"My Kingdom For A Nice Butt"

Don't Go Getting All Worked Up...I Mean BOSTON Butt...


I just came home from the local Kroger, and yet again for the umpteenth time I came home BUTT-LESS.

Lardless also, although I did buy a little can of Crisco.

And the spice called Marjoram...

Nowhere to be found.

Whole chickens...$0.79 per pound.

Lamb, Knackwurst, Bratwurst, Tilapia, ALL resting comfortably in the Fridge or Freezer.

But still...no BUTTS...unless, of course you're looking for the HUMAN kind...

Time to head out to the pool and smoke a nice cigar. Anyone care to join me?

Stop on by.

Pool, Yard, Grocery Store, Home Depot....

(Not Necessarily in That Order)


Saturday calls, and I answer in person rather than in writing.

I hope that you'll understand.

No, I Didn't Write Anything

Feeling A Bit Lazy...


House, Work, Hobbies...Blogging just didn't make it into my schedule last night. After all, it's FRIDAY and I don't have to sit in a car for almost 8 hours like I've done for the past two weeks.

Have yourself a nice day...If you will...

Things Which Only Happen To Me?

I Believe The List Is Long And Wide...


First of all, those that know me know that I never smoked cigarettes.

In the past ten or so years I've picked up an appreciation for good yet mild cigars. I pride myself in finding the decent $3 to $5 kind you buy in bundles of seconds, with the occasional $10 Davidoff and a couple of fake overpriced Cubans (Cigars, not females) thrown in for my disappointment through the ensuing years.

What freaked me out when I got started was how many "Fru-Fru" glitzy restaurants here in the south (Atlanta, Charlotte, Greenville, etc.) would have a "Cigar" list or a Humidor being carried around by the "cigar Chick" but as you were paying for or taking possession of your prize (putting it in your mouth and asking for a cutter and a light) you'd be told that you couldn't actually SMOKE your overpriced stale Cigar INSIDE the restaurant full of cigarette puffing ingrates.

"People object...", so there I'd stand sweating on the patio fighting the bugs or waiting until I had gotten home and the urge had left me.

Something like that would never happen in Chicago or Pittsburgh--at least until the do-gooder busy bodies and the politicians passed the omnipresent "public smoking laws."

On to my point, I was in Hollywood Florida buying a boat back about 2001 (again before the Florida public smoking ban) and I had purchased a couple of really nice Cigars from a local store there on the downtown strip, then wandered on down the street and walked into a night club which had a bar just inside the front door. I always tried to minimize my impact on the indoor air quality even though smoking of things larger in diameter than a pencil, flavored with artificial carcinogens, was allowed.

I asked the bartender if Cigars were OK before I ordered my wine, and not thirty seconds after I had finished biting off the tip and firing up a gaggle of thirty something self important Yankee Hags sporting "f**k me pumps" and spangled black dresses walked in and made a bee-line to a spot beside me at the bar after scoping out the room.

Two or three of them came in the door with lit cigarettes in their hands.

After two or three puffs into my masterpiece, one of the "ladies" taps--or rather pokes--me on the shoulder and matter of factly asks me to put my Cigar out because "Cigars stink..."

I complied as I apologized for my obvious inconsideration of my position in the food chain and the South Florida social structure. I broke the wrapper while extinguishing it because I didn't have a cutter with me and was forced to grind it in the ash tray to extinguish it.

$15 down the gutter, so you could understand that I was ready to tackle the "lady" from behind when not two minutes later she and her party completed their drink orders and the touch up of their hair and makeup, then sauntered off into the dance floor area to continue their evening.

Is it just me?

50,000 Hits

That's Fifty Thousand Hits For Those Afraid Of Math...


Yeah Virgil, that's the way to increase your readership.

Insult the people that stop by your website.

An insult was not what I intended to deliver with my title and subtitle, but I would like to thank everyone that has taken the time to stop by over the past 3 years and 11 months, listen to (or in this case read) the 1,827 essays I've written what I have to say, and comment to agree or set me straight.

If things go as usual, YOU might be visitor #50,000 here now.

Again, THANKS.

The Pool Nazi Speaks

Keen Insights From The Pool Deck To The Domain Of All You Land'lubbers...


OK, now I'm sorry that I didn't take a couple of pictures this past weekend to support my argument, but I have a beef this evening that most of you probably haven't thought much about once your own encounter with this form of public stupidity has passed.

Being the frustrated self proclaimed King of The Pool Nazis, a position from which I've been forced to slide kicking and screaming into retirement over the past year, you can certainly understand why I'm looking for opportunities to turn my beach and pool etiquette monitoring insights toward other areas in which all you land locked readers can benefit from.

I guess that maybe you can just call me the Professor Emeritus of Anti-Asshole Behavior (that's PE AAB from here on out).

Any way, tonight's infuriating topic...

Dumping coolers.

That's right, I'd like to inform all of the idiots out there that think that just because there is free ice in a little sweaty room full of vending machines in your hotel corridor that I (and many of my fellow hotel guests) wouldn't have a problem when you walk out the door of the hotel and dump five gallons of water on the top step of the sidewalk.

Friday afternoon's encounter with such inept behavior was the second such personally vein bursting eye-rolling event since January. At that time some inbred Moron dumped a big cooler full of water outside the Knoxville Holiday Inn Select and then drove away as his discharge froze into a bone breaking, knee scraping ice slick in the middle of the walkway within FIVE FEET OF THE BACK DOORWAY of a 300 room hotel.

In response to the January encounter with a potential Democratic voter a lovable distracted rocket scientist I asked the front desk personnel to put down some sidewalk de-icer in order to prevent a hapless injury as a result this individual's senseless behavior.

Friday's event was much less of an issue, although Missy the Turbo Pup, Pat, and I had to tip toe around the wet spot for TWO DAYS--long after this genius had returned home or moved on to torment the visitors of other lands and locals.

Am I the only one that thinks this is a problem and example of poor behavior?

What about people that like to pour drinks and/or otherwise dump various unidentified liquids out of a car while sitting in a parking space or beside a gas pump?

Should I be forced to pole vault over a puddle of coffee or gator aide or, for all I know, human urine or puppy pee, in order to exit my automobile adjacent to the front door of a retail establishment or gasoline dispensing terminal?

This whole sub-set of life's current distractions reminds me of the time on our little island when I asked the (rhetorical) question about being allowed to conduct my morning constitutional with my newspaper and a cup of strong coffee in the flower bed beside the front door of the people down the street who insisted on walking their dogs and allowing them to crap all over my lawn--just because their lovely mongrel Fifi (Fido, et. al.)is on a 20' leash and my lawn happens to also be located within 20' of the street.

Just like the dog owners, If I could I'd like to be able to find out where people like this live, mix up a giant stinky pail of slop, then show up at their front door at 4:30 in the morning on a freezing day and dump the whole thing out there for them to enjoy on their way to work and the mail box.

And don't even get me started about people that dump their auto ash trays in public places and flip their (cigarette) butts out the window in intersections...

Turbo Pup On The Road Again

Chauffeur & Valet Just Along For The Ride...


Well, it's once again time to hit the road this morning, back toward the banks of the Mighty Tennessee River.

Portions of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Virginia lie in our way, but the mostly interstate route between here and there is quite scenic and relatively lightly traveled.

We'll be on the road by 7 AM, and with any luck we'll beat the evening rush hour arriving by 3PM.

Time to go back to work and rest....

MORE

MADE IT A LITTLE BEFORE 3 PM...THANKS FOR YOUR PRAYERS AND SUPPORT!

More Fallingwater

Mind Still Reeling...

I was There

It Was More Incredible Than I Had Imagined...

Assuring Insuring Ignorance

Government Meddling (Roosevelt's Revenge) Costing A Bundle...


I really wish that I didn't have to say anything, but then again you know that some of the time I just can't resist a good rant. So juicy is this topic that I'm interrupting what has otherwise been a peaceful vacation in order to pound some sense into a few heads via my computer keyboard.

Ready?

It takes just TWO WORDS this morning to trigger my every greying, ever balding head's instantaneous leap to orbital rotational velocity.

Those words?

MORTGAGE CRISIS.

I don't care what anyone says, there isn't any such thing as a "Mortgage Crisis", unless you're an underqualified theaving charlotian government school educated idiot that thinks that like health care and retirement that the government your fellow taxpayers own you the cost of buying you a place to live before they pay for your cheeseburgers in your old age and purchase the box and the ground your mortal remains will eventually spend eternity encased in.

Got it?

Case in point, the recent failure of some bank on the US left coast called, of all things...IndyMAC.

July 12 (Bloomberg) -- IndyMac Bancorp Inc. became the second- biggest federally insured financial company to be seized by U.S. regulators after a run by depositors left the California mortgage lender short on cash.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. will run a successor institution, IndyMac Federal Bank FSB, starting next week, the Office of Thrift Supervision said in an e-mail yesterday. The regulator blamed U.S. Senator Charles Schumer for creating a ``liquidity crisis'' after a letter on June 26, in which he expressed concern that the bank may fail.

Poor old Chucky Schumer.

He as usual has his dirty but well polished expensive Italian shoe in his mouth, and this time the pencil pushing sliderule toting government financial weasels are blaming dear Chucky for bringing down a MULTI BILLION DOLLAR FINANCIAL INSTITUTION at taxpayer expense.

I have to utter the word "b u l l c r a p" under my breath so as to offend as few people as possible here on a Pennsylvania Sunday morning.

Chucky Schumer didn't really cause the final cash run on the bank, putting it "under fire last month from Schumer, the Democrat from New York, who said lax lending standards and deposits purchased from third parties left it on the brink of failure. During the 11 business days after Schumer explained his concerns in a June 26 letter, depositors withdrew more than $1.3 billion, the OTS said. "

Or did he?

Some out there believe that Democrats have been capable of doing things like this in the past, and by default further reinforcing their imaginary threat to your financial health and well being that they claim the Evil George Bush administration represents.

There really isn't any "mortgage crisis", unless you are the owner of a house which you couldn't really afford to buy/finance in the first place, or you're a shareholder in one of the companies propped up by the Imperial Federal Government of the United by God States of America for the purposes of assuring things like "affordable housing" and "diversity" in the ranks of homeowners.

I've got a little news for everyone out there.

Ready???

Government efforts be dammed, I determined through extensive personal observation and research that apparently there are people out there who are too STUPID or otherwise financially IRRESPONSIBLE in the way they conduct their lives to successfully be home owners.

They didn't just beam theirselves in here from Mars or land here from the Moon or swim immigrate across the Rio Grand from Mexico either.

They were most likely BORN here, and they shop in the same malls, eat in the same restaurants, and worship in the same buildings as you do on Sunday.

It's just that simple.

We call them children for the first twelve years of their lives, before they become "dependents" or teenagers or whatever you call them for the next twelve years before you can kick their butts into line and out of your basement or spare bedroom(s).

Then if we're lucky they move on in life and become RENTERS or TENANTS, only moving out of the trailer park or apartment complex when they have amassed enough financial wherewithal to take a substantial equity stake in a property and make monthly payments for fifteen or thirty years on a place to live which THEY ACTUALLY HAVE BUSINESS PURCHASING AND further...

WHICH THEY CAN ACTUALLY AFFORD.

Unfortunately, to my way of thinking (the substance and truth of which is being played out on the evening news every night), this current "mortgage crisis" or "housing crisis" is the direct result of the government meddling in the free market.

You think only mean old rich "investors" are in the mortgage business?

If you really think that way, I've got a little tidbit that's gonna cause you to spill your coffee on your newspaper this morning.

YOU'RE in the mortgage business, ladies and gentlemen.

More importantly, your retirement money and your future income (along with that of your children and grandchildren) is held hostage in today's and last years mortgage business, and like everything else the elected and appointed government idiots get involved in, if it weren't for the access to a virtually unlimited source of funding gained under the point of a gun barrel and threat of imprisonment, the whole thing would have gone under in the late 1980's or early 1990's.

If things don't go the way they promised or like, or if the heat starts coming on a little too strong, unlike you and me, instead of cutting our losses and DOWNSIZING, the government pinheads run out and re-write the rules and miraculously "increase funding" and declare the crisis over with--omitting the fact that YOU'VE probably participated in some small way in the process without your knowledge or consultation.

For example, just like being in the flood insurance business has inflated resort property values, the government insidiously continues to exert undue influence on the housing markets in fancy overpriced places like Pasadena, California and New York, NY, as well as in mundane little places like Knoxville, TN and Ozark, AL.

The problem is that even with all of their cash they can't control the basic ingredient in the process.

People--and our tendency toward avarice, vanity, and greed.

If everyone knew that you had to pay cash for the ocean front or river front property you covet, and that you had to personally finance the bricks and mortar in which you park your SUV and your boat and bathing suit under, and that if when the nearby water jumped up and washed it all out to sea or into the river delta you had to again pay cash to rebuild your little water front empire, your little water front empire would possibly never be built in the first place else it would take a substantially different form in the weeks and months after closing the loan taking possession of the warranty deed and title to the property.

The same is true for "Mac Mansions" in Dunwoody, GA and Hometown, CT, or anywhere in downtown or suburban [name your city.]

The sad thing to me is that so many sincere, hard working people and families have to sit by and sacrifice, doing the right things--the things going down the true path of personal responsibility and success,--only to have our politicians slap them in the face as they rush in to the rescue to bail out the arrogant and the ignorant risk takers who/whom spend their lives gambling WITH OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY and complaining on TV about their lack of self esteem.

If you're what I call a "responsible homeowner", you have my permission to reach behind yourself and give yourself a nice pat on the back.

If you're in the other category of "home squatter" I've addressed, you have my permission--no...I command you to either press you head further into the bodily orifice into which you have it embedded-- else reach behind your self and kick yourself in your own ass

(thereby limiting the amount of time you have to spend reaching into my wallet looking for funding to cover your own personal share of...

the so called "housing crisis.")

Falling Water

Or is it "Fallingwater"??


Regardless of the actual name, we're heading over here for a visit this morning:



I can hardly wait, and I hope the weather holds out so I can do some outside photography.

Wish us luck...if you will...