sO mUCH tO dO

So Little Time In Which To Do It...


Why is it that while practically everyone else in the US is taking life easy this weekend--acting like they're on vacation or something--that I find myself rousting my dog and girlfriend out of bed before 8 AM on a Saturday morning to drive around on the mainland like some wild-eyed maniac worrying about my construction projects and waiting for stores to open so that I can go shopping?

Does anybody want to offer an answer as to the reason for my self imposed hardship?

Someone?

Anyone?

I'm waiting...

Well, regardless of the underlying cause, today we managed to go by the post office, the mall, stopped by my rental property to make sure that the natives hadn't stolen all of my tools & materials hauled off everything that wasn't bolted down, verified that Georgia Power still hadn't turned on the electricity, went to two grocery stores and the beach, all before 1 PM.

I'm proud to report that Missy, our new little "turbo-pup" miniature Dachshund, is well on her way to becoming a professional beach bum just like her dad I've become over the past few decades.

She even managed to spend a few hours at the pool standing guard this afternoon while I napped and contemplated brining about seven pounds of Boston Butt Pork shoulder roast to slow cook during the day on Monday.

Like me, she's probably also worrying about making a big batch of my "Fancy Asian Cold Slaw" and the Tilatpia soft tacos that are as yet to be put together to help feed close to a dozen guests at dinner Monday evening.

Please excuse me now while I go get started brining my butt...

Will Everyone Please Go Back Home...ASAP?

Angry Ranting From Paradise


Well, with the Memorial Day holiday weekend upon us, I guess that it's time.

After all, every year about now I tend to break out and dust off what I call my "spoiled white guy living on an island" rhetoric.

You know, those well worn complaints I like to make for the past few years about tourists and "seasonal residents" cluttering up our roadways, restaurants, and grocery stores over the winter and summer and "holiday weekends."

We were out for drinks and dinner with some friends last evening, celebrating a birthday, and the density of humans per square centimeter of floor-space was noticeably higher than is usual most of the year around here.

Oh well, on second thought, go ahead and have fun if you can.

With my sincere blessing.

Since I spend most of my time being useless and taking time off, I guess that I'll be OK just laying low and hiding at home for the next few days, waiting for the dust to settle while everyone enjoys a few days away from their jobs and regular routines (and burning a few tanks full of $3 a gallon gasoline between their hotels and homes.)

Don't forget to drive safely...

Rosie's Still Fat

She's Still Angry and Ugly Too...

Paralyzed With Indecision

Deadlines Take The Fun Out Of Everything...


OK, it's like this.

I'm PISSED OFF.

Why, you might ask?

Because I've just spent the past week and a half waiting on Georgia Power to turn on the electricity to a duplex property I own over in Brunswick.

Actually, only the power service to half the property was required, because I was going to install a new breaker panel and do a bunch of other electrical work on one half, then connect the new panel to Ga Power's slightly overpriced smog producing killowatts and finish up the project.

I even used the internet to schedule the work like a good computer nerd monkey boy power consumer.

So after logging into their system, setting up a user name and password, selecting a service connection date and getting a confirmation e-mail and "service connect number" from someone called "online customer care", this week I had to resort to picking up the telephone to find out that they had scheduled my connection date to be JUNE 16th, not MAY 16th!

To add insult to injury, the phone system makes you sit through some blurbs in Spanish first in order to get to the english language menu, not the other way around.

In America.

In Georgia.

In Glynn county, of all places...

I'm forced to wait on thelephone for the "Espanole" message to play first, so that they can finally tell me in English, seven days late, that I have to call the city building department and have an inspector approve my electrical service...the same electrical service that was working just fine when my last tennant skipped out in the middle of the night--oweing me about three months of past due rent money.

Nothing's changed on the building, I'm not even going to be using the bigger wiring on loads like the oven and waterheater, but Georgia Power's website doesn't know how to tell me that there's gonna be a delay.

Why did they even bother to allow me to schedule the service connection on the internet if they weren't going to allow me to also check on the order's progress afterwards and let me know that there was a problem?

I had to call twice, and listen to Spanish babble before I learned that our local monopoly power company was thumbing their nose at taking my money.

Good God, you gotta love "Customer no-Service" departments...

Words To Live By

Good Old Ron Reagan Strikes Again


I was just watching on FOX News a re-run of Greta "van damn" Sustren's visit to the Reagan Presidential library out in California, and in the reproduction of the Oval office they showed a Placard that the president actually had on his desk.

It read: "There is no limit on what a man can do, if he doesn't mind who gets the credit."

I must adnit that I've had to learn that lesson many times in the past, and I hope to remember it every day in the future.

I Think That I've Found The Solution To Most Of Our Problems

It Was Right Here Under My Nose All The While...


Simple solutions, that's my idea of the way most things SHOULD end up.

Take a look at this story about a rare prehistoric fish that keeps popping up alive in modern times.

"MANADO, Indonesia (Reuters) - An Indonesian fisherman has caught a coelacanth, an ancient fish once thought to have become extinct at the time of the dinosaurs, a fishery expert said on Monday...

That catch came 60 years after a member of the species was rediscovered on the east coast of South Africa.

Coelacanths are known from the fossil records dating back more than 360 million years, according to the Australian Museum Fish Web site.

Before 1938 they were believed to have become extinct approximately 80 million years ago, when they disappeared from the fossil record, it said.

Coelacanths are the only living animals to have a fully functional intercranial joint, which is a division separating the ear and brain from the nasal organs and eye. "

What's that?

A "joint" that separates the ear and brain from the nose and eyes?

Say WwwwwHhhhhaaaaaatttttT?

Well, if that's true, I say that we should immediately start pumping a few gazillion bucks into some research. Let's see if we can figure out how to make congress and most of our voters learn how to start correlating their hearing and brain functions with what they smell and see.

Wouldn't the world would be a MUCH better place as a result?


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Forget About Sipping Fuel...

I'm A Proud Gas Guzzler


I almost forgot to mention this milestone, but then I heard a blurb on the local TV news referencing the US Senate's continued pandering to the lowest common denominator of Human mentality, this time considering a bill addressing something they call...

"Gas Price Gouging."

Let me say THIS about THAT.

I could care less, OK?

On Saturday and Sunday I filled up both of our vehicles--over $170 total--including over $120 worth in my old Suburbia's giant 42 gallon tank.

The only time in my life that I've ever pumped more gas in such a short period of time was back when I had a 32' SeaRay boat that held 120 gallons--a little over $300 worth in 2002 dollars. By the way, I really feel sorry for the guys driving the Shrimp Boats around Brunswick and Darien this season, looking at fiberglass and wooden hulls that require thousands of gallons to move them out to sea and home again.

I'm just happy to have the ability to own not one, but two vehicles, and in spite of the cost, the fuel that makes them more than a lawn ornament is an important part of the overall picture.

Just ask the Germans what it was like during WWII if you think an internal combustion engine is an asset without fuel to power it.

The White Man's Come-Uppance

...And The Red Man's Revenge


Sitting here watching TV and wincing at the mindless, emotional debate currently swirling over and around the Senate circus called "immigration reform legislation," I just can't help but be reminded of the few tidbits of information I learned thirty odd years ago in history class about the similar negotiations between the US Government and the Indians Native Americans in the eighteenth and nineteenth century.

Back then (in the 1700's and 1800's) popular (and politically incorrect) thought allowed self assured polite White citizens and their corrupt elected officials alike to deal with the owners of the lands soon to be referred to as "North America" as "Savages" and "Red Devils" and "heathens"--popular caricatures continuing to be promoted until well into the the mid-20th century in afternoon theater matinees.

General Custer and our Congress put various degrees of thought and bloodshed to the idea that the latest treaty and legislation represented the end of the negotiations, until the pressures brought on by the ongoing flow of "immigrants" flooding through Ellis Island needed a few extra thousand hectares to farm and play an occasional game of baseball on.

Today, ignoring history after we've all been forced by popular liberal opinion or dumbed down by a couple hundred years of government schooling, I watch in awe as we are asked to make a 180 degree swing in our legislative mindset, guiltily welcoming lawbreaking "guest workers" into our ill-gotten homeland, consciences assuaged with promises that if we will just accept the latest 12 million or 20 million (or gazillion or whatever) landscapers and parents and hand wringing honest potential citizens, that everyone else poised outside our boarders, ready to swim or walk or crawl into the good old US of A will stay home and we can all get on with worrying about the outcome of the NHL and NBA finals.

And faint mumblings about President Reagan's 1986 amnesty program and the State Department and Congress' subsequent refusal to enforce those eerily familiar rules are met with shallow pledges that "this time we really, Really, REALLY MEAN IT...", tendered for the appeasement of the unwashed, ignorant, often non-voting yet highly vocal masses.

You're a complete and total dumbass if you buy into this "immigration reform" bullshit, but then again that's just one man's opinion, and who am I to tell you how to waste your life and ruin your childrens' future? After all, I think that this battle is already over--and has been since about thirty or forty years ago when we were all still fumbling around worring about Russia and the KKK.

As for me, I'm quite content to be ever greying, ever balding at my present ripe old age of 47 years rather than 27 or 17 years of age--having not reproduced--because I believe that if you are younger than me that I can pretty well guaran-damn-tee you that you are going to regret the results of the partisan bullshit that's going on in the marble buildings in Washington DC right now.

Sorry, you can just call me a mean old white bigot, I guess...but also be assured that the Indians Native Americans on "Reservations" everywhere are laughing their collective asses off at YOU and Me right now.

Some of them might even be considering getting out of the Casino business, running out and buying a few lawnmowers so they can start a few lawn maintenance companies.

As I see it, someone has to get busy mowing some grass around here, and once the Amigos all retire at age 35 on government disibility or welfare, our black brothers African American citizens and all of us pansy assed, limp wristed White boys sure won't be up to the task, in my considered Redneck opinion.

Now put that into your pipe and smoke it, if you will, because I've got CAD drawings to go do right now...


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Recapturing Lost Brain Cells

Am I Suffering From Dementia, Or Just A Substance Dependency?


I've spent the past couple of days wrestling with myself in a series of attempts at trying to recapture a skill that I openly claimed to have possessed since somewhere about 1982.

You see, there was a time in my life when I thought that I was a proficient AutoCAD operator. If you wanted drawings, I could give you drawings, in ink and in vivid color on your computer monitor, for somewhere between $20 and $50 per hour.

Not any more...

Apparently, now I'm just a guy with a couple of fumbling fingers and thumbs, willing to peck away at a computer keyboard when the aforementioned fingers and thumbs aren't spending time stuck in some body orifice (you know...places like the openings to my nose or...er...um...that other place...)

Never mind...

Back to my point...I've just had the grim realization that somewhere between the late 1990's and last Thursday I managed to lose or significantly auction off my hard earned ability to draw a straight line on a computer screen.

I hope that plumb and square can be replaced with big and tall or other specifications else otherwise I'm in BIG trouble.