5 AM Cigar

Simple Pleasures...


There's something to be said for the hours between sunset and sunrise--and not all sinister and bad I would like to add.

Over the past ten or fifteen years I've learned to enjoy the evening hours in a manner different from the times when I was locked into a "normal" 24 hour ritual involving work and play and sleep on a regimented schedule.

Today I still find myself living basically two days for every one rotation of the Earth.

Further, I find that if you put yourself into the correct state of mind and the right geographic location that you can gain a great deal of satisfaction from the hours when most of the people on the planet huddle inside their homes in their pajamas.

Of course you don't want to be found wandering the streets of Atlanta or LA at 3 AM unless you are a frivolous drunken club patron, a thief, or some form of Vampire, but I know about a few places which are quite nice at that hour.

Blackwater Sound off Key Largo and a couple of little bays near Upper Matecombe Key in Florida come to mind if you have access to the appropriate boat and don't mind enduring the onslaught of mosquitoes which attack every living thing at sunset each evening.

Then there is the coral beach on the northeast shore of Walker's Cay in the Bahama's which provides a landscape at low tide which is almost Lunar in appearance as the sun rises each morning.

The numerous little un-inhabited islands in the Philippines, viewed from the aircraft elevator portal of a Carrier as they slide by in the twilight manage to get the attention of even the most inattentive young midshipman (that would be me...)

The view over the Marsh looking east from St. Simons Island toward the lights of Sea Island provide an excellent venue for forming early morning thoughts and cogitations.

Then there is the near perfect silence (except for the bugs) found on our front porch here on the banks of the mighty Tennessee River--which is were I'm headed this morning with a book and cigar in hand to contemplate my existence and solve a few world problems.

Wish me luck...if you will...

Things That Make You Go "AaaarrrrrRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHH$%#@*&$%$#!%#$%!!!

As For Me...I'm In Microsoft & HP Home Computer Hell


It all started about 4:30 Friday afternoon.

I had come home from my office with a song on my lips and in my heart...looking forward to a peaceful weekend without any major home improvement tasks demanding my attention and celebrating my portion of the multi million dollar quench tower design having survived the second client review in two weeks.

Then I made the mistake of attempting to fire up my HP notebook which had set idle for most of the week in my office as I pounded some sense into massaged the HP server and installed new Norton security software and cleaned up the file backup strategy.

All my HP would do is flash the initial boot up screen and then sit there with a black screen staring at me.

"Steady big fellow...just turn it back off and back on...it'll be OK..."

Off

On

Off

On

OFF

ON

OFF

ON

OFF

ON (dammit...by the way)

Profanity never helps...it just makes you feel better or foolish depending on who's listening.

Now a quick rummage through the filing cabinet looking for of all things...computer manuals and most of all...

RECOVERY DISKS...

Please, please, please let the brain in my ever greying, ever balding head remember correctly and find that I had made recovery disks when I bought that computer.

NO Recovery DisksssssssSSSSSSSSSSS!!!

AhhhhhhHHHHHHHHHHH!!!




But wait...




There's not one but TWO hard disks in that machine...120 GB EACH!

And there's a recovery partition on the second DRIVVVVVVEEEEEEEE!

Praise the Lord...

Cancel that Ammunition Order...

To make a long story even longer, now, almost TWELVE HOURS later, my beloved HP laptop has moved past the stages of drooling on itself and needing diapers, and is basically the same machine I turned off for the last time on Monday or Tuesday...

EXCEPT...

Some of the software like my NORTON ANTIBOT and other SECURITY SOFTWARE still has to be re-downloaded and re-installed.

And God knows what else I'll find when I take the piece of crap machine with me on our long weekend trip back to our little island this coming weekend.

I guess that this is what I get for ignoring the little bugger (the computer) all week for the first time in two years in favor of the new Server and threatening to put it into the shop to have the AC power jack replaced after tripping over the power cord twenty seven times and making it act all squirrely if you don't wiggle the power cord right when you plug it in.

Now, just when I think that I'm out of trouble, I discover that for some reason THIS BLOG cannot be accessed by MS Internet Explorer from either the Server or my laptop.

WTF?

I just updated my Mozilla Firefox Web Browser to the latest 3.0 version and the blog loads fine.

Imagine that?

Could it be that my recent politically incorrect postings using the N-word or my Nancy Pelosi photo montage earned me some kind of Blogger or Microsoft curse keeping YOU, my dear regular readers (all twelve of you scattered between Louisiana, through Florida and Alabama, the Carolina's, up to Connecticut) from reading my rantings?

I certainly hope not, but we'll see.

Y'all have yourselves a nice weekend...If you will...

4AM UPDATE

My head's starting to move at orbital rotational velocity...

I can't get my cooking blog The Redneck Gourmet nor any of my fellow politically incorrect southern conservative bloggers like Blond Sagicity, the angry Cuban over at Babalu Blog, nor
Roger's site at "Curmudgeonly & Skeptical" to load on either of my PC's using Microsoft Internet Explorer, and the Server didn't crash yesterday and I haven't screwed around with my software on that machine either.

What's going on here...Ladies & Gentlemen?

E-mail me at vrrogers3d@yahoo.com if you can't get this site to load in Internet Explorer so I can attempt to get to the bottom of the problem before I disappear down the crapper into ancient Internet history.

(I guess if it won't load you won't know about the problem either...)

Work...

Work, Work, WORK


Talk about using profanity in my writing...

WORK (there's that word again)

Today's Best O' The Web

Swallow Your Coffee And Finish Your Breakfast Before Viewing...


In her mind, she looks like this:

But at best, She looks like this:



Then she gets all sporty and looks like this:






And she likes the clothes so much she has an official picture taken in them that looks like this:

But here on the internet things are a little different...doing a little Googling you can find things like this:

But that doesn't matter, because in the the end she's still in charge...

And most of us that get things done and pay the bills for her stupid pandering socialistic BS programs just have to grin and bear it...

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

'Nother Day

"Nother Dollar...


OK Folks, I hate to admit it, but I guess that I've officially arrived back smack dab in the middle of American culture and society, both geographically and mentally.

My participation does have it's limits though, in spite of having attended a wedding reception at a really upscale country club this past weekend requiring an expensive trip to Joseph A. Bank to further expand the portion of my wardrobe which doesn't go with Docksiders or flip flops.

(What's up with people building multi-million dollar houses on lots the size of a postage stamp?)

The good news is that I've been able to maintain some semblance of non-conformity it the process...in as much as I still keep weird hours, I haven't cut my hair, and in my mind I'm still living on a boat in the Keys or a cottage in earshot of the ocean surf for at least a few hours each day.

Take tonight's dinner menu, for example.

We're having the neighbors over for a nice low country boil featuring shrimp, crawfish, corn on the cob, and red potatoes--all simmered up in a big pot of seasoned water. Fortunately we have a place down the "Pike" here which imports fresh unfrozen seafood so I'll be disappointed if I don't get my usual quality results.

Meanwhile, in the professional gainful employment department, I'm sorta stuck in a holding pattern as the client delays making critical decisions and tendering design data. If you think that a week and one half of front end data delays would amount to a week and one half extension on the project deadline you'd clearly be living in some alternate universe or fantasy land.

Time to do my hair, toss on the stuffy business attire, and head on over to the office for another eight or ten hours worth of whatever you prefer to call what I'm doing.

Y'all have a nice day...If you will...

Bias...What Bias???

Insidious Influence Or Telling Facts?


Check out This Story:

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/07/big_media_puts_its_money_where.html

That analysis provides some surprising results. Individuals who reported being employed by major media organizations made the following contributions:

NBC, NBC Universal: $104,184 to Democrats / $3,150 to Republicans

CBS: $45,508 to Dems / $966 to Republicans

ABC: $17,320 / $4,717

Turner Broadcasting, TBS: $30,161 / $3,950

Fox: $40,573 / $0

Fox News/Fox News Channel: $1,280 / $0

MSNBC: $210 / $282

CNN: $2,286 / $1,250

Associated Press: $2,550 / $545

Reuters: $10,745 / $3,450

Washington Post, Newsweek: $4,268 / $0

New York Times, NYT Co: $8,143 / $0

Time, Inc: $40,988 / $4,850 ($2,300 to Republicans was from someone identified as a jeweler,
so the total may actually be $2,550)

Time Magazine: $1,250 / $0

USA Today: $6,067 / $0

Totals for the above:

$315,533 to Democrats ; $22,656 to Republicans

Also note that it is "officially" against the rules in most news organizations for news room employees to contribute to campaigns.

I don't care what they tell us, they're in the tank for Obama and the Democrats.

AMEN...Brother Voight

And A Hearty Ditto While I'm At It...


The Democratic Party, in its quest for power, has managed a propaganda campaign with subliminal messages, creating a God-like figure in a man who falls short in every way. It seems to me that if Mr. Obama wins the presidential election, then Messrs. Farrakhan, Wright, Ayers and Pfleger will gain power for their need to demoralize this country and help create a socialist America.

...

If Mr. Obama had his way, he would have pulled our troops from Iraq years ago and initiated an unprecedented bloodbath, turning over that country to the barbarianism of our enemies. With what he has openly stated about his plans for our military, and his lack of understanding about the true nature of our enemies, there's not a cell in my body that can accept the idea that Mr. Obama can keep us safe from the terrorists around the world, and from Iran, which is making great strides toward getting the atomic bomb. And while a misleading portrait of Mr. Obama is being perpetrated by a media controlled by the Democrats, the Obama camp has sent out people to attack the greatness of Sen. John McCain, whose suffering and courage in a Hanoi prison camp is an American legend.

Read the entire Op ED piece by Academy Award winning Actor Jon Voight in it's entirety here:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/jul/28/voight/

Fat Wallets Cause Butt Cancer

Cell Phones Cook Your KID'S Head and YOUR Ass


For years and years now I've lamented that I believe that men found sitting daily on a giant overstuffed leather wallet are not only subjecting themselves to unnecessary discomfort in the car and Church Pew, but are also risking developing a form of butt cancer which originates on the skin on the outside of their calloused bottoms rather than arising from the tangled mass of their polyp laden colons (which, by the way, after the age of fifty must be "scoped" by their physicians on an annual basis.)

What I want to know is who designed this equipment anyway?

As if your butt, with which you are born, isn't more and more trouble the older you get, but (excuse the pun) our society has the foresight to come up with the wallet because men are apparently more dignified than women and can't be burdened with keeping up with a purse as we wander about our lives in our daily rituals.

Of course if you are the domestic type you could get married or get an understanding girlfriend, buy her a giant purse, and make her carry your wallet so you won't have to deal with having a giant lump on your butt in the pocket of your seersucker shorts as you cavort about the national parks and outlet malls on your summer vacation.

Come to think of it, since men tend to lose their athletic butts as they age, perhaps the solution is to buy not one but TWO wallets and carry them at the same time, thereby producing a more pronounced buttocks area for female viewing.

Maybe not...

Then there is something called the "fanny pack"...

I have one. A nice leather one.

I keep my digital camera and accessories in it.

Sometimes I even wear it, but most of the time it's just an expensive tiny leather purse which I drag around with me and my computer case.

Let's face it Guys...If we would just go through our wallets and clean out all of the old restaurant receipts and un-needed business cards from insurance agents and nice looking female professionals we've met in the process of conducting our lives we could reduce the pain and discomfort of carrying a wallet in our pants by at least half.

Putting my money where my mouth is, I intend to run out this week and buy myself a new wallet, and I'm promising myself that it will be a thin little slab of leather that WILL NOT ALLOW ME TO CARRY MORE THAN TWO CREDIT CARDS, ID, AND ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS CASH MONEY (IN TWENTIES.)

Talk about personal improvement...

Then there's the new hysteria about Cell Phones.

I've had a Cell Phone forever since 1990, long before many of today's cell phone abusers Cell Phone patrons were even born.

I've had a $500 cell phone bill before there was anything called "text messaging" and I'm proud to report that I don't "Text Message" today.

If I want to talk to you I'll call you.

If you want to talk to me you'll answer my call, or at least call me back when it's convenient.

If I want to send you a text message I'll write you a letter.

On the computer.

It might take the form of an E-mail, or I might print it out and send it to you in a stamped envelope.

If there is a stamp involved, one of us might be dead before you receive it, but I guess that it was the thought that counted in the first place.

Any WHoooooooooo.

Once again there's another news article out there causing a big flap about the potential for excessive cell phone use causing brain cancer.

Read along with me as my eyes roll back into my ever greying, ever balding skull...

When Amy Morris' twin boys, then 11, went on an academic trip to Washington last year, she agreed to give them cell phones at the program's request. But this summer she was dismayed to learn that girls at her 8-year-old daughter's day camp were using cell phones they'd taken along in their backpacks.

"We were outraged," says the Connecticut mother, who adds that the camp didn't know. "These girls think it's a cute game. But it's inappropriate, and it's unnecessary."

...

Now, there's further ammunition for Morris and other reluctant parents like her to stand firm: The warning last week by the head of a prominent cancer research institute to his faculty and staff. Limit cell phone use, he said, because of the possible cancer risk — especially when it comes to children, whose brains are still developing.

The warning from Dr. Ronald B. Herberman, director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, was based on early, unpublished data and came despite numerous studies that haven't found a link between increased tumors and cell phone use. But it's struck a nerve among parents who already have other reasons to resist their children's entreaties.

I've said all along that I was afraid of being forced to hold a device emitting electromagnetic energy against my head in order to make a phone call.

I've lamented the loss of the old 3 watt "bag phones" of yesteryear. A phone with a display and buttons large enough to be seen with failing middle aged eyes and operated by pudgy middle aged fingers.

But NOOOooooooo, the cell phone "providers" insist that I need to be forced to place phone calls on something the size of a potato chip with buttons the size of a Chicklet, and that I must be forced to hold a .6 watt transmitter within 3 inches of my Hypothalamus gland in the process.

Meanwhile, so-called PARENTS are agonizing over decisions about CHILDREN operating high tech communication devices simply because all of the other children have them and besides...It's easier to keep up with their offspring if they arm them with cell phones?

When I was a kid, before the age when I could legally operate an automobile and further, had reason to be out of sight of my parents, if my Mother and/or Father could not walk outside of the front or back door of our house and holler or whistle and make me come running home, something was seriously wrong.

The police were likely to be involved, else some form of corporal punishment was soon to ensue.

Somehow my parents managed to keep tabs on my where abouts, in spite of my best efforts, for the majority of the minutes in the years between 1959 and 1977...

WITHOUT CELL PHONES.

In fact, the only phones we had in those days were firmly bolted to the wall in the basement den and on the kitchen wall. They did have six foot cords making their use somewhat portable, but the hours of use were limited to something between 7 AM and 9 PM, and you had to dial the phone rather than punching buttons if you expected to actually talk to someone.

If in fact the cell phone induced cancer risk is real, I would like to suggest a positive use for their power and medical capabilities.

Force these men and women who don't understand how to raise children to carry their cell phones adjacent to their private parts in the crotch of their underwear.

In my mind, it would represent a poetic form of "killing two birds with one stone"...

Survival of the fittest, and and effective means of BIRTH CONTROL, all wrapped up in one little 10 ounce, 0.6 watt package.

AM I NOT A GENIUS...OR WHAT???