3 AM Cigar On The Sidewalk Front Porch Anyone?

Bring Your Pen And Crossword Puzzle And Meet Me There...


I'm just worn out from Injuneering most of the week and feeling so lazy this morning there should be some sort of a law against it, but I don't feel like going to the bed or sofa to nap right now.

I have a little wine buzz and a virgin crossword puzzle from today's newspaper which I never got to and there are at least another three or four cigars in my Humidor left over so...

I'm going out front to listen to some James Taylor music on the portable CD player and find a way to employ a cigar and crossword in a semi-useful fashion.

Wish me luck...If you will...

(Oh...and I hope Y'all have a LOVELY Saturday...)

While Not Playing Watching The British Open...

I'm Just Driving My Boat And Being Lazy...




Heh...

Congressional "Hearings"

I Think That These Idiots Mostly Have a Bad Case of "Hearing AIDS"


I've been meaning to mention this for a while now but by the time I wandered from the TV to the Fridge to refresh my drink and made it back to the computer keyboard I had forgotten half the things that I wanted to complain about...

and this morning I remembered it finally because Matt Drudge over at Drudge Report had a link to this story about the current Congressional Freak Show going on with the elected idiots calling the owners of private businesses--in this case Airlines--to Washington DC in order to question them about their pricing practices.


Let me say "THIS" about "THAT"...

("THAT" Being Congress having the audacity to once again try to tell managers and stockholders how to run their businesses)

I've spent a buttload of money and time flying on commercial aircraft since about 1978 right after they "deregulated" the US airlines.

When I started flying almost everyone took a bath and dressed up in a suit and tie before they came to the airport and every flight over the length of about 15 minutes included a three course meal and two martinis.

Just around then they had already "de-regulated" the airlines and under the auspices of President Jimmuh "smile when you say that" Carter it proceeded to become a strange new uncharted world in the airline industry.

Since then, just like riding on a NY Subway or a MARTA train in Atlanta or Amtrak or a Greyhound bus cross country, the lower fares offered by the airlines have resulted in the average business traveler being subjected to a large slice of humanity which many times should be sequestered living in a Circus Freak Show rather than flying along at 33,000 feet complaining because they had to pay extra to bring their Trampoline, Bong, Trombone and a box of rotting Organic Vegetables on board to stow in the overhead compartments for free.

And don't even get me started writing about having to sit beside a sweaty "super sized" man in a Addis Tank Top that oozes and overflows over my armrest and into the isle.

Here's the bottom line.

Jet aircraft cost money, and have limited range and capacity based on the weight and contents contained therein.

Further, flying said weight and contents and loading and unloading same costs airlines money in the form of fuel costs and wear and tear on the airframe.

It's just that simple.

Thus, in my considered Redneck opinion I don't mind walking up to the check in counter (fully clothed) with my laptop bag and boarding a plane for $xxx.xx while the person beside me hanging over the armrests smoking the bong, playing the Trombone, and jumping on the carry on Trampoline pays $50 or $100 extra for the service provided.

Likewise, when I board an airliner with a week worth of clothes and scuba gear in checked baggage and a case of duty free Jamaican Rum and a decorated Coconut in my carry on bag I don't consider it unreasonable to be charged extra for my presence between the upright seat backs and tray tables (I've done something similar to that a couple of times years ago.)

Everyone should just shut up and get over their government inspired beliefs that they now have a right to cheap air travel just like free healthcare and all of the other crap the Imperial Federal Government of the By-God United States of 'Merica wants to promise today.

The airlines are a business, and they have the right to fail or succeed based on the decisions of their management and their stockholders...

not the whims of some bald headed elected Congressional asshole listening to the whining of people that have the option of walking or riding a horse or driving or riding Greyhound or Amtrak to get to where ever it is they are going...

or how about them just staying home smoking their bong and jumping on their Trampoline and letting me enjoy my cheap flight.

Is it just Me?

Takin' The Morning Off Again Today...

I'm Playing In Watching The British Open


Here's a look at what I'd probably look like if I played golf...







Heh...

Life Is...

What You Make Of It I guess...


I'm sorry to say that I'm a bit short on words this morning.

Nothing really that serious by many people's standards or medical or anything like that, but I was slammed with a professional setback yesterday that has me once again having to re-evaluate my future.

AGAIN...

I'm getting too old for this stuff in a way, but then after owning four different corporations with two different business partners over the past 20 years I should know by now that no matter what...

Anything is possible.

Just like piloting an airplane solo (which I have) or sailing a ship solo offshore out of sight of land (which I have), when you start getting all comfortable and cozy and think you have things under control and you know what you're doing...WHAM...

Storm clouds pop up on the horizon and you have to make critical choices.

Turn back to port?

Try to go around the storm?

Or just maintain your course and heading and sail right through the rain and wind and waves and hail.

Right now I have the throttle wide open and I'm holding my course because I've come too far to turn back or change direction right now.

I just didn't have this situation on the radar until the past week and it's turned out to be a bumpy ride.

I'll get through it...wish me luck...if you will, and I'll be back here later with some more ranting and raving when I have the time.

New Underwear

Boxers Or Briefs?


So I was sitting here this morning looking at my "middle aged to-do" list.

By "middle aged" I don't mean anything like a "bucket list" where you write down the stuff you do before you die.

MY PERSONAL "middle aged to-do" list...something of my own creation every week or so...includes things like this (and I'm not making this up):

#1 Shave/Trim Beard

#2 Build 4 valves

#3 Pool Filter Parts

#4 Cut Tree off of Roof

#5 Underwear

#6 Cologne

#7 Black Ink Cartridge

There was some other personal and professional (or un-professional depending on your point of view) stuff on there I'm omitting this morning for the purposes of clarity and brevity and because I don't want anyone thinking "eewwwwwwww" but still...

Seriously...

I have deodorant, so don't be too afraid but I am out of Cologne right now and have been for several weeks.

Comes from being old and in a relationship I guess.

And I have underwear and some most of the time it's clean but right now ladies and gentlemen, if I were ever to be in an automobile accident or just have a stroke and drop down half dead in public, my MOTHER would be thinking she hadn't raised her son right due to the number of holes and the amount of elastic showing around the waistband ( or on underwear is it wasteband? ) on many of the pairs.

Wait a minute...changing the subject "briefly" (excuse the pun), but why is it a "pair" of underwear when if you are a man it's a single item?

I can see where a women might wear a "pair" of underwear (if she wore any at all) and that would be panties and a bra, but with men it's different, and I haven't gotten large enough yet in my ever growing girth to need or want to wear a bra and even if they start making "men's bras" I'll just go in for my first Tummy Tuck and get the discount breast reduction surgery option while I'm at it.

Got it? OK...back to my original train wreck of thought...so I'm out of Cologne and getting close to being short of inventory in the underwear department, but you know what else?

I absolutely hate going to the mall.

Further, I hate shopping for clothes in general. I don't even look at clothing sites on the Internet unless I have to.

I wish Home Depot and Lowe's sold more clothes (I bought a set of overalls from Home Depot.) so I could pick up potted plants and fertilizer and sixteen penny nails and a three pack of size 38 briefs in Home Depot Orange color and just be done with it.

And that brings up another thing...Is it against the law in Tennessee to have an integral "nail pouch" on underwear....wait no...we won't go there...never mind...

That was the only dang thing I really liked about being in the military was that if you would take care of them and wash and iron or send out to the dry cleaners the Navy would FIX YOU UP with some spiffy sets of clothes.

For FREE.

Underwear included.

And that White Dress Uniform like Richard Gere wore in "Officer and A Gentleman" would get most men ten dates in about five seconds from women they had never ever seen before in their entire lives.

Unfortunately I was such a skinny young dork at the time that my dorkdom more than offset the "chick magnet" factor of the Dress Whites but still...

So back to our story...I'm sitting here this morning procrastinating and avoiding going down into the shop where I should be working right now instead of blogging by making out my newest "middle aged to-do list" and trying to catch up, and dang it if cologne and underwear aren't still on this list just like the were when I wrote the last to-do list on June 16th.

Imagine that?

But you'll be happy to know that I did build the valves and I've shaved several times since then, and my printer will print things using black ink now.

Oh...and the tree is long gone off the roof.

But I swear to God that these day's if I don't write things down I've forgotten more stuff than many people ever knew, and I don't know what I know and that I know it unless I write it down.

If someone came to my house and stole my list(s) I'd probably be found a few weeks later, lost, and wandering somewhere in north Alabama looking for Boxer Shorts and some Old Spice.

Can anyone help me?

I hope this rant gives you a chuckle, and y'all have a LOVELY day now...if you will...(I got to go work on a PLC panel)

"Walkin' In Memphis"

New Karaoke Aspirations...


If you have about five minutes listen to Marc Cohn Sing one of my favorites...



I'm working on the song a few steps lower in key...and I'm gonna sing it in public one day but it's a tough one.

It Rained On My Garden

...And I'm One Happy Camper As A Result....


Just in case I haven't mentioned it here on the blog in detail, I come from a proud yet mixed heritage. A combination of rural southern dirt farmers, with a healthy dose of Appalachian coal miner thrown in for good measure.

For some reason I, personally, developed a bit of a useless, ne'er do well, gypsy, pirate beach-bum spirit along the way but by and large I can't blame my ancestors for my own lethargy.

My Mother's father, "Pa" Rushing, ended up owning a farm which encompassed a little over 350 acres by the end of WWII and on that farm--besides all of the stuff "Old McDonald" raised i.e. chickens and cows and hogs et.al.-- he also managed to feed himself and his wife and five children and make a small living in the process.

Four of the five children are still alive today with the youngest in his early 70's.

On the other hand, "PawPaw" Rogers was a coal miner from his early teens. First in Eastern Kentucky, and then later in Central West Virginia and finally at the end of his career in South Eastern Ohio. PawPaw raised three boys digging and managing the digging of coal...him being Virgil Sr. and my father being Virgil Jr. and I Virgil III, and regretably only one brother remains today with the loss of my father and one uncle.

(And I, thinking that I had perfected the product line in my youthful wisdom, broke the mold and elected to not reproduce...thus there is no Virgil number IV or V or XI or MCMXII)

...but I digress

I was standing in my kitchen this morning looking at a pile of Tomatoes and Squash and Cucumbers I had grown in my little garden when out of the blue it occurred to me that the commonality which connects each side of my family was and is our self sufficiency and making a living in a fundamental manner.

Pa Rushing took seeds and dirt and water and made fruit and vegetables and meat...enough to feed his family at each year with enough left over to at least buy the next season's seed.

Pawpaw Rogers went out and worked in almost every part of the process of digging Coal out of the ground (he was the Electrical Superintendent of the Mine when he retired) so it could be said again that his living and prosperity was attained from the EARTH...or at least the dirt within a few miles of the surface thereof.

And I think that revelation could explain somewhat what's wrong with much of American society today...white, black, yellow, red, and heavily tattooed and pierced...We've lost our connection with the earth.

The sniveling, booger eating, patchouli stinking tree huggers want to protect it (the earth), but they forget in the process that we're all going to end up taking something from it in the process of living if we all want to survive.

Things like...

Oil

Coal

Or how about the basic nutrients required to grow crops and livestock (and they don't want us making Fertilizer because they consider it poison)

And when our lives are over with...in biblical terms...we will die and return in a "ashes to ashes, dust to dust" manner to the earth (and the area within five square miles around where my ashes are spread will probably be declared off limits and an EPA superfund site.)

And the thing this morning which has in my considered Redneck opinion been taken by the liberal elites and professional do-gooders and the politicians from most of the innocent an less enlightened citizens--with the "Urbanization of America"--and which by default also from our society...

is the basic, spiritual, fundamental connection with our planet which gives you life and an inner peace...a peace which is missing from so many peoples lives today.

Seriously, I've had more fun planting and harvesting and eating the fruits of my garden this year than I could ever have had spending thousands and thousands of dollars on some "All inclusive" vacation or whatever. A new car has never ever made me feel the way I feel when I wander out each moring in my flip flops and turn the leaves of the Squash and Cucumber plants over and find something to eat.

And you just wait until I start showing pictures of my Watermellons.

Anyway..this morning I feel like I just might be a little bit better of a man today as a result, and I suggest that everybody that's not feeling right go out in play in the dirt if they need a cure.

Time will tell I guess...

I'm Tired Of People Hitting "Home Runs" At My Expense

Liberal Philanthropic Government Bullshit


I just saw Geraldo "Giant Stinky Mustache" Rivera saying on FOX News that the government was going to pay Jacee Dugard a giant compensation settlement of $20,000,000 because the "officials" botched the investigation of her imprisonment/disappearance at the hands of a idiot pervert sexual predator.

I'm sorry, and I feel sorry for everyone who has something like this happen, and people killed in the 9/11 World Trade Center bombing and now the Gulf Oil spill disaster, but this shit drives me crazy.

If I lose my job because of government ineptitude/market conditions because I'm selling saddles and buggy whips when everyone starts driving cars...I don't feel that I want or need to get a check.

If I have my head beat in in a Pizza Hut in 1979 the government doesn't have to come running to me with a cash settlement even though the City of Atlanta's inept police department can't do much of anything but prosecute murders after the fact and write parking and speeding tickets and arrest people for DUI after having consumed three glasses of wine.

If someone breaks into my home or car or trailer in college I don't go with my hand out expecting the government to hand me compensation for the event.

You do realize that the GOVERNMENT has NO MONEY?

They print it, but they don't own any of it until they take it away from someone and give it to someone else.

In other words, the only money the government has it steals from other people and distributes as it sees fit and based on popular opinion.

And one person killed or maimed is sad but unprofitable, but getting involved in a mass terrorist attack or assaulted by a pervert can apparently today be a very profitable profession.

Thus if you die in a car accident in 2001 you get no check consisting of taxpayer money, but if you have the misfortune of dieing when some wild eyed terrorists flings a commercial airliner into a building and you inhale a little smoke or if you manage to DIE your family hits the JACKPOT?

And then there was the double disaster of Katrina where people are still living on the government dole five years later and now this year if you are a fisherman or crabber or have a hotel or other business supported by tourism on the gulf coast you can run crying to the government and demand a payment...and BP's money isn't the only money being spent in the "compensation programs."

No way no how EVER can there not be taxpayer money involved in the administration of the oil spill "reparations."

People who live in Nevada and never saw a fishing boat in their life except on TV or the Movies will be cashing checks and going to gambling parlors and whorehouses using some of your and my money because the government in it's infinite Imperialistic wisdom doesn't have the ability to make toothpicks let alone distribute $20 billion without screwing up 30% of the process.

Using my money.

And now if you happen to be kidnapped by a known sexual predator and held hostage in the state of California...a state that is already widely known to already be BANKRUPT...you can reach a settlement where the inept government that is in the business of stealing hard working peoples' money and wasting it doing a crap job of law enforcement and worrying about the trans-fats in McDonald's Cheeseburgers and French Fries, win a prize and get $20,000,000 at taxpayer expense...

Not G O V E R N M E N T expense...DAMMIT.

Again I feel sorry for the girl, but TWENTY MILLION?

I guarandamntee you the girl wouldn't have probably earned $50K a year for the past ten years and now instead of $500K before taxes she gets TWENTY MILLION DOLLARS OF OTHER PEOPLES MONEY?

What a program...

Is there a list somewhere where I can sign up to be assaulted with a non lethal crime and then set and snivel and blubber my way into your wallet to the tune of thirty or forty times more than my life would be worth otherwise?

I'm old enought now to actually consider taking that option if it were available.

Is it just me?