up their own movement coining, defining, qualifying, endorsing "official" politically correct self identifying terminology while at the same time expressing outrage at their supposed political and cultural insufficiency?

Fortunately they didn't, and instead elected to melt into the "melting pot" and enjoy the benefits of living in the United By God States of 'Merica and have been rewarded with the kinds of social and educational and financial success which still escape the followers of the likes of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.

Bless all of their multi-national, multi-racial, mult-cultural, multi-colored hearts for shutting the %$#@ up and getting on with life rather than making a career and thinly veiled political movement out of their "victimhood."

Further, remembering that we're still stuck here under my point NUMBER 2, my reference using the word "mulatto" to address someone of mixed racial descent is not directly an insult....it's simply descriptive (look it up on Wikipedia) :

"Mulatto denotes a person with one white parent and one black parent or a person who has both black ancestry and white ancestry. The term may be perceived as pejorative in some cultures and situations. Its current usage varies greatly."

Unfortunately, currently it is considered an outrage to make any reference to any part of a person's appearance or persona which is in fact "different" from yourself and/or your peers.

And finally, apparently not being satisfied with phraseology using something like skin color as an identification, forward looking self appointed black leaders like Jackson and Sharpton settled on the self identification terminology "African American" as the descriptor of choice continuing until today...

although most of these same people using the "African American" identification were at least SEVEN generations from ever having set foot on the continent of Africa ( and I suppose that 3/4 of those same people couldn't find Africa on a Map or Globe with a flashlight and a magnifying glass...)

NUMBER 3. I really don't give a darn what most people think when I write here on this blog.

I do not write specifically to GAIN readership or attract any specific group of readers. If I did I would resort to sticking key words like "Patrick Swayze Death" in my titles and enjoy having nearly a THOUSAND HITS like I did over the past few days when the people in Europe finally found out the guy had died.

Then if I was getting that kind of traffic, instead of the normal measly 50 hits a day I get, I'd have the sidebar and header of this blog covered up with blog ads for Viagra and Hair replacement and "conservative tee shirts and mugs" and God knows what else.

But I DO NOT WRITE TO PLEASE ANYONE BUT MYSELF, thus I do not give a RATS ASS if my lovely, talented, well intended yet culturally/racially sensitive commenter ever comes back.

I offer my sincere, heartfelt approval to anyone who reads and is offended by a single word I write to NOT EVER COME BACK.

EVER....

NUMBER 4. This is the most important point that Jimmuh Carter and my commenter and most of the lamestream/dead tree media don't understand or refuse to recognise...

I would just as vehemently object to Obama's policies and inane utterings and apologizings regardless of the skin color or hair color or shoe size of any other person forcing them upon me and speaking supposedly on behalf of me and my country.

Understand?

Now, let me see if I can find where I put my scissors...I have some eyeholes to cut...

Ahhhhhhhhh the Smell Of Napalm In the Morning..."

The Sound Of Angry Leftists Disguised As "Republicans"...

"How nice of you to inject race into your blog, President Jimmy Carter Got it right. And you Sir, live in the wrong time. I'm a Republican, a gun owner, but not a racist. While your cleaning you gun, and polishing your brass you might spend a little time doing critical thinking, and a little less time watching Glen Beck, and listening to Rush Limbaugh. Don't bother replying to my comment, I won't be back to read it."

O' Tay...


(new comment received tonight about this posting last week...)

Today's Tip for Old "Middle Aged" Homeowners

Quality...Not Tonnage Quantity


As many of y0u already know if you've ever owned your own house, for years now the lovely Men and Women working over at the company called Sakrete have saved the average homeowner the agony of having to wait until they need forty million pounds more than a couple yards of concrete delivered to pour a slab for an AC unit or a pool filter pump or a footing for steps or whatever else said homeowner can dream up to want to make out of "concrete."

They make bags of things like Portland cement and mortar mix and fast set concrete and in my recent endeavor...pouring my own 16"x16"x2-1/2" thick concrete mini concrete slabs...HIGH STRENGTH 5000 PSI FAST SETTING CEMENT.

Be advised, however, that they make most of their products in 40 pound, 60, pound, and 80 pound bags.

The bigger the bag, the cheaper the product on a weight or volume basis, BUT...

I can personally testify, holding my shriveled concrete encrusted hand on a stack of bibles, that saving $3.95 on a $31 purchase isn't worth the pain and agony and potential visit to the emergency room to have your intestines and testicles re-inserted and sutured back into their correct positions in your abominable abdominal cavity.

If you're over the age of 45 40 35 30, please do yourself a favor and buy the forty or sixty pound packages--the label means WEIGHT...not the age you can live to and still pick things up and sling them around while adding water and stirring... and leave the 80 pound bags to the younger guys that still have biceps and abs.

I have to go now and see if I can find my truss...

Turning Up My Squelch Knob...

Deaf & Speechless (OK...Almost)


Well, we managed to get another two inches of rain here today on the Banks of the Mighty Tennessee River.

Wait, let me double check my high tech digital rain gage...

...make that 2.09" since midnight.

Regardless, this weather totally SUCKS for doing things like painting closet doors or staining exterior wooden doors and as of this afternoon that's all I have left to do inside on the current yet never ending home improvement list.

Of course there's still a giant pallet full of mulch sitting tarped at the top of the driveway awaiting distribution and over three hundred pounds of high-strength concrete awaiting being mixed and poured into my home made stepping stone forms.

Then there's a boat load of new news stories out there about the closed door behind the scenes antics of the stupid %$#@ heads sitting around in DC legislating our financial and medical future.

Let me say THIS about THAT.

I personally say that you have to be intellectually corrupt else just plain stupid if you're not paying attention and further...

If you like what you do see that's going on in Washington on YOUR behalf (because you are a earned income, government mandated, income redistribution nanny state beneficiary)...

I hope you keep reading deeper into my archives, get really pissed off, leave me a nasty anonymous comment, then GET THE HELL OUT OF MY WEB PAGE.

On the other hand, if you agree with my ramblings and observations, feel free to stop by often...heck, if you're in the area stop by about 1 tomorrow and have a slice of tonight's left over pizza...

...you're welcome.

The First "Post American" President--Per John Bolton

If It Were Up To Me We'd Fire Him...


I can't even begin to express my opinion of the goings on at the so called "United Nations" this week. When I exclude the use of profanity there just aren't words in my vocabulary to adequately frame my take on the proceedings.

As a public service, I was looking around online tonight and found this photo taken in a nearby hotel bar down the street in NY from the proceedings when I had this horrible thought...

Today, we, as a country, actually find ourselves in a position where our own elected national leader actually comes across at the UN as just another radical crazy moron mumbling inane platitudes which mean nothing to virtually anyone of Anglo American descent, living in the "middle class," sitting here in Eastern Tennessee.

Seriously, Obama looked no more intelligent than Wacky Kadaffy from Libya or Bluto Chavez or that annoying little Capuchian Monkey currently running Iran.

The only person I've seen thus far that had anything worth saying and listening to was Benjamin Netanyahu from Israel who should have pulled out a machine gun and lobbed a few grenades into the building and done us all a great favor as a result of the carnage.

Then as his encore to killing the ground based Missile defense shield in Europe, Obama sat in front of the UN Security council and announced that he wants to cut the US nuclear arsenal from "thousands" of warheads to a few hundred.

Then he hopes that the little troll Kim jong Illness and the Iranian Monkey will not build any nuclear weapons and the Pakistanis will somehow keep Al Qaeda away from theirs.

Yeah...and I feel monkeys getting ready to fly out of my butt any second now...monkeys with golden wings and baskets of million dollar bills...

Feel free to disagree with me but within a couple of years you're going to figure out I'm right...

dammit...

Clothes Dryer Working

Head Still Spinning...

So I flopped and flipped and stood on my head most of yesterday afternoon, and when the dust settled somehow I had managed to install my Mexican made bushings and bearings in my old Sears Kenmore Clothes dryer and when I zipped it all back together it ran quietly without walking around the basement on one foot.

Then I went out to have some drinks to celebrate, came home and cooked dinner, and in the mean time on TV watched our idiot President kissing the feet and asses of every moronic dictator and self important self appointed shit head "world leader" that would present a body part in the direction of his lips.

Then I got a grip on myself and decided to calm my nerves by looking at some new tools I'm wanting to add to my ever growing collection.

Just in case for some reason you don't understand the situation, let me tell you that tool web sites like Grainger.com and Northerntool.com are equivalent to pornography for men over the age of 39.

So there I was happily clicking my way through the weekly sales and specials when I found this doosey (please click on the image and enlarge it so you can see why my head exploded):


Understand?

The %$#@ idiots in the states of California and Washington have decided that you can't burn wood in your house or trailer or hunting cabin to provide heat and cook some bacon and eggs and biscuits in the morning.

I suppose that these assholes want you to eat Tofu and cold Brie with crackers and install solar panels in order to reduce your "carbon footprint"

I'd like to put my footprint on some body's asses out there on the left coast.

So much for personal responsibility and surviving the winter without paying the power company or the gas company without freezing to death.

Can you believe this Crap? They've actually banned the sale of wood burning stoves because of the "pollution" they produce...

in two states which are nearly consumed by wildfires each year...wildfires burning WHAT?

Wood?

I have to go now and fill the kitchen sink with water and ice and soak my head.

Y'all have a LOVELY day...if you can...

One Dumb Stupid Mulatto Negro Black Man African American

A Love Poem Delivered With A Juicy Smooch To The UN From Our Your President


"In an era when our destiny is shared, power is no longer a zero-sum game. No one nation can or should try to dominate another nation. No world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will succeed. No balance of power among nations will hold. The traditional division between nations of the south and north makes no sense in an interconnected world. Nor do alignments of nations rooted in the cleavages of a long gone Cold War."

(got the quote from my Friends and Idols over at Powerline here.)

I don't know about you , but I say that it's time to clean our guns and polish our brass.

And as for me?

Not only am I keeping my Powder Dry.

Heck...I'm Making my own powder.

What about you?

Jeff Healey

Things I Missed By Not Paying Attention...


In reading about and watching TV news stories about the loss of actor Patrick Swayze last week, I learned of the death of another artist which somehow through inattention or Alzheimer's I somehow missed or forgot I heard about.

That would be the March 2nd, 2008 death of the Canadian guitar virtuoso Jeff Healey. Here is a photo of him as he appeared with Swayze as the leader of the house band in the movie "Road House:"



Adopted by a firefighter father from his birth mother, Healey lost his eyesight to a rare cancer at the age of 8 months, started playing guitar at the age of 3, and went on to live another 40 years of life "vision-less" while attaining great recognition as a guitarist and musical executive.

Imagine never remembering seeing the sun or your mom or your dog or even the guitar you make a living playing laying in your lap?

Click on this link and take a listen to his song "Angle Eyes" which I have the audacity to sing every now and again in public:


The Jeff Healey Band - Angel Eyes (Official Music Video) - The best video clips are here

Unfortunately, Cancer has a long memory...and it came back to get him in the end, but today I celebrate Mr. Healey's victories and successes and realize that I really don't have it so bad when I start feeling sorry for myself.

I've Been Unfaithful

Feeble Mind and Attention Span Problems...


I feel really bad because I've resorted to writing just a few words and sticking up photos and You Tube videos on the blog here for nearly the past week.

It's just that my head is spinning with the stupidity on the news and the UN moronity and the upcoming G-20 insanity...

And then there is all of the work I've done installing new floors and new doors...

and did I mention yesterday installing a new double flap Turbo Puppy door in the back wall of the house--requiring chiseling another 10" wide by 16" high hole through solid brick and 2x4's and fiber board and Sheetrock?

Once I get the trim and crown moulding installed I'll put up a picture for your approval.

Then recently our Sears Kenmore Clothes Dryer decided to cough up a couple of tumbler drum wheel bearings so I had to order a rebuild kit online and it arrived via UPS yesterday, so later this morning I'm pulling the guts out of the dryer and doing a "soft" rebuild including all bearings and a new drive belt for the drum and blower fan.

I've done that work a couple of times in the past twenty five years (in addition to watching my father teach me the process in the 1960's and 1970's) so there's another $200 repair charge averted to my credit.

There's all kinds of professional/business rumblings going on around here at the Turbo Pup Compound on the Banks of Mighty Tennessee River--mainly independent business stuff--but I'd have to kill you if I shared the details

Regardless, I'm quite happy to report that we've made it from the December 19th layoff last year all the way to September 23rd this year with me spinning in circles and somehow, by the grace of God, managing to pay the mortgage and keep the lights on and the trash hauled away.

Please excuse me if I just take time to give thanks for my blessings and remain silent in prayer for relief for our country's and world's ills.

Some Divine intervention and well thought out protection from our so called "leaders" and self appointed "experts" would be a good place to start...

Still Alive

Just VERY Busy...


(and angry about the news and why just repeat things on this Blog you already know???)

Southerners Aren't All Stupid...

We Just Can't Keep Some Of Us Off TV...





(At least she's from South Carolina rather than Alabama)

Presidential Legacys

You Connect The Dots...










Don't make me say "I told you so..."

I Want Some Spicy Mustard With My Platter of Turd-Snitzel & North Korean Kim-Shit Cabbage

And Toss In A Hearty Appetizer Portion Of Toasted Iranian Persian Goat Droppings On The Side...


So by now you've heard that our first Black President...imitating his White Idol American Hemorrhoid Jimmuh Carter...has cancelled the planned Eastern European Missile Defense program in deference to the shit head Russians.

As a pubic public service, be advised that the balance of this posting has been deleted in order to keep the Secret Service off my front doorstep this evening.

That will be all...for now...

(wait...in a whispering voice...imagine a program paid for by conservative donors which enlists ex Marines and special forces members which have been diagnosed with terminal illnesses with less than a year to live and dispatches them to places like DC and San Francisco to take care of some domestic political business which we all know needs taking care of and which ACORN and the lamestream media continues to propagate through hook and crook...

oops...did I write that?)

More Stupid Government B.S.

Someone Write ME A Check...


I'm sorry Folks...I really was planning on having a quiet evening and not bitching about anything, but then I read this article on Boston.Com titled "Homeless Use Of Hotels On The Rise."

Click on the link and go read the whole thing if you can stand it, but here's the part that got my head over pressurizing and starting to rotate...

The number of homeless families living in motels funded by the state now tops more than 1,000, a dramatic 37 percent increase since June 1, a top official for the state Department of Housing and Community Development said yesterday.

Tina Brooks, undersecretary of the department, said 1,010 families - including more than 1,400 children - are now living in motels, at a monthly cost of about $2.8 million for taxpayers.

“It’s a huge strain,’’ said Brooks after a hearing of the joint Committee on Children, Families and Persons with Disabilities.

(snip)

“We need to keep the safety net, as vulnerable as it is,’’ said Frost.

In an effort to quickly move families out of state-funded shelters, the housing department started an emergency program in late July to provide rental assistance to families who need help for up to 12 months. Brooks said 352 families received help in the program’s first month, at a cost of $850,000. She said this is a better use of money than putting them in shelters, where families live an average of eight months at a cost of $24,000 per family.

Got all that?

OK...lets get out the old calculator and do some math here.

In the second paragraph they say they've spent $2,800,000 a month keeping 1,010 "families" in motels.

THAT'S AN AVERAGE MONTHLY COST OF $2772.28 PER "FAMILY."

Then in the last paragraph quoted they say they've tossed out $850,000 taxpayer dollars keeping 352 "families" in "motels" because it costs $24,000 per month to keep them in "shelters."

SO THEY'RE TELLING US THAT A "SHELTER" COST $3,000 PER MONTH VERSUS A MOTEL COST OF ONLY $2414.78 A MONTH?

Give me a &%$#!ing break here people.

I own a house and pay my mortgage and utilities every single month for less than $1,750 per month including electricity and water and garbage and cable TV and VoIP phone and even the cost of two cell phones.

But we've got GOVERNMENT spending somewhere between $650 and $1,250 per month more MONTHLY to keep "homeless" "families" in MOTELS?

OK...after thinking for about THIRTY SECONDS I think that I have an idea that could save us all some real money in the long run.

Ready?

Why not cut these "homeless" "families" a CHECK for a reasonable amount like $1,500 each month and kick their stupid asses into the street and let them do like I do and RENT or BUY themselves a place to live.

Seriously, what's wrong with that option?

Could it be that because of generations of government coddling and meddling we have ever increasing hoards of people that either are incapable of or refuse to take care of themselves and their babies?

And look at the cost to society.

Better yet...here's another a neat plan I like...

I'll take the government shelter check for $3000 and continue to pay the current operating expenses and let the "homeless" "family live in my house, and then I'll buy another nicer house and Me and Pat and the Turbo Pup will live there.

That way I'll be making payments on two houses and the government will be subsidizing the increase in equity value I gain over time.

At least at the end of the program two families will have had places to live for a year and someone (that would be ME...your lovely and talented TAXPAYER) will have gained financially from the arrangement...other than the hotel/motel owner.

I swear people, if you don't get agitated every time you see stupid stuff like this in the news and you continue to believe that it's a good idea to allow the Obamamaniacs to extend their filthy tentacles into even more areas of our lives then you deserve what's coming to you in the next twenty years.

I, personally, elect to get old and die fighting before they screw things up completely.

My Hands Hurt

Pat Taking Time Off...


Well Ladies & Gentlemen, I guess I finally reached my limit in the world of home improvement.

Two Grand worth of raw material in the form of sticks or bricks or tiles or boards or raw door slabs is a lot of stuff to try and install in a week.

Of course if you buy me a $2000 front door or a $2000 Chandelier I can probably get them installed in a couple of days, but dozens if not hundreds of pieces of individual crap...

At least I still have two more days before the effort extends beyond a week but the staining and varnishing of the two solid core exterior doors will have to wait until the rain passes and the humidity drops down below 70% so it's gonna be next week regardless of any Herculean efforts I may try to expend.

I managed to break Pat's back wound my helper handling heavy boxes of laminate flooring and bags of mulch so she took a well deserved day off yesterday and will probably be on the sidelines for a while longer.

Today is day two of paint and trim installation and there's another trip to Home Depot in the works and Missy the Turbo Pup will be on guard to give everyone a good barking when needed.

Other than that, I'm too exasperated with all of this ACORN crap in the news...or the lack thereof...as it seems that FOX News is the only one not willing to totally ignore the scandal as it develops.

This isn't intended to be a bigoted or a racist statement, but here goes.

I've said all along since the early days of the Obama campaign that the attendance at his events looked like a Freak show and a Circus and that the crowd he was pandering to and depending on to elect him to the Presidency could not be raised above the consequences of their own poor choices in life (educational, professional, sexual, and skin color be damned)by any "preferences" and "diversity programs" and the expenditure of any amount of taxpayer dollars.

Now I offer as proof the revelations that instead of closing their Whorehouses and going into legitimate business or funding getting an education, these idiots just want to use our money to build a bigger, better building and import a fleet of new illegals and put them in the business of breaking our laws...possibly in my neighborhood.

I say that they've proven time and time again that they can't or won't be helped and I'm tired of paying Government idiots to give them just one more chance or start one more boondoggle program designed to fail from its inception.

Enough already...Dammit...

Swayze & Farley Strippers

I Almost Forgot This One...




I guess they're together again

Will Workman's Comp Cover Them?

No Virgins For You...





Hat tip to Jawa Report for the link

Patrick Swayze

R.I.P.

New Front Door

The Devil's In The Details...


Me and my big mouth and my Ego.

Both (my mouth and my ego) continue to get me in trouble today.

Take my current round of home improvements, for instance.

In order to take maximum advantage of Home Depot's delivery charge, I refuse to just get enough material for one or two projects delivered at one time.

Nooooooooooo

I go out and buy enough stuff and have it delivered--enough to keep a young man busy for at least a week.

That means this old man has enough raw materials lying around the property to last at LEAST a month if I keep at it all day every day.

The good news is that the kitchen floor is lying peacefully in it final resting place now, but there's new baseboards and quarter round to install and of course a new coat of paint on the walls that don't have tile back splash, and there's a solid fir french door slab for the opening out to the carport that has to have hinge recesses routed and holes cut for the knob and dead bolt before receiving stain and marine grade spar varnish and....

Did I mention the new six panel Fir front door slab (needing hinge and knob/dead bolt accommodations) or the three sets of bi-folding closet doors and the new master bathroom door and basement door?

Or the 57 bags of cypress mulch that has to be distributed before it starts raining this afternoon?

I guess I better stop writing and get another nap in before sunrise so I have the energy to start slinging trim and paint around today.

Who's ideas was all this stuff any way?

New Kitchen Floor

Day Three...


Well, I'm happy to report that the new plywood kitchen sub-flooring is in place inside, and 15 of the 75 bags of mulch are scattered around outside.

Better yet, no one lost an eye in the process.

It's a good thing I don't do this sort of work for a living because someone would probably starve or freeze to death if life sustaining cash flow depended on the SPEED of my manual labor.

Today finds me attempting to lay most of eight boxes of Dupont Elite Touch Laminate Flooring in their Tuscan Stone pattern on the floor without cutting off an arm or finger during the proceedings.

My back hurts just thinking about it all, but I signed up for the program and so I guess I have to go now and finish what I started.

Regards Y'all...

Billy Vera & The Beaters: At This Moment

Todays '70's Musical Flashback


Everybody knows that I'm a better singer than I am a dancer. For that reason I generally leave most of the singing and all of the dancing to the other fellows in the crowd.

Given a little liquid courage however, I do seem to remember that I have spent a few minutes hangin' on to the hips and shoulders of a few Bawdy Lasses through the years back in the day listening to this song on the dance floor...

take a listen and enjoy it with me again this morning.





...you're welcome...

Gnawing Success

My Knees Hurt...


Expending 6 hours worth of energy on and off again, I finally managed to get about 90% of the old plywood sub floor cut and pried up out of the way yesterday.

I had to resort to buying one of those "multi-tools" made by Dremel (the Multi-Max) to use to make a flush cut against the edges of the counters underneath the toe kick plates. In spite of what they show you in the TV commercials, it's slow going getting that little flat blade to vibrate its way through 3/4" plywood.

I still have a thin strip about 8 feet long along one cabinet under the sink and dishwasher to cut this morning, then it should be smooth sailing as I cut the new 3/8" plywood sub flooring and move from demolition to installation mode.

Then there's the six doors and 75 bags of mulch haunting me out in the carport and sitting on pallets in the yard awaiting installation/distribution.

Who's idea was all of this stuff anyway?

The World USA According To Ralph Peters

I Couldn't Have Said It Better Myself...


"Eight years ago today, our homeland was attacked by fanatical Muslims inspired by Saudi Arabian bigotry. Three thousand American citizens and residents died.

We resolved that we, the People, would never forget. Then we forgot.

We've learned nothing.

Instead of cracking down on Islamist extremism, we've excused it.

Instead of killing terrorists, we free them.

Instead of relentlessly hunting Islamist madmen, we seek to appease them.

Instead of acknowledging that radical Islam is the problem, we elected a president who blames America, whose idea of freedom is the right for women to suffer in silence behind a veil -- and who counts among his mentors and friends those who damn our country or believe that our own government staged the tragedy of September 11, 2001. "

Go here and read the whole article.

Tearing Down My House

No Pain No Gain...


I'm pleased to report that I managed to chisel my way through the top layers of the kitchen floor yesterday...finding two layers of old linoleum and a sheet of 3/4" plywood standing between me and my new kitchen floor.

I picked a spot under the Refrigerator to do my excavations just in case I changed my mind and decided to live with the old floor.

Then I worked my way out toward the middle of the room and this morning I'm past the point of no return as I've ripped a big seam across the middle of the floor with the skill saw set about 7/8" deep and by noon I hope to have everything ripped up and laying in a pile outside beside the trash can.

Now we have to run to Home Depot and see if I can get five sheets of 3/8" plywood added to the order which is supposed to go on a truck later this morning for delivery.

Everybody feel free to bring your tools and stop by about 10 if you want to help make some sawdust...

Neglecting The News

Saving My TV Sets...


I have to admit that I didn't watch the Obama show last night when he played to the joint session of Congress.

I couldn't stand another minute watching Nasty Pelosi's rigid Botoxed face staring over the President's left shoulder with frozen lifeless eyes like some sort of political Zombie.

Reading the blogs this morning it's evident that I didn't miss much.

Same old lies and platitudes, all wrapped up in a half hour lecture with a Republican Congressman causing gasps of surprise when he had the audacity to heckle Obamarama when he said that his as yet unwritten "healthcare reform plan" wouldn't cover illegal aliens.

The South Carolinian called the President of the United by God States of 'Merica a "Liar" in front of 534 fellow Senators and Congressmenpersons.

Somebody better lock that sucker up...he's telling the truth.

The guys over at Powerline do a pretty good job of summing things up, and I suggest that you click on the link and go over and take a read there this morning.

Meanwhile, I've got a truck load of kitchen flooring, closet doors, and a few tons of mulch heading this way tomorrow morning and I have to get ready to receive the material and get things installed in the next week or so.

Ya'll have a lovely balance of the week and stop back by to see if anything has pissed me off in the news or in the home renovation business because I'm likely to take my frustrations out on my keyboard in the event something happens.

Toudle loo...

Fred's Fizzeling

Owl Gore & His Sniveling Booger Eating Tree Hugging Hippies Cry W I L M A ... F O U L


So from what I can gather, yesterday newly declared Hurricane Fred was cruising along looking like this...

Then I went over to the NOAA website and found this sorry map here showing how Hurricane Fred was going to end up thrashing around in the Eastern Atlantic and threatening ABSOLUTELY NOBODY rich or poor or Democratic/Republican.

I actually feel sorry for all of the Patchouli wearing hippies and the sniveling booger eating tree huggers because I think that I know that they mean well...

It's just that the world wide SO-CALLED disasters won't follow their line of unreasonable reasoning. THEN DANG IT IF reality doesen't manage to set in every four to eight years.

And then they have to face the prospect of getting a real job else managing to vote somebody into office that will come over to my house or bank and steal some of my money and give it to them under the guise of supporting the latest government sponsored "Program."


Then I have to go back on Vacation and let the cash flow lapse and tell them to go elsewhere to plunder and...

you get my drift I guess...

Two Days In Internet Darkness...

My Words Overfloweth...


Those of you that occasionally lurk around my little slice of cyberspace this part of the Internet probably noticed my rare silence on Sunday and Monday.

Sorry...

I admit that I sometimes miss writing and have an occasional single day gap once in a while in my never ending diatribes and commentary, but generally that's because what I would have to say would be like acid dripping onto my keyboard and pouring through your DSL or Cable modem onto your computer screen--thus I think it best that I just keep myself to myself on those rare occasions.

Then there's the couple of periods of time over the past three years when I was sitting around in a hospital for WEEKS at a time with tubes sticking out of every bodily orifice...and with the doctors and nurses running out of places to stick tubes and making their own holes in my body (I once had FIVE IV's at the same time.)

Fortunately this week's absence was an exception to those two rules...we were all simply the victims of circumstances where I ended up in a Condo that was supposed to have Internet but the WEP password was unavailable and I decided that Cell Phone blogging was inadequate.

Just like people going through some kind of self imposed 12-step program, I decided to try to live all day in the "real" world for a couple of days and let the Internet take care of itself for a change.

After my hands stopped shaking, I found the experience to be rather enlightening.

When I got back home I learned that politicians democratic constituency stupid people were still acting stupid and the libertarians smart people that are the producers and achievers of the world were still being assaulted for being successful and paying their own way in life, and as a result I have a HUGE backlog of things to say about things which have happened over the past week.

I'm doing my best to stay focused here and get some work done, but please excuse me if I erupt into conniption fit like shrieking at any moment...

Back To Reality?

Culture Shock...


Sigh...

I spent two and one half hours just after sunrise on Monday morning standing virtually alone on the beach watching two surf fishing rods I occasionally baited with shrimp or squid.

I probably didn't see a DOZEN people over that entire period of time, because most people were packing and heading home from the long Labor Day holiday weekend.

I also only managed to feed a few small fish...I didn't actually catch anything (caught two unidentified species the day before), but the few hours alone on the beach looking at the Gulf of Mexico was worth every damn penny of the $17 stupid government tax "weekend non-resident fishing license" and $5 worth of bait.

Things were noticibly calmer all day on Monday with the exidous of tourists, and we enjoyed a late brunch I cooked in the condo and ate left over pizza from my three pizza effort Sunday night for the Classmates "official" 50th get together.

We were packed and on the road by 8 AM EST and back in Knoxtown with the Chrysler picked up from the shop and the rental car paid for by 5:30 PM, and after drinks and dinner at a local watering hole we came back home and I collapsed for the evening knowing I had wrung every single moment of fun possible out of the past seven days--at least for someone of my ever advancing age.

So now it's time to turn my attention to the matters of the real world--as real as I ever allow myself to deal with these days--and get some stuff done professionally and do some more work on the turbo pup compound. The Turbo Pup's getting a new doggy door and Pat's getting some new bi folding closet doors and a new kitchen floor.

And me?

I get to work and sweat and pay for the material to complete the aforementioned projects.

I guess that it's time to start drawing and estimating now...Y'all have a lovely day...if you will...

Back Home

Delivered From Earthly Paradise/Internet Hell

And The Celebration Continues...

Florida Hospitality


After a smooth two hour car ride across southern Alabama and the Florida Panhandle we found ourselves sitting on the marina waterfront in Destin in time for lunch yesterday.

The first blackened fish sandwich of the trip was then consumed just in time to do a little wandering around the docks looking at fishing opportunities later in the weekend, then by mid afternoon the temperature and humidity managed to run us back inside the car for a journey over to my friend Roy's place to drink gallons of frozen margaritas and to witness enough food for a small army being prepared for small group of 9 in attendenance.

By 10:30 PM (way past me and Missy the Turbo Pup's normal bedtime) I had to excuse myself and crash for the evening. Oddly I managed to sleep for SEVEN HOURS IN A ROW for once...a testimony to being old I guess as twenty years ago I'd have probably just shifted gears and stayed up past midnight and slept in to 9 AM.

Today finds us visiting with some extended family members in the morning before moving on over to the coast for "Phase III" of the never ending 50th celebration.

I guess last night was sort of the "pre-season game" for what is going to ensue over the next couple of days.

Stay tuned to this channel for further updates...