Saturday, July 09, 2011

It's A Wonder I Have Any Hair Left

Somebody Call 911...


Just in case you haven't noticed, I've been trying recently to not spit on my computer monitor while writing here on the blog about crazy government crap that makes my ever greying, ever balding head spin... at orbital rotational velocity.

I've let a number of stories go by in just the last week, but then this morning I find myself wanting to ask you...

Do you see anything wrong with the house and yard shown here in this picture?


No, that's not my front yard, it belongs to a woman in Oak Park, Michigan who IS FACING FINES AND UP TO 93 DAYS IN JAIL because the city says they have a code that says "a front yard has to have suitable, live, plant material" but a vegetable garden planted in attractive raised beds is, according to a few neighbors and the "code inspector", not "suitable."

"The price of organic food is kind of through the roof," said Julie Bass.

So, why not grow your own? However, Bass' garden is a little unique because it's in her front yard.

"We thought it'd be really cool to do it so the neighbors could see. The kids love it. The kids from the neighborhood all come and help," she said.

...

It looks like this critical debate is headed for a jury trial and neither side is backing down.

"I could sell out and save my own self and just not have them bother me anymore, but then there's no telling what they're going to harass the next person about," Bass told us.

There's another pretrial scheduled for July 26. The next step could be a jury trial.


See, Ladies and Gentlemen...this is where we are today with our governments--local, state, and national. They are intent on micromanaging our asses off, and taxing us to pay for the proceedings.

"I think it's sad that the City of Oak Park that's already strapped for cash is paying a lot of money to have a prosecutor bothering us..."

This story reminds me of a story I read from The Brunswick News where a mentally unbalanced guy down on our little island on the Georgia Coast confronted a code inspector about a large plywood for sale sign he had erected in the front yard of his OWN HOME. 

The inspector called in the cops, and the cops called in the swat team, and at the end of the day the swat team snipers shot the man dead, in his own yard, over...

A PLYWOOD YARD SIGN WHICH DIDN'T MEET THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT "CODE."

Stuff like this is total BULLSHIT...Ladies and Gentlemen... and as my new header quotation by Thomas Jefferson printed at the top of this blog says:

 "Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have...The course of history shows that as government grows, liberty decreases."



Put that in your pipe and smoke it this morning...

Friday, July 08, 2011

Having A Toe Tapping Good Time

My Head's Still Spinning...


Jeez...I really don't know what the heck I'm doing these days. 

OK, maybe I know what I'm doing but it's just that there is so much of it going on at one time.

I haven't had the time to take my mid-day nap but a couple of times in the past month, but yesterday I did manage to lay around and read a week's worth of newspapers and work on a couple of crossword puzzles for a couple of hours mid-day between projects.

I'm spending time doing a whole bunch of different stuff...still working on the final details on the doors on the new Carport Storage Closet which should be finished up today.

And yesterday I cut and put together a new 5-1/2" high foot rest addition and slid it up under the "Wee Pub's" ever evolving bar set up raising the height of the bar top from the old 36" level up to closer to the standard 42"-43".  I've still got to install wood panels and molding and trim over the old formica surfaces (the bar is a hand me down from our neighbor's kitchen remodling project) and then pour a epoxy resin finish on the bartop sometime in the future.

And meanwhile on the professional front I'm working on putting the final touches on writing the "Operator's Manual" for the revised PLC based Waste Water Storage System over in South Carolina. 

I'm pleased to report that the system passed the final inspection by the State and local  "officials" responsible for issuing the operational permits yesterday morning with flying colors.

Hurray...another professional milestone in my sordid storied so-called "Professional" career. 

Actually it really was sort of exciting because no one told the inspectors that this control system was designed and built and partially installed by a crazy guy who had never built anything like it before.

Sometimes I think that it helps to come at a project like that one not knowing how things are "usually done," because by thinking "outside the box" and taking a fresh look at the problem you can actually produce a unique and very eloquent solution to the challenges presented.

I think we ended up with a very simple yet powerful hardware and software solution to the operational tasks we were presented with, and next week when I deliver the final software revision I hope to pick up some follow on work adding new capabilities as they are already working on automating other aspects of their down stream waste processing operations.

And speaking of travel, we're in the final planning stages of a trip over the next two weeks which will take us over to the job site in South Carolina, then down I-95 for a few days visiting our former home on St. Simons Island, then across the Florida Panhandle to Mexico Beach and then Ft. Walton, then on to the family Farm in Lower Alabama to visit my dear Mother for most of a week before returning back here to the Turbo Pup Compound.

Little Missy the Turbo Pup's already packing her lockers and sea chests with toys and towels and bathing suits in anticipation of the adventure.

I've got to go now and bust my butt working on some more stupid tax forms and other paper shuffling crap, so y'all will have to excuse me for the moment...

Thursday, July 07, 2011

Worn Totally Out

A Multitude Of Priorities And Minimum Energy...


This working all most of the day outside in the heat stuff is turning out to not be such a good idea.

While it has improved my sleep patterns to something near normal, it has also zapped me mentally at a time when I need to be thinking on my feet when I'm not standing outside making sawdust or using the pneumatic nailer.

Whose idea was all of this any way?

Oh yeah...I think I came up with this torture.

So any way, now I have to shift gears and sweep up the sawdust after ALMOST finishing my carport closet/locker and get back inside to do the stupid second quarter Corporate Tax crap and finish getting ready to be out of town for TWO weeks on a working "vacation."

Talk to y'all later I guess...

Wednesday, July 06, 2011

Thank GOD That Freaking Child Murder Trial Is Over With

Now We Can Get Back To Worrying About Something Else STUPID...

I was watching FOX news with my PLC Programmer yesterday afternoon when they announced the verdicts in the Casey Anthony murder trial.

Surprising, but not life changing for me personally.

Just like the missing Alabama Teen Natalie Holloway story down in Aruba, I figure that amid all of the media hoopla and noise is the underling truth that "Jordan van der Shit" (or what ever his name was...I'm too lazy to Google it right now) PROBABLY got away with one crime due to circumstances.

He might of not actually killed the girl, but he covered up her death and spent time in the Jail in Aruba and again in his home country in Europe--a country club environment compared to his jail circumstances now...

and then he continued to spiral out of control until he did the same thing again in another crappy third world country and he's stuck for life pooping in a 5 gallon bucket and eating stale bread and maggot infested corn mash.

OJ Simpson went down that same road...beating Murder charges only to continue to be the narcissistic asshole he was all the time mugging for publicity and the media spotlight until he finally got his stupid black ass locked up in Las Vegas.

And Today?

This silly little troubled bitch will be out of jail by Friday after the sentencing hearing on Thursday.

She'll probably get probation and community service in return for the time already served--two or three years.

And just like the other media bimbos she'll get her book deal and her Playboy centerfold shoot and possibly a reality show, and unless she changes her ways she will either end up back in jail for a probation violation as a minimum of found beat to death in a hotel room or dead on the side of the road a victim of drug overdose or DUI accident.

Most people like this can't take their good fortune of "dodging a bullet" and straighten up and get on with their lives, in my considered Redneck opinion.

I really do wish her well and hope that truth and justice has been well served in these verdicts--I really didn't give much of a damn about the story--but I also suspect that we haven't heard the last of Ms. Anthony and it won't be about her getting a Phd or winning a Nobel Prize.

I promise not to say "I told you so..." either

Tuesday, July 05, 2011

You've Probably Already Seen This Because It's Gone "Viral" on the Internet

But Just In Case You Haven't...

 
Word has it a 15 year old girl put this video together. Take the time to watch the whole thing and see if it doesn't make your chest pound...




'Nuf Said I think

Monday, July 04, 2011

A NORMAL Night's Sleep?

I Must Be Getting Old...


A funny thing happened last night.

I laid my head on my pillows at about 7 PM.

The next thing I knew it was 4:30 AM.

I haven't gotten that quality of sleep but a few times in the past 5 years.

Right now I feel like going outside, climbing up on the roof, and building something out of rock and stone and sheet metal.

Fortunately I don't need anything built out of those materials right now...particularly located on my roof...and my inventory of rocks/stones consists of a few random samples about the size of a football which were laying around the back yard when we moved here a little over three years ago.

In addition to melting away about ten pounds sweating in the 95 degree heat in my carport working on my storage closet project yesterday, Pat spent a few hours helping our neighbor's family pull heirlooms and some pieces of furniture out of the fire damaged house and move other things into the end which was more or less intact except for the smoke damage.

We donated a bunch of boxes which I have a habit of hoarding in the basement because they couldn't buy any since it was Sunday before the 4th of July and every place selling boxes was closed.

Here's a look at the aftermath of the blaze:


The car there burnt to a crisp was a Honda Accord:


And the offending lawnmowers can be seen there on the right side of the garage also burned to a crisp. The weed eater was unidentifiable in the wreckage, so I suspect it or the push mower to be the source of the initial flame.


Just like my experience with a cheap crappy electrical power strip starting a fire which destroyed my house and most of it's contents years ago, this event just goes to show you how really complex the hazards are which we face in everyday life.

We use things like gasoline and propane and natural gas and even laundry and other household chemicals casually and with impunity every day, but lurking behind each of those substances and compounds is the potential for death and destruction.

We're conditioned these days to just assume that everything is OK and then sue the pants off of anyone which makes anything which causes us any harm or hardship after the fact.

That said, I hope everybody has a wonderful 4th of July, but at the same time I ask that you are CAREFUL with your Grills and Fireworks so I don't have to come down to the emergency room or watch you describe the ensuing explosion on the 6 PM evening news.

Regards Y'all...

Sunday, July 03, 2011

Unexpected House Fire(Works)

Been There Myself And Got The Tee shirt...


So I was cruising along nicely yesterday morning happily making sawdust and torturing the Turbo Pup with her new box of 140 squeekies I had received to replace the innards in dead toys she is always chewing up.

Progress was slow but steady out in the carport and by just before noon I came back into the house to rest a few minutes from the 90 plus degree heat...promising myself that I would fire up the construction effort again (excuse the unintended pun...you'll understand when you finish reading this posting) at noon.  I had smelled smoke a few minutes earlier but just attributed it to someone burning lawn debris.

Unfortunately from about 12 PM on things didn't quite work out the way I had planned for Saturday, July 2nd, because when I walked back outside to start work I noticed that two houses down our street on the opposite side from our house black smoke was billowing out from under the partially open garage door.

I knew that our neighbor--a widow lady ten or fifteen years my senior--had just finished mowing her grass and running the weed eater, and apparently one of the two devices had mis-behaved after she put it away and she was in the house IN THE SHOWER.

I ran inside and called 911 while Pat ran next door to get our neighbor who knew the woman well and together they were able to bang on the storm door and storm windows and get her attention.

She came running outside clad in only a silk robe with no shoes, and then proceeded to run back into the building two times before we could physically restrain her and talk her into staying outside.

Here's a look at things about 15 minutes after I first noticed the fire:


Here's one of the brave fire fighters finally getting some water on things:


And here they've basically stopped things from progressing and are just beating the final hot spots down:


This whole experience strikes very close to home for me, because I had the unfortunate experience to have my house burn to the ground in April of 2001. Since I was not home at the time things were happening I had the good fortune to not having to sit there and watch the disaster unfold with a giant shower of electrical sparks when the breaker panel finally gave way or listen to the gas tanks on the lawn equipment, propane tanks, and the car gas tank and air conditioner system explode in the inferno.

Having already lived through the process however, I was amazed at the insight it gave me to help move everyone through the process. I'm not saying I'm some kind of hero or anything, I'm just saying that having dealt with the process from the inside personally gave me a punch list of things I could regurgitate in sequence/order for others to worry about from memory in the middle of the excitement.

I had to wander around trying to keep people off of the hot electrical wires--the next door neighbor insisted on trying to use his garden hose to defend his house and in the process was risking electrocution if his water stream came in contact with the current.

We basically spent the rest of the afternoon working with another dozen of our neighbors consoling the woman and helping her contact her family and the assholes at her so-called insurance company.

I use profanity--the word "assholes"--because that's the way I currently feel about the people and the corporation called Farm Bureau here in West Knoxville.

Do you know what the person which answered the telephone told us when we finally got through to them on Saturday before the Fourth of July?

"We can't possibly get anyone out there until TUESDAY because it's the WEEKEND and Monday's A HOLIDAY."

You might be "in good Hands with Allstate," but from my personal experience this year with a roof damaged by a hail storm, and now with this deal with a house fire which caused at least a loss of 50% of the property rendering it inhabitable, is that you are "shit out of luck with State Farm and Farm Bureau"...and that's a crying shame.

This woman has lived in the neighborhood for over thirty years, raised two sons, and burryed a Husband all the while paying premiums for her "Homeowner's Insurance" and just because her house burns at an "inconvenient" time they leave her sitting beside the road in a borrowed chair with no shoes.

Now here's the part of this story which could be considered a political commentary but which makes me proud that I was able to contribute and further, the way our neighbors and even some total strangers rallied around someone in need.

Don't get me wrong here...this lady was comfortable financially so she could afford to go rent a motel room and buy shoes and clothes, but she was distraught and losing her mind to the point of fainting and having to sit in an Ambulance for a half hour while they checked her out.

In the three hours following the start of the conflagration some total strangers from a nearby condo development brought her some shoes that fit and some pants and a top to wear.

When the smoke had proverbially cleared and the fire department had left the scene I was going to help her sons board up the broken windows and doors, but other people were tripping over me to help and I ended up managing the scene and watching other people swing hammers.



No FEMA.

No state or federal declaration of disaster areas.

No government supplied Trailers and Debit Cards and Free TV's and other crap paid for at taxpayer expense.

I know I hate what happened to our neighbor this Fourth of July Weekend, but at the same time it did my heart good to be able to participate in an exercise which demonstrated that the real, fundamental, core of the American Spirit is still alive and well here in West Knoxville in July of 2011.

I wish that we could all...using an unfortunate metaphor...take the time to "fan the flames" on the embers which are left laying around in places like my neighborhood on my street in other places around the country, and restore the fundamental ideals and self sufficiency on which our country was founded in the minds of the voters before the 2012 election takes us further down the road to socialism and destruction.

O K?