Thursday, August 18, 2011

I Got A Severe New Haircut

Changing My Religion...


For the record, I grew up in a military family. 

Military in as much as when I was growing up my Dad reported to an Army Airfield in Lower Alabama every day and wandered around in and on various and sundry airplanes and helicopters making his living for our family.

Me?

I did the normal stuff little kids did back then in the 1960's wandering around being innocent and stupid and generally making a nuisance of myself when given the opportunity.

But I went down to the "City Barbershop" almost every Saturday morning with my Dad,sat in a chair (at first on a painted 2x8 board spanning the arms of the chair) and got "my ears lowered" to military standards by one of the nice gentlemen working there...usually "Mr. Taylor" that drove a 1954 Chevy to work every day--before exiting the building chewing a wad of "Bazooka Joe" bubble gum.

If I was wearing leather shoes I'd even get them polished in the back of the Barbershop by this Oooolllllddddddd grey haired black guy they called "Shine" because that's what he did for a living...the man could shine some shoes.

When all of the other hippy boys in the late 1960's and early/mid 1970's had long hair, my family's standards required the visit every week to ten days to the barber shop for a trim when my hair started touching my ears.

Next came my adventures in Naval ROTC at Georgia Tech, and again the requirement was that the hair not touch the ears and that the wimpy moustache I insisted on growing--the one I wanted  so I didn' look so young like Opie on  the TV show Andy Griffith--couldn't extend past the edges of my mouth.

I endured that standard for another couple of seasons, and now here we are today finding me having lived like Tom Hanks' character in Castaway on and off for the past 25 years.

I like just leaving my hair alone and letting it grow.

I've had probably something like a dozen real haircuts in the past 12 years, and I've done two of them myself...

one in 1999 when I took my electric clippers and cut everything down to a 1/8th inch level, and the one I did today going even closer to my scalp.

I had a foot long pony tail of hair hanging off of the back of my head, and by today's societal standards it was I that was the rebel and everyone else that wanted to sit in the barber chair were the "normal people."

Unfortunately our current society will let you be a raving lunatic and as long as you keep your hair cut and wear a suit and not make too much noise everything is A OK.

Unfortunately, as Dr. Martin Luther King said, we still cannot judge people by the content of their intellect and their character...

...we have to look at them and it is what they look like that determines by and large what we think about them...

...regardless of what we actually hear them say and what they end up doing in the end.

YES, I cut my hair today for professional reasons because I have an opportunity to do something new and I was afraid I might possibly get passed over if I didn't.

I just want to go on record as saying that it's not what is on top of or hanging off of the back of your head that matters or is dangerous.

It's what is going on between the eyes inside the head that counts.

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

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Back In The Basement

I've Got A Saw In My Hand...Don't Bother Me...


I regret to report that due to insanity and professional inactivity, I've got my nights and days totally reversed right now.

I'm wide awake about midnight and I want to sleep all afternoon every day while the sun is shining.

It sucks being Me...but somebody's got to do it I guess.

Back to my sawdust pile in the mean time.

Regards Y'all.

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Sawdust Flying...Mind Racing...

Small Particles And Even Smaller Progress...


I'm pleased to report that I'm now in the final trim out mode on the wood work down in the Wee Pub in my basement. 

Progress is an uneven effort because I keep changing things around in the final design and I'm working with a basic hand miter saw which is very accurate but also slow as Christmas working solo. 

Recently while reading some unrelated news stories I remembered that I once had a power miter saw a few years ago but the barbarians in downtown Brunswick, Georgia broke into my Rental  property while I was renovating the building and stole it along with most of my raw materials.

Of course the Brunswick Police department was willing to take a police report only if I'd come down to their offices (they were too busy to come out and look for silly stuff like fingerprints), but other than that they just shrugged their shoulders and mumbled something to the effect that "at least I wasn't there at the time of the burglary and didn't get shot or stabbed."

I'm getting too old to fight, and I've broken my right hand three or four times hitting people and things through the years, but this video makes me want to go back to the gun range and polish my pistol skills a little:



The sad thing is that apparently the Maryland police were only able to get there after all of the perpetrators had left the scene and now thay are claiming that it's too much trouble to try to prosecute the thieves using the video tape as evedence.

I'm telling you, Ladies and Gentlemen, this "Flash Mob" stuff with idiots without jobs or morals or reason deciding to use things like Twitter and Facebook to coordinate acts of violence and "civil disobedience " deserves a few well armed citizens to take matters into their own hands because as I've written here before:

"When Seconds Count, The Police Are Only a Few Minutes Away."

In Maryland where this event happened it is against the law to use a gun against a intruder unless they have basically crawled into your bed and put on your wife's pajamas and put a knife to your throat.

If they come into your home or business and start hauling off your property solo or in mass like in the Video you can't shoot anyone or even point a gun at them...

You just have to stand there and watch them take your stuff and hope they don't physically assault you in the process.

I call BULLSHIT on this situation and promise that if I'm in the building and able to do something besides cower behind a display of Budweiser and Potato Chips someone's at least going to have at a black eye and a fat lip at the end of the day.

Know what I mean?







Sunday, August 14, 2011

Come Monday Sunday...It'll Be Allright

A Weekend Jimmy Buffet Would Be Proud Of.


I don't have a whole bunch to say this evening because I'm too lazy to think about anything to write.

I guess you can just take my earlier posting about what happened around here on Saturday, add a trip to Kroger and Home Depot into the mix, shuffle around the nap times and sunning on the deck out by the pool times , and...

You get the picture.

I'll talk to y'all Tomorrow...

Saturday Success...Simple Pleasures

I'm A Professional At Doing Nuthin All Day

I don't mind reporting to you, Ladies and Gentlemen, that I hardly did CRAP all day here on Saturday at the Turbo Pup Compound on the banks of the Mighty Tennessee River.

N U T H I N'

Not A Thing Productive.

Further...

I PLANNED my day that way more or less.

Pat wanted to go shopping in the morning over at a new "Marketplace" they've opened down the road a couple of miles in the Turkey Creek area...

so she went.

Me?

I'd have liked to have gone but they have some rules down there.

Apparently they don't let unshaven, unshowered, naked pot bellyed middle aged men in their snooty "Marketplace", and since I was too lazy to get up and shave and shower and put on clothes suitable for a public appearance I opted to stay home.

Any way, so I just stayed here and wallowed around in bed until almost eleven AM with the Turbo Pup.

Then when she (Missy the Turbo Pup) had to get up to go out and pee I got up too (because I had to also but I opted to do it inside rather out in the yard), stumbled into a bathing suit, grabbed a cigar and the newspaper, poured myself a "waker upper" drink, and set my butt down outside on the deck by the pool and didn't hardly move again until Pat came home about 1 PM.

THAT right there, in my considered Redneck Opinion, is a successful plan for a weekend day in and of itself I'd say, but then you know what?

I had another drink and sat around out there in the moderate heat until it threatened to rain, then I went inside and layed around watching FOX News and the Weather Channel and all in all a good afternoon was had by everyone here at the Turbo Pup Compound.

I did have an inkling of intention to wander over to Home Depot and Kroger late in the afternoon before dinner, but a really good late afternoon NAP ended up taking precedence.

Then Pat woke me up and threatened to go over to our local Karaoke Pub Bullfeathers and bring me back a burger.

And of course that offer forced me to get up, clean up, and get dressed so I could run out the door with my girls.  (They let the Turbo Pup sit with us there on their expansive deck, so we've taken to doing happy hour a few nights a week.)

A couple of drinks, a couple of burgers, and a couple of songs later I was back home in time to go right back to my FOX News and Weather Channel watching.

And now here I am at 1 AM Sunday morning trying to reschedule a trip to Home Depot and Kroger and try to make some more sawdust in the Wee Pub in my basement Sunday afternoon.

Hope the balance of your weekend is at least half as satisfying as mine has been thus far.

Regard Y'all...