Friday, October 17, 2008

"Out, Damned Spot! Out, I Say!"

Where's Shakespeare When I Need Him?


Well ladies and gentlemen, after surviving most of a week spent battling some sort of funk that snuck into my nostrils and spread throughout my household, things are returning to being close to normal (IF things are ever "normal" here on the banks of the Mighty Tennessee River.)

Missy the Turbo Pup, with her sleek, linear extended canine form, avoided contracting the malady but it knocked Pat on her behind for a couple of days and we're both still coughing and hacking the last vestiges out of our systems.

I'm severely distracted by a project deadline which was "aggressive" when first imposed last month and looms large on Monday, although the successful compliance with same lies in the hands of a subcontractor in Alabama.

We're also tasked with entertaining family guests for a long planned extended weekend visit, and with their arrival later this afternoon the house will be buzzing with activity including our first trip to Neyland Stadium to watch the University of Tennessee and Mississippi State struggle over a leather football.

Meanwhile I have to make mental preparation and pack my luggage in order to depart the scene of the local festivities in order to travel on Sunday with my sister to southern Ohio to pay our last respects to my Father's brother Tom who succumbed to the ravages of Cancer this past week.

Finally, after spending the past day in denial I'm realizing that my server PC here has early indications of having some funky crap spread by computer nerd criminals which is going to require a complete sweep of the system later this morning and a change in my "cookie settings" which I've recently relaxed in a fit of downloading and frivolous Internet cavorting.

Leave it to the Internet butt heads to continue to break into people's homes uninvited and screw around with expensive electronics.

Whether you enter my house through the back door , the basement window, or come in through a phone line or a cable connection I still wish a plague on your household and desire you are captured and tortured by a band of pillaging militant Pygmy Muslim terrorists.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Hey Everybody In Ohio & Pennsylvania...

Did Ya See This?

Secret Service says "Kill Him" allegation unfounded..."

Mad Jack Murtha says: "Western PA 'Racist' but Obama should win..."

Quote O' The Day

Aristotle Says...


It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

Education is the best provision for the journey to old age.

What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.

To enjoy the things we ought and to hate the things we ought has the greatest bearing on excellence of character.

We make war that we may live in peace.

Well begun is half done.

It is simplicity that makes the uneducated more effective than the educated when addressing popular audiences.

Aristotle,
RhetoricGreek critic, philosopher, physicist, & zoologist (384 BC - 322 BC)

My Debate Transcript

You Heard It Here First...


Obama: "er...ahh...tax cut...err...and...spread the wealth...ahhh....err"

McCain: "...My Friend..."

Obama: "er...ahh...Bill Ayers...er...English Professor...ah...err...tax cuts for 95%...ah...er...

McCain: "...drill...national security...foreign oil...my Friend..."

Obama: "er...seven hundred billion dollars...er...Ah...from China to send to Saudi Arabia...er...ah..."

McCain: "... Solar, wind, Biodiesel, Nucular, Coal, Cow farts...My Friend..."

Obama: "er...ahh...South Korea...er...free trade...er...working families...ah..."

McCain: "drill...capitol gains...corporate taxes...national security...My Friend..."

Obama: "tax cuts for 95%...er...ah...working families...er...families working...er...ah..."


Me: "THUNK" (the sound of me falling off the sofa after lapsing into a catatonic coma...)

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

In Anticipation Of The Last Presidential Debate

My Belly Button's Been Puckering & Unpuckering All Day Now...

"Global Warming" Induced Extinction Distinction

Oh Where...Oh Where Has My Little Owl Gore Gone...


Sorry folks, but there's more bad weather news out there this morning (IF you're a sniveling bed wetting Socialist Man Made Global Warming Greenie Weenie.)

Check out these stories from Drudge Report:

Coldest October 12th morning in Ukiah, California since records began being kept in 1893...

Pendleton, Oregon and other cities in the state break 100 plus year old records.

And don't tell the UN committee, but Alaskan glaciers added snow and ice during this past summer due to record cool temperatures after decades of shrinkage.

Of course there are still a few tropical noises rattling around down in the Caribbean and if you live in the lesser Antilles or Central America you better be paying close attention, but by and large the 2008 Hurricane season is over and even considering the two storms that hit Louisiana and Texas the season could be considered below average.

I can hardly wait for this winter here in Knoxville because I expect after a decade plus of mild winters this one will feature more snow and ice than have been seen in a while--just because I've moved here and own virtually ZERO winter clothes.

As a matter of fact, my feet are cold already...

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Don't Pull It

The Aroma's Known To Be Deadly...




Heh...

Sunday, October 12, 2008

One Funeral Away From Being The Oldest Male Alive

Honors I Don't Want Or Ask For...


It saddens me to report that my Branch of the Rogers Family lost another Son to eternity this evening.

This time it was my Father's Brother--my Uncle Thomas.

I got the call from my Cousin Tom II a little after nine PM and made the associated follow up calls spreading the word and spent a few moments making mental preparations in anticipation of a trip back to southern Ohio to the family cemetery.

In the middle of that process was when I realized something that stopped me cold in my tracks.

Can't be true...but it is...

The only thing between me and the position of being the oldest man in my entire sub-branch of the Rogers family tree is the continued fair health of my good old Uncle Darrell who can be found enjoying life in retirement in Northeast Florida at this moment.

Other than that...it's just ME--Virgil Raymond Rogers, III--oldest grandson vintage 1959.

Pawpaw's gone--a 1918 model who survived until 1979 (Grandma went to be with him a couple years ago after surviving since 1919.)

My own father passed on May 5th, 1996, and now with Uncle Tom's demise there's just Darrell and Tom II and yours truly left over (Darrell, like me is childless.)

This getting old stuff generally sucks, although it is said to be a right smart better than the alternative. I guess that's so..but still...

I'll just have to take their word on that, but any way my family specifically and America in general lost another great man this evening who had spent the past few years suffering from the effects of cancer and the treatments imposed upon him in the process.

Uncle Tom (the middle brother of the three) received a full scholarship and graduated from the General Motors Institute in the mid 1950's, did a short stint in the US Army, and spent much of his lifetime as a GM manager in the Detroit area.

He served in a purchasing capacity with the development of the GM motor home which was doomed by the oil embargo's and fuel shortages of the Nixon/Carter era of American diplomacy.




By the time Volkswagen had shelved the old Beetle and started building new cars in the US, General Motors was doing a round of "down sizing" and Tom opted to do the unthinkable and leave his beloved company to work for the competition.

More recently he spent his golden years running a surplus equipment business and working in his capacity as a lay leader in the Detroit area Mormon Church.

I had hoped to see him again but things just progressed down hill quickly in the past week and it was not to be. I last saw him at his own mother's funeral and had only spoken on the telephone a few times since, although he did keep up with my ramblings and ravings by reading this blog on occasion.

When things like this occur I guess one should pause to consider one's life's priorities and daily realities, and I certainly am willing to redirect my excess energies and efforts toward the nooks and crannies of my existence when the opportunity arises.

Heck, given a few tanks of gas and a couple of weeks off, there's no telling who I could bother and what welcomes I could wear out except the truth be told I'll probably just sit here and work and worry and lament the passing of the next member of what we call "The Greatest Generation."

RIP Uncle Tom...

My "Little Foxes" On YouTube

Look...




Here's a dress rehersal shot:

Am I Under The Weather?

Or Is The Weather Just On Top Of Me?


I've been slouching around since Wednesday suffering with the latest crap which was drug into my office by one of my co-worker "parents"--all of which are subjected daily to the infestations of viruses and other microbes found sneezing and snotting around public schools.

I guess that's one of the few disadvantages of coming back into civilization which I'm going to have to put up with.

It's October and I've already had a cold--after spending years cold free or at least making it to January living a Kleenex free existence

What kills me is that today it's OK to come to work with a fever of 101 and spread your infectious mucous throughout the air and smear it all over the handle of the community coffee pot, because you just dropped your sneezing kid off at school or put them on the bus to do the same to their peers (and their peers parents and their peers parents' office co-workers.)

Let's face it, we all have a regular "Typhoid Jane" mentality and insist on coming to work sick because (A) you need the pay, (B) you're already short on sick leave, (C) you can't or don't want to find a sitter or otherwise afford daycare for your kid(s) and finally (D) everyone else does it so why bother to consider the health of your workplace and community--what good can one person's efforts do?

So I slept like a rock in a coma most of yesterday and last night and basically got nothing done except resting, and so here it is at near six AM and I don't have a clue what's been going on in the world and I'm only just now pounding out something here on the blog.

I keep following the story of Obamarama's apparent lack of basic eligibility to run for president, and the plot just keeps getting thicker and thicker. Take a look at this video about a Philadelphia lawyer that's filed a lawsuit asking the Democrats and Obamamarama some basic questions which could be easily answered if Obamarama didn't want to follow John sKerry's lead and keep all his medical records and other personal documents from the public:





Time to go stagger around the basement doing a few things that need doing. When I have something else to say...you'll be the first to know.