They Paved Paradise

And Put In An Interstate...


Well, I've gotten through about 18 hours being back in my adopted home town of Smyrna/Vinings, Georgia without incident, but it took only about thirty minutes to remember why we left here in the first place.

GOOD GOD WHAT AWFUL TRAFFIC.

That, and Interstates like I-285 that have more pavement in a two mile stretch of eight or ten lanes than currently exists on all of St. Simons Island.

The traffic is amazing, and Pat's and my own driving skills have been dulled by the slow pace on our little island to the point where we have no desire to own things like radar detectors and run around eating bagels, reading the newspaper--steering the car with our knees while driving along in a dense pack of cars and semi trucks at 80 MPH.

Everyone else here at least tries to do things like that while we lope along at 54 MPH.

Once you get out of the rat race I guess that it's hard to go back, or to even understand why you were there and put up with two plus hour daily round trip commutes in the first place.

I waste more time on the computer each day than I used to spend driving to work for almost ten years, back before I started my own company and started working from home.

The next best thing I did after that lifestyle improvement was to move our "home" from inside the rat race to our little Island, and I have to admit that I can hardly wait to get back on the road tomorrow morning heading away from this old, vaguely familiar reality...

the daily reality for about four million miserable, mis-informed souls.

Ya'll come see us now...ya hear?

She Took A Friend Along

The Odd Couple

By the way Mom...we made it to Atlanta so you can stop worrying now.

On The Road Again

Willie Nelson I'm Not...


Well, we're off to Brunswick to finalize the big Pyramid structure, then it's up I-16 and I-75 back to Hotlanta for a couple of days.

Ya'll feel free to entertain yourselves in the mean time...

An Explosion In Atlanta

And I Get To Go Look At The Results...


I've mentioned in the past that I've been working for a while with a friend's engineering firm as a Forensic Engineer, looking into industrial steam system accidents that either damaged equipment or killed/injured people.

At the risk of sounding like a ghoul, I have to admit that it's pretty interesting stuff most of the time, even though there are a bunch of lawyers circling around the area getting in the way and, the people and the firms they work for are tight lipped--afraid that we're going to end up placing the blame with them or their company.

Any way, there was an explosion in the laundry area of one of the big downtown Atlanta hotels last month, and thus far all I've seen is pictures and had phone call discussions about what might have happened.

This Tuesday morning I'm driving up to Atlanta to take a look at the accident scene which has been preserved under OSHA and other government mandate while all of the vultures lawyers and their hired guns nerds expert witnesses look at the details of a pretty spectacular event that I wouldn't want to have been in the same room with when it happened.

Pat and Missy, the Turbo Pup, are going along with me as we take the opportunity to visit with some old friends and eat at a few of our favorite restaurants. This will be only the second trip to Atlanta (if you don't count changing planes in the Atlanta Airport), a place I resided in for 27 years, since we moved down here to our little island back in 2004.

My writing continues to suffer under my consulting work load and the pressures of fine tuning the new house and building my giant pyramid which I now have to deliver complete tomorrow--three days early--in anticipation of being in Atlanta this week.

I hope to be able to return on Wednesday or Thursday in time to be on the sidelines with the kids and my monstrosity creation for their home opener game, but who knows what opportunities will develop in the mean time.

I'll be sure to say hello to Michael Vick for you all if I see him, because the Federal Courthouse is just down the street from the accident scene...

.

Sometimes It's Like This At Our House

It's A Stampeed...Everybody Run For Your Life

Castro Dead?

Not At All A Bad Thing...IF It's True


I have to admit that I'm not on the ball right now with my Internet news reading, but one of my blog Idols down in Miami, Val over at Babalu Blog, has it on pretty good authority that Fidel Castro has finally decided to take the eternal dirt nap.

Of course the lamestream media is hesitant to report on the potential demise of the originator of the greatest government run health care system in the entire world. Even FOX news hasn't mentioned it (the rumor) in the past half hour.

I was born about the time this useless bastard took the reins down in Cuba, and for all of my life I've looked at the map and flown over the country in an airliner wishing that I could visit one day.

If it's true, I'll be on one of the first planes heading down there later this winter looking for some good cigars and the opportunity to visit the place that Hemingway called home for part of his life.

Keep your fingers crossed.

24 Hours To Pizza Night

Simple Pleasures For Simple Minds...


Needless to say that I've had a less than optimal week here, with most everyone that owes me money telling me why they haven't paid me or why they won't pay me what they owe me.

Then there is the problem with the ones that I owe clamoring for more that I actually owe. Even the water company has to get a presidential pardon issued to explain the six thousand gallons of water that escaped when the thieves ran off with my rental property's copper water lines a few weeks ago.

Finally, there is some other personal crap that's going on that isn't worth mentioning or writing about that won't end the world, but all the same it has managed to get in the way of a a good deal of productive time and caused my normal bitching and complaining attitude to sink into an un-presentable funk.

Thank GOD it's Friday and tomorrow night is PIZZA NIGHT...

I'm going out for dinner, then I think that I'll come home and start bitching again.

Get ready for a good rant or two...

If You Can't Say Nuthin' Nice (Or At least Intelligent)

Don't Say Nuthin' At All...


Sorry, but I'm taking my own advice right now.

Later, Y'all

PVC Pyramids

Plastic & Spandex Is Faster Than Stone...


I've spent part of the past week finishing up my design for the "Pyramid's of Egypt" prop for the Glynn Academy Marching Band's halftime show this season.

Thankfully, by both attrition and executive decision, the scope of my responsibilities was reduced by at least two thirds.

By last week the only thing left in the plan was a giant fabric covered Pyramid that would be constructed in three parts and moved onto and off of the field at each game.

The original 10' diagonal size produced a wimpy looking diminutive structure, so last weekend the band director gave me the go ahead to increase things by 50%.

Right now I'm stumbling around my driveway with 24 ten foot lengths of 1-1/2" PVC and a couple dozen elbows and tees trying to assemble my Egyptian vision in time for band practice at 3 PM this afternoon.

Then I have to beat a couple of delinquent female band parents into compliance in order to get 30 yards of 60" wide tan spandex sewn together in time for the August 31 opening game.

I wish I had a few thousand slaves to help me, but the Gatorade costs and toilet facilities are probably beyond my means.

Photos of King Virgil III's Tomb available shortly...

Lethargy Setting In

Somebody Poke Me With A Cattle Prod...


Today I did something I haven't done in a few years.

I cleaned out and organized my new garage.

I know that there are some of you out there which are green with envy, and some want me to stop by and do the same to their garage.

Fat Chance...

When I thought about it, I was surprised to realize how long it had been. I've been living in condos and on boats for most of the past 13 years, so the best I've usually had is a carport to shield my four wheeled conveyances from the elements.

Now once again I have a room with a giant overhead door full of washers, dryers, freezers, air compressors, boxes full of tools and construction supplies, and the obligatory garage "stuff."

Everything but an actual Automobile is in my garage as I write, and that is because I don't think that there is room because of all of the other stuff we have crammed in there.

That's OK...I feel so totally suburban and complete now.

Any way...I admit that my writing has been totally sucking the past few months with virtually nothing happening here on the blogs (other than keeping some sort of public diary,) and both books are at a total standstill.

I tripped over a two inch thick draft copy of the cookbook while unpacking during the move and it made me feel guilty. It has also forced me to start posting a few new recipes over at The Redneck Gourmet.

I guess that I have a hard time partitioning up my days to include physical labor like working on the duplex and then have the mental stamina to write intelligent or glib or humorous rants like I have done some of the time in the past.

Maybe I should just go back to being a virtual homeless unemployed slob and drag my computer around with me to places like Starbucks and other Internet hotspots and see if I can get some quality writing done. Even McDonalds has free Internet here on our little Island.

I had a publisher interested in the cookbook back a couple of years ago, but he's probably died or started selling real estate while waiting for me to submit a couple of chapters of edited manuscript.

He also told me that I should plan on getting some fantastic pictures of my food because pictures sell cookbooks, especially "coffee table" type cookbooks that people that never actually cook will drop $25 on at Barns & Noble. The only problem is that my cookbook is written with slobby middle aged divorced men in mind--guys that would starve to death eating Spam and Cheetos and would never get a second date with a decent woman if they tried to cook on their first date.

Instead of hiring a professional food photographer, I got a nice expensive camera and began a two year diversion fooling around with photography and entering photo contests rather than writing about cooking.

Now I've realized that taking publication quality pictures of food found sitting on your kitchen cabinet, dining room table, or on your stovetop with crappy fluorescent lighting or a single 100 watt bulb is next to impossible.

It was still a fun diversion in the end, and I do have some lovely pictures of my dog and my foot and some sunrises here on the Georgia Coast.

Over the years I've written some pretty serious stuff here on this blog, particularly back just before and right after the 2004 election. I like to think of myself as something other than a partisan hack, although I tend to vote with the Republicans most of the time because the Libertarians can't seem to field any serious candidates on the national political stage.

Writing about politics tends to either bore people to death else make them to try to find out where you live and come to your house to smear you with animal blood or stomp around on your car hood.

Thus I try to pick my topics carefully and then do a good deal of research before I place the first finger on the keyboard.

Still, I always love to pick on the "professional media", and a commenter who calls hinself/herself "Sommelier" and who is apparently a long term reader called me out this past week about something I wrote without knowing the real detailed facts.

Here's what they said:

I don't know where you get your statistics on media professionals, but I'm certain they are not even remotely accurate. You continually bash the "professional" media, yet you previously stated a "personal" dream that entailed working at a newspaper as a "professional" journalist. Sorry, pal, all your ranting appears nothing more than sour grapes.

And here's the passage I wrote that my reader is referencing from last Friday's posting:

As usual, the "professional" media is freaking out about the usual stupid things.

Things like hurricanes, the stock market, the housing bubble, and trapped coal miners.

I have to admit that I'm having a good deal of trouble lifting a finger and pointing it toward a keyboard to even offer an intelligent rebuttal. What can I say anyway?

The media is populated largely by the bottom 25% of each class of high school graduates and college freshmen that ended up in Journalism by default after they flunked out of the Music department because they couldn't play an instrument or carry a tune in a bucket singing.

On second thought, that assessment was probably unfair AND inaccurate, but in my defense it was written somewhat tongue in cheek if you followed the entire context of what I was saying.

Still, I offer my apology to anyone who is a journalist, is in Journalism school, or whose child or other family member or friend is a professional in the industry.

(Now I'm gonna probably piss Sommelier off again...)

In my defense, I just can't help myself sometimes because the product produced by the professional media SUCKS so badly so much of the time.

If Columbia University--a place recognized as having one of the best journalism programs in the country; a place that only accepts about 9% of their freshman applicants; a place that has graduates living and working in the highest positions of the print and "legacy" media--can't give the public graduates that produce a quality, unbiased, fact based product telling us what is ACTUALLY happening out there in the world rather than disguising EDITORIAL COMMENTARY published as substantial portions of each and every news story, then I feel obligated to take shots at them whenever I can.

By the way, if you went to the local Junior College to get your Journalism classes then I expect the same standards for your product also.

Facts, FACTS, FACTS.

Who What When Where.

Let me decide the rest for myself.

And yes, I have said that I aspire to write as a published writer, possibly in the news field, and NO I should not resort to generalities and "cheep shots" else I'm no better than those I criticize.

But...

I'll close by offering this analogy.

If the men and women working in the field of Engineering (something that I do know a great deal about and have a four year college education in) were to as a group consciously elect to perform their jobs in the same manner and with the same accuracy as many (but not all) of those working as journalists, we'd have Delta airliners falling out of the sky and Ocean Liners sinking to the bottom of the Seas on a daily basis.

Further, I'd never drive a new car across a concrete bridge ever again in my life and in fact, I'd be afraid to put a piece of bread in a toaster or Nuke a bag of Microwave popcorn for fear of having the house burn down or what little brains I have left in my head zapped with radiation.

How's that for an accurate generalization?

Pizza Revelation

A Saturday Night Tradition


After doing virtually nothing all day today (as opposed to getting virtually nothing done), I fired up the new oven and worked on my thin crust pizza recipe. The solution is coming along nicely, and I feel good enough about things to publish it for public consumption.

Here's what you need to make a nice 15" thin crust pizza...

For the starter dough:

1/4 cup of 110 degree F water
1 pack of yeast

3/4 cup of flour


For the main dough:

3/4 cup of room temperature water

1-1/2 cup flour
1 teaspoon salt
pinch of sugar

Toppings (add or subtract as you like, but you really should try this combo unless something on the list gives you hives or makes your spleen rupture or something...):

olive oil

1 pound whole milk mozzarella cheese, cut into little blobs and evenly distributed
Enough pepperoni slices to cover the affected area
Four (4) strips of bacon, fried crisp and crumbled
1 small chicken breast half--pan seared to about 140 degrees F
A couple of hand fulls of baby spinach leaves
Fresh sliced mushrooms
3/4 cup of diced colored bell peppers (I used orange, Red, AND Yellow)
1/2 cup sliced red onion
1 small can of sliced black olives
6 oz of crumbled feta cheese (put it right on top of everything when you're finished)

First things first.

Put your yeast in the warm water, stir it up well, and let is sit for about fifteen minutes.

Once you have a bunch of hungry yeast breasties, howling for something to eat, dump your yeast/water mixture into your 3/4 cup of starter flour, stir it up to form a blob of dough, cover it with a clean dishtowel, and walk away and ignore it while it rises for a half hour or so.

Make yourself a nice glass of iced tea or open a beer and watch TV while you wait.

Now here's the difference between thick and thin crust...

You DON'T do a secondary rise on the dough. It's just that simple.

You dump your 3/4 cup of water into your starter dough to dilute, stir it all up, then pour it into a medium mixing bowl with your flour, salt, and sugar mixture.

Stir, stir, stir.

Do you have a stiff, yet slightly wet dough mixture yet?

No?

Then add a LITTLE flour or water until you get it right, then dump it all out onto a floured surface and start working it over with your hands.

Preheat your oven to 500 degrees F.

Now the idea is to incorporate some more flour into the slightly wet dough, ending up with extra on the outside surfaces as you begin to flatten it out to form a crust. After two or three minutes of kneading, break out your rolling pin and roll things out to a nice uniform disk about 18" in diameter and 1/4" to 3/8" thick (I use a 15" pizza stone to cook on.)

When you're finished rolling, pick up your crust and carefully place it on your pan or stone (dusted well with flour), then fold and pinch the extra 1-1/2" of dough over around the edges to form a rim on the crust.

Next spoon out some olive oil (a table spoon or two) onto the middle of your masterpiece and smear it around the area inside the rim, then add your cheese, meat, and veggies, toss the whole thing into the oven for 17 to 20 minutes (depending on your oven), pull it out and let it cool a little, cut it into slices, then grab yourself a napkin and EAT.

I swear that there is a chemical reaction in my recipe that has the same effect of a sleeping pill, because I'm usually asleep within thirty minutes after eating my deluxe homemade pizza, regardless of the crust thickness.

My little Missy, the Turbo Pup, likes her pizza crust pretty well also, and tonight she ate her fill sitting there along with the rest of the family.

Life's good here on our little island...hope that the same is true for you.

Roof On...Dumpster Gone

Life Returning To Abnormal


Well, our roofers left here on Wednesday a little after noon, and a truck finally showed up to remove the dumpster from it's spot blocking my garage door about 3:30 PM yesterday, thus ending our torture in a mercifully short period of time.

The way things started, I was actually expecting at least a week long saga, but I was obviously wrong.

What kills me is how they managed to convert what should have been a one day job into three days of upset for the people residing in the property they were working on.

I guess that if you were born in a barn or spend your adult life living in a barn (with all due respect to Jesus) like most of these guys apparently did or do, there is a certain degree of satisfaction to be gained by interrupting the lives of "all them rich people" that live "out on that there island."

You might have to live here in Glynn county to catch the meaning and humor in that statement...

but any way...

As usual, the "professional" media is freaking out about the usual stupid things.

Things like hurricanes, the stock market, the housing bubble, and trapped coal miners.

I have to admit that I'm having a good deal of trouble lifting a finger and pointing it toward a keyboard to even offer an intelligent rebuttal. What can I say anyway?

The media is populated largely by the bottom 25% of each class of high school graduates and college freshmen that ended up in Journalism by default after they flunked out of the Music department because they couldn't play an instrument or carry a tune in a bucket singing.

I, on the other hand, continue to increase my mental powers and now spend my time contemplating issues far beyond the interest of the average human. In fact, I've discovered something akin to "Viagra" for the mind that is not only safe, legal, and readily available, but unfortunately occasionally causes swelling of my head that lasts longer than four hours.

When that happens, the blood supply to my brain causes me to look something like this:






I've got to go now and work on solving the world's problems...

Still Angry

But Going Away From Us

Latest Satellite Photo's In

Dean's Getting Angrier

Enough Said...I Think...

New Home Office

Information Overload


Have I ever mentioned that I've conducted my business from my home for the past 17 years?

Of course some of that time "my business" was "no business."

Some people call that condition being "retired."

Involuntarily or otherwise.

Over the past few years my property was downsized by choice and circumstance, until finally my home office consisted of a place on the sofa and coffee table. Since Pat also did her 8 to 5 work from home for a "real company", we always emphasized her office needs and gave her a a nice spot in a room by herself.

Not so here in our new Island Casa Grande.

It's super sized, and I've commandeered the formal living room as my own personal empire. Herein I'm in the process of establishing a computer workstation area, a drafting drawing area, and a painting/artwork area in addition to using the walls as a gallery to display my current and past work.

Perhaps the coolest part of the setup is my ability to connect the stupid old Comcast cable signal to my HP notebook and watch TV in a window while I work and blog.

Right now, in addition to watching Fox News, I have AutoCAD open in one window, a couple of browser windows open on the Internet, and I have the local Talk Radio Show playing on the Radio in the background.

I have a problem sometimes remembering which key to hit on the keyboard, but that's not in itself a bad thing...I guess.

Living In A Construction Zone

All Most Contractors Suck...


OK, don't start commenting and E-mailing me because your daddy or your brother or your husband is a contractor, because I--your lovely and talented blogger--are is am a contractor and have been in the contracting business for nearly 25 years in one capacity or another and I know what I'm talking about here.

Like I said...MOST Contractors SUCK.

That's right, in any given trade, specialty or area of operation, there is generally more work than there are competent, conscientious companies and more importantly--PEOPLE--to do said work, and so most construction, remodeling, and repair jobs are a serious study in insanity and human ineptitude and owner/customer patience.

Take our present home re roofing project, for example.

We found out on Saturday that our landlord had taken my advice and gotten some quotes on doing a new roof here at our new island home. Instead of getting the work done BEFORE we moved in, the late departure of the previous tenant and various other factors like procrastination caused her to wait until NOW to execute the project.

They were supposed to start work Monday at 9 AM.

Hurray...a new roof...we ran around in circles celebrating and made the necessary preparations like moving all of the plants into the garage and sun porch, moving my Suburban around the corner to a retail parking lot, and battening down the hatches and scaring off all the animals and small children in anticipation.

Then Monday came and went...and at the end of the day we still had the same old roof and the plants were undisturbed.

NO CONTRACTOR.

Yesterday morning at 7:10 AM we were rousted out of bed by the doorbell and guess what?

Our Contractor had arrived, with five pickup trucks, a flatbed truck, a dumpster, and a fork lift.

"Sir...can you please move your VEhickle?"

I complied, and for the next four hours they banged and pounded and scraped and generally raised a dust storm.

Then about 11 AM they left, presumably to go to lunch.

We haven't seen any sign of them since, except that a guy came back a couple of times to steal a piece of aluminum flashing out of a box laying on the driveway.

You guessed it.

Our CONTRACTOR JUST CAME BY TO MAKE AN APPEARANCE.

Our contractor is doing two or more jobs at once with the same crew.

Our contractor is going to force us to endure what should be a one and one half day job for two or more days, and not clean up when he suddenly leaves the job site each day, and make us enjoy having a ten cubic yard dumpster sitting two feet in front of our garage door.

I spent a half hour cursing and sweeping the back patio, front sidewalk, and driveway off to ensure that our contractor didn't injure a human foot, dog toe, or car tire with his hastily created debris.

I have just one question.

Why didn't this rocket scientist just admit to the owner and/or the residents that he was running behind, and start the job when he could finish it in a single mobilization?

THAT would have been too easy.

THAT would have made sense.

THAT would have been considerate to the people that have to live on the construction site.

But NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. can't do THAT.

Damn Contractors...

.

Mean Dean Cometh

While FEMA Makes Me Wait...


Sorry about the light posting (OK, no posting yesterday), but between the new house, my consulting work, and planning for the construction of a giant Pyramid and my much neglected duplex project I'm a little past busy.

For those of you paying attention, the annual Perseid Meteor Shower was pretty much a bust down here on our little island because of the weather.

Sunday night, the peak, was obscured by remnant cloudiness from evening thunderstorms, and excursions out to the beach on my bike Friday night and last night met with conditions obscured by the evening "salt haze" that sometimes blows in off the ocean in warm conditions.

Oh well, at least I tried.

Meanwhile, all you have to do is turn on the TV to see what could possibly be our next weather event down here...soon to be Hurricane Dean:




Of course there is a good deal of leeway as to it's final track, but if you live anywhere between Puerto Rico and NY City you better be paying close attention starting about Friday of this week.

We still have our fingers crossed here as we have 17 days left in our waiting period for our new flood insurance to take effect on the new house.

Time to go get some more CAD work done...

Does Anyone But Me Not Care What The People In Iowa Think?

Yawn...


Just in case you haven't heard, they had something called a "Straw Pole" out in Iowa yesterday. I don't know if they were actually handing out the straws or if you had to think ahead and bring your own to the proceedings.

At least someone was smart enough to hold something resembling an election on Saturday so that the productive people that hold regular jobs could participate.

Of course it might not make much difference in Iowa because the brutal winters generally keep the homeless population to somewhere down around three or four people most years.

Homeless people favor warm climates like Atlanta, or even San Francisco because all of the Yuppies and old hippies have grown up feeling guilty and will actually pay you to be homeless out there if you will stay off of their street and not pee on the front door of their office building.

Any way, a bunch of people out in Iowa drove their Massey Fergusons to town yesterday and told America what they thought about the current slate of Presidential wannabes that are willing to put a "R" beside their name in November of 2008.

What is it about the state of Massachusetts that makes people want to vote for men from up there in that region of the country?

Looking at what we've gotten out of Ted Kennedy and John sKerry over the past thirty or so years, it would seem that the American people would run far far away from anyone from the Beantown State, yet here is former MA Governor Mitt Romney taking the lead by 14 more straws than anyone else.

Perhaps he could open his own Soda Fountain using his winnings as inventory?

Or maybe it's the baseball reference in his name...I don't know.

Any way, I just sit here and shrug my shoulders at the whole proceedings because it always amazes me that Iowa is such a big deal every four years. Most of the political elite on both sides of the isle generally consider people from Iowa right up there with all of us hicks from Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi when it comes to intellectual savvy.

In my experience, when you own your "Sunday-Go-To-Meeting-Pickup" and your "every-day-working pickup truck" (and possibly a third one called your huntin' & fishin' pickup truck,) people in Massachusetts generally don't listen to much of what you have to say about things like Calculus and Social Security reform.

So what's the big deal about Iowa then?


Pandering?


Charity?


Just outright butt kissing, maybe?

I don't know, but now I hear that South Carolina is jockeying with the other states like the know-it-all-Yankees up in New Hampshire to be the second state to have a primary next year.

God help us.

The political elites and the left, along with all of the late night talk show hosts, will have an absolute field day with this situation if the trend continues.

Why don't we all just shut up and wait at least until the Democratic and Republican conventions next summer to start getting all worked up and hyperventilating, or maybe until November 2008 and let the chips fall where they may?

Or maybe they could line everybody up based on SAT scores or the state's average college GPA and have primaries...or better yet--play a football or basketball game to determine the candidates?

In my opinion, most of the people on the list these days are completely unqualified to run a Waffle House or Pizza Hut Restaurant, let alone become the leader of the most powerful country in the world.

Who are we fooling here anyway?

I remember that down in south Alabama we used to have this colorful fellow named Shorty Price that ran for virtually every office at the state level in Alabama in the 1960's and early 1970's.

Shorty was George Wallace's roommate back in the 1940's at the University of Alabama, but somewhere along the way they had a falling out and Shorty dogged George for the rest of his political career.

I say that if we're going to have to be forced to decide from a list making a choice between a bunch of unqualified Clowns, I wish there were a few more serious clowns that actually know they're clowns like Shorty Price on the ballot so I could make a conscientious selection when I finally go to the poll to waste my vote when election day finally gets here.

John Edwards and John sKerry are shallow images of old Shorty Price, in my opinion.

Shorty...where are you when we all need you for some comic relief today?

.

You Can Take The Dog Out Of The Yard...

But You Can't Take The Yard Out Of The Dog

Here's my little Missy, the Turbo Pup...freshly bathed and wallowing in the dirt on the patio...

.

Comcast Bites

New Blog Effort In The Blogging New year...


Hey guys, take the time to visit my new blog, Comcast Bites. I'm gonna bitch and complain and also report the facts in our efforts to kill the Comcast Internet bait and evil switch business.

They just basically told Pat "tough shisky", because she called to activate the service and she has no proof that the representative told her she could have the $19.95 monthly new customer rate rather than their normal rate of nearly $50 which I could have gotten for moving the account in my name.

Screw Comcast, I have at least an hour each day to moderate this new forum of disgruntled and disenfranchised customers.

Got a complaint about Comcast...I want to hear about it.

See you there...


.

Three Years Of Blogging

Has It Really Been That Long?


Well folks, 1418 Posting later, and what began as a series of essays delivered to my friends as E-mails in July and August of 2004 is now what you see here today.

I didn't really understand what I was getting into at the time, but I did know that the other side of my brain--the half which I had ignored as a math/science based engineering nerd for forty plus years--was looking for an outlet and words were trying to burst forth out of my finger tips onto my computer keyboard.

On August 10th, 2004 I decided to begin assaulting the world with my rantings, and 34 thousand hits later, here we all are today.

I admit that I do look at the hit counter, but I don't really write to get hits or readers...what I have to say is what I have to say at any given moment of any given day. I've also thus far avoided making you look at advertisement and ads on my site. It's tough passing up 39 cents a day in easy income, but I think that I can make it without making you endure commercialism here in my little part of the Internet.

I'd like to think that some of what I have to say is original and thought provoking, even if the only thoughts I provoke are of you getting onto an airplane and flying to the Georgia coast to beat me to death for my inane stupidity.

Regardless of what you think, thanks for stopping by here once in a while to see what's going on.

You can expect to see some changes and improvements in the blog format later this year, and with the new and improved kitchen facilities here in the new house you'll probably see the resurrection of frequent postings over on my cooking blog, The Redneck Gourmet.

Until next time...

Regards Y'all

.

Still Beating A Dead Horse

The City Of Brunswick Sanitation Department Sucks...


This morning, being well rested and somewhat settled into our new home here on our little island, I feel like turning my attention back across the Torras Causeway to the mainland, taking a few shots at the government of the City of Brunswick, Georgia in the process.

Don't get me wrong here--I don't dislike the City's government as a whole.

In fact, I think that some parts of it are actually pretty effective. Take my friend Mayor Brian Thompson for instance.

Brian's a real capable, likeable, stand up kind of guy. Further, Brian's willing to stand up and take endless abuse and and allow total strangers to make infinite demands on his time and energy, all for the sum of about $13,000 per year in salary.

How he makes it all work I'll never know.

And, for those of you that are thinking that I'm overstating my relationship with Mayor Thompson, let me say that I've actually been to his house for a party last Christmas, I have his personal cellphone number in my phone, and his wife Heather and I have worked on a number of theatrical & art projects and shows together over the past couple of years beginning long before his election to his present office.

With that and $0.75, I can probably get a cup of coffee at the local Waffle House, but connections are "connections" and I'll take mine where I can get them.

But I digress...

The current problem I have with the City of Brunswick government is with the "Sanitation" Department. That would be the "Departmente de Lempio" for my Spanish speaking readers (if I remember things accurately from my Junior year of High School.)

Any way, when I bought a rental duplex and a couple of vacant lots in the "New Town" section of Brunswick back in 2004, I immediately realized that there was a "little littering" problem in that section of town.

Maybe instead of calling it a "little littering" problem, I should call it a "big littering" problem.

Thinking a bit further, maybe it would be more accurate to say that we have a DUMPING PROBLEM in much of downtown Brunswick, Georgia.

But wait...

The City of By-God Brunswick, Georgia, USA forces everyone that has City water service to also pay for City supplied SANITATION SERVICE...for the ridiculously low price of about $8 per month.

Seems like a good deal to me.

But wait...

IF everyone has government mandated and government supplied "Sanitation Service," why is there litter strewn up and down the street and on every street corner?

Further, why is there wholesale dumping of giant piles of junk curbside, on a continuous basis, on my property and my neighbors' properties over the past 3-1/2 years?

Seriously, if you own property in downtown Brunswick and you don't police it on a monthly if not weekly (or even daily) basis, you will come back to find a giant pile of things like yard debris, sofas and other furniture, children's clothing, and virtually everything else imaginable laying on your grass weeds dirt, curb, and even part of the street.

One time I even had most of an upright piano laying on the edge of the alley behind my duplex.

Right now I have no less that two sofas and another bunch of crap that has clearly been dumped by someone, but not by average citizens that the City of Brunswick has forced to pay for "Sanitation Services." It's not the kind of stuff that people generate from cleaning out their kitchen and bathroom trash cans.

Could people be driving over from Alabama or up from Florida to dispose of their refuse?

Possibly, but probably not.

What I have laying around on my property is stuff abandonded by tenants which have been evicted from or otherwise move out of local rental properties and that is either dumped by the landlord else hauled and illegally disposed of by the landlord's representative(s.)

What we have going on is not people emptying their cans full of paper napkins, chicken bones and watermellon rines onto my curb (although I have had a bunch of bananas and most of a watermellon dumped out there once).

What we have going on is people that should know better using the streets and alleys of Brunswick as a landfill, thereby avoiding paying the local dump fees or tipping fees for bulk items that won't fit in their curbside city supplied trashcan.

I'd like to ask the "Officials" of the City of By-God Brunswick, Georgia, USA one question:

"Why not employ the current logic and just add a couple hundred dollars of dump fees onto everybodies' water bill or property tax bill and see if any better results can be attained--because your current program obviously isn't working?"

I'm waiting for an answer...

[que the sounds of crickets chirping here...]

Any way, you'd probably like to know what the "Sanitation Department" of the City of By-God Brunswick, Georgia actually does have to say about all of these goings on?

Well, first of all, in mid-May they said that they would come out to look at my current pile of trash and quote me a fee to remove it. This after they've already cleaned up similar piles of junk and debris in the past for free and often without me having to pound my fist or even lift a finger to dial the telephone.

After several missed appointments and games of playing "phone tag", now that I'm interested in developing and selling the property, the city has started taking a coy, hardball attitude with me for some unknown reason.

I've already paid a private contractor $300 to have the vacant land cleaned up and the litter removed, but I refuse to pay the additional $700 that my contractor wants to charge me to remove TWO DUMP TRUCK LOADS of crap that is not mine and was not placed on my property with my consent.

Finally in late May I got the head of the "Sanitation Department" to meet me on the property and agree to remove the debris at no cost...BUT, I'd have to wait until the new fiscal year began in June so they could put in a work order and have the money in the City's budget.

Looking at the calendar, it's now August 10th and tomorrow I expect to go over and yet again view the lovely festering, 30' x 20' x 5' high pile of crap that continues to grow as I write (it was still there two Monday's ago.)

I've called the "sanitation department" office several times a day several days each week for the past three weeks and my voicemail messages have as yet gone unanswered. Apparently the "sanitation department" can't afford a secretary or administrative assistant either.

Regardless of the final outcome, I'd like to point out that this is a perfect example of government ineffectiveness and ineptitude. Further, in this case it is also an example of the government attempting to supply a necessary and increasingly expensive service at an artificially low price.

Ten years ago in Atlanta I paid over $30 a month for trash service that didn't include the removal of yard debris, and today the City of Brunswick is trying to provide mandatory trash service for $8.00 per month.

In this case, apparently the low cost of the "sanitation service" is intended to balm the wounds of those that feel put upon by the mandate that the "sanitation service fee" be included in the water bill.

Glynn County does a little better with their $200+ fee included in the annual tax bill, but again the level of customer service verges on abysmal because the real cost of the service is apparently greater than the fee being charged.

The difference is that the county passes the costs directly to the property owner, where the City charges the end user--the tenant or resident--directly. (Too bad that the county politicians don't realize that the end users still end up paying their fee because the landlord just raises the rent to offset the increase in the tax bill anyway.)

What both the City of By-God Brunswick, Georgia and the government of Glynn County officials don't realize is that by meddling in the free market--by forcing everyone to buy "sanitation services" from the government or a government anointed contractor, they are actually preventing the free market and associated competition from competently providing a needed service at a fair cost.

Notice that I didn't say low cost or cheep cost?

That's because everything can't be cheep, other than the quality of the service that you get when you attempt to get something for nothing.

Don't Blame Me

I Didn't Write This...I Just Pointed It Out...


Turn up the volume on your speakers, click on the big arrow button in the middle of the screen, and prepare to be entertained or pissed off, depending on which side of the political spectrum you and your brain reside on.




Seems like a good representation to me, and the only ones I saw missing in the montage was Michael Moore and possibly Ward Churchill.

Heh...


.

All Our Crap Is In One Pile Now

Will Someone Please Help Me Unpack It?


This morning I was relieved to find that I didn't need my arms to fly up over my head to don a bandanna and shirt in anticipation of spending five or six hours outside running back and forth in the near 100 degree heat loading things like plants, lamps and mirrors into the Suburban.

I told Pat that if she bought one single other plant and mounted it in a 30 pound ceramic pot I was moving to a Monastery and taking some sort of oath or something. Based on a quick count that I just did, we have no less than FORTY plants here residing in artificial containers full of dirt and water.

I only claim the two sweet potato plants and the single jalapeno pepper plant our neighbor gave us while we were moving. Wasn't that nice, instead of moving the plant with her stuff, she gave it to me to move with my stuff.

Any new plants around here will be installed in the dirt outside, attached to the ground, and will most likely be left here when we move again in thirty or forty years.

I have the kitchen unpacked and pretty well organized, and the great room is in functioning order, but both bedrooms and both offices are still a nightmare of open boxes and misplaced items including one door that has to be moved through the rubble and remounted on its hinges after making way for a huge two piece office desk that someone else gave us during the move.

I think that when people find out that you have a truck showing up at your house on a given day they do an inventory and attempt to avoid a trip to the dump or otherwise discard things that their spouse has that they don't want to have to fool with the next time they have to move themselves.

I swear that I could have doubled our furniture inventory if we had accepted all of the offers our friends and sometime total strangers made when we announced that we were transplanting ourselves four miles south on our little island.

Now I have to shift gears and get back into the engineering consulting business and the construction business and while I'm at it build a giant pyramid for a local marching band to play music around in the middle of a football field at halftime.

See y'all later...

Speed Bumps & Garbage Collection

Symptoms Of Government Ineptitude


OK People, last time I checked, we as taxpayers and private citizens have allowed our government to spend trillions if not zillions of dollars improving our so called "infrastructure."

Even if you didn't know the details at the time, and in spite of things like Minnesota's recent bridge collapse, I'm pretty sure that the average citizen would offhand say that the expense has been worth it overall, because of the improvements in our collective "quality of life."

Well...I actually don't agree, and I am here to tell you that I believe that there are numerous devils in the details of our governments' efforts, and I'm getting a little tired of bumping my head into Satin and his assistant demon's horns and pitchforks over the past few weeks.

Think of it like this...

A hundred years ago, in the rural south, you probably rode a horse down a path to get from your house to town. If you were lucky, you had a dirt road that would support the passage of a horse or mule drawn wagon or carriage somewhere between you and town.

Likewise, if you were a damn Yankee were a city slicker lived in NY city you might drive your 10 HP Model T Ford along brick or cobble stone streets from your carriage house to your office.

Fast forward to today, and probably 98% of the US population has to go out of their way to even find a dirt road to drive on (unless it is their own driveway), because virtually every road in America is paved courtesy of the local, state, or Federal Government.

Potholes are, of course optional, and by the way, we still have a number of unpaved dirt roads down in the middle of the village here on St. Simons Island.

Once the automobile arrived on the scene in a major way, things like driver's licenses and speed limits also became a government provided necessity.

You name it, someone is always willing to ask for it and some bureaucrat will stick his hand in your pocket to pay for it, and down here on a couple of streets near our new house is another government roadway improvement that I've rarely had to worry about in the past...

The "SPEED BUMP."

Yeah...you heard me correctly...

"sPeEd BuMpS"

I say that "sPeEd BuMpS" prove that the government is, in many cases, totally feckless and useless.

What total government induced, intrusive, annoying, bullshit sPeEd BuMpS are, in my Redneck Libertarian opinion.

Here's how I see things when it comes to sPeEd BuMpS.

We hired the government to build and improve our roads in the first place, right?

We got tired of riding down dusty, rutted, or muddy dirt roads at ten miles per hour; breaking things off of our car and breaking our spines and butts in the bumpy process.

So along came the government, confiscated some tax money from me and you, and paved nice smooth concrete and asphalt roads with things like curbs, storm drains, stop signs, and traffic lights.

Once things got too smooth and car engines got more powerful, along came speed limits and speed limit signs. The theory was that you were supposed to go fast out in the country and on limited access roads, and slow down on city streets and in neighborhoods like mine.

To ensure that the speed limits and other traffic laws were complied with, next the government collected yet more tax money from everyone and set up police departments with police cars and radar and laser guns to catch the people that chose to ignore the rules and to protect the average citizens while they enjoyed their nice smooth asphalt and concrete paved roads and highways.

But wait, the police can't or won't enforce the existing laws, and as a result a few ignorant inconsiderate assholes thoughtless citizens still chose to ignore the speed limit, so guess what the government does in response?

Instead of doing the job they are already taxing their citizens for--enforcing the speed limits--the government takes even more tax money and "un-improves" the nice smooth asphalt roads that they already stole tax money to make smooth in the first place.

They go out and put in "sPeEd BuMpS."

sPeEd BuMpS.

This is a totally flawed concept--treating the law abiding citizens equal with the criminals.

With the installation of sPeEd BuMpS, every single driver has to suffer the punishment that should be meted out only to those drivers that elect to violate the speed limit, just like making crappy government mandated Trash service part of the Property Tax bill punishes everyone, while not stopping the original crime.

Yes, Pat and I have to drive across at least three sPeEd BuMpS each and every time we leave our house and again each and every time we come home, yet we have already seen little punk assed morons in pickup trucks and grown men in Buicks come flying down the road doing 40 MPH in a 25 MPH zone, racing from sPeEd BuMp to sPeEd BuMp, so what has the whole process accomplished?

Actually, the installation of the sPeEd BuMpS was originally motivated to not only reduce speeds on the streets, but also as a deterrent to people that elected to cut through our neighborhood in order to avoid a major nearby intersection and associated traffic light.

Only the government would impose heavy handed measure after measure after measure onto innocent bystanders in the "public interest" and in the name of "progress."

In the mean time, I wonder if I can get the government to buy me some new filling for my teeth and new shocks and springs from my car and truck?

Probably not...

But ain't Government Great?

One Man's Trash

Another Man's Treasure...


I've really had it right up to here (pointing to the top of my ever greying, ever balding head) with trash services here in Glynn County and the City of Brunswick.

In a little over three days I already have trash overflowing out of my ears and coming out of my butt here at the new house on our little island (located in unincorporated Glynn County), and I also have a virtual landfill on the unpaved ally side of my property over in Brunswick that the head of the Brunswick Sanitation Department has been promising to remove since May.

The problem seems to revolve around government mandated monopolies--in one case one hired by Glynn County, and the second actually operated by the City of Brunswick.

Since Glynn County is the entity most recently to cause their property tax owners to fall victim to this scam bullshit malfeasance, I'll talk about them first.

It seems that a few years ago the County Commissioners noticed there is a bit of a problem with dumping of household garbage and other refuse on private property and along the highways and other "public" property.

Rather than enforcing the existing littering and dumping laws on the members of the "public" which were guilty of causing the problem, the elected County assholes morons Commissioners decided to pass the responsibility and associated costs of their purported solution on to the private property owners of Glynn County.

They did this by hiring a private company to do the trash collection at homes and businesses which did not have dumpsters or other means of refuse disposal already in place, in the process adding the cost of the service to the land/property owner's annual property tax bill. (Our condo had dumpsters and it's own service personnel on site so we were exempt from this mandate.)

No if's, and's, or but's, about it, now if you own a house in Glynn County you will have government mandated trash service...even if your house is unoccupied, burns down, or due to it's condition, is otherwise un-occupyable.

Of course there was a huge public outcry and lots of gnashing of teeth, but in the end the government won out and, as a delayed result, today I had my first experience with Southland Waste Systems and their rocket scientist employees.

Yesterday I found from out my neighbor that Monday was "trash day" here on my street and further, that I had to make sure that my company/county supplied trashcan was not over filled--the lid had to close.

No problem...so far so good...

I had a trashcan sitting beside my garage when the moving truck drove up on Saturday, and we'd produced lots of trash since then so I seemed set to take advantage of the service that our landlord was paying for.

Only problem was, what my well intended neighbor did not tell me was that my "curbside" service was not actually at our house's "curbside."

Imagine that?

Oh yeah..the GOVERNMENT is involved, and that means that the meanings of ordinary words are never what you would normally expect them to be.

Evidently, by "curbside" service here in Glynn County, they mean some "curbside" other than MY curbside--a curbside that their giant truck can drive up to and pick up the can with some kind of manipulator arm to do the dumping with.

Any way, a little after noon today I noticed that the truck driver and his assistant busied themselves spending at least five minutes moving back and forth outside my driveway entrance avoiding my trashcan, even having the extra man actually exit the air conditioned cab of the truck to pick up and empty a few recycling containers, but when the dust settled and Pat came home from shopping we found that OUR TRASHCAN WAS STILL FULL.

No note, no gentle reminder, no nothing, just a can full of trash from moving and another week to wait for the next scheduled trash service.

Here's what I'm going to do.

First I'm calling in to the local Radio talk show at 7 AM tomorrow morning to tell my story.

Next I'm calling my county commissioner.

Of course all I expect to hear is lame excuses and promises to do better in the future, but in the end I will probably be told that it is my fault for not asking my landlord how far down the block and on which side of the street to place my trashcan.

I vaguely remember hearing talk show callers in the past complaining about having to have their trashcans 12 feet (or some other random number) from mailboxes, telephone poles, other trash cans) but it didn't occur to me until the damage was done.

What total bullshit.

I live on a cul-de-sac with a one way 12 foot wide strip of asphalt (which badly needs repaving by the aforementioned "county officials") that wraps in and out around giant Live Oak Trees and islands of vegetation.

My house apparently sits in a position where a $7 per hour employee would have to actually exit the air conditioned cab of the 500' long garbage truck in order to retrieve my trash can sitting adjacent to the road anywhere on the frontage.

God forbid that Southland Waste Systems should employ some smaller trucks or hire people to grab hold of an errant but innocently misplaced trashcan every now and then on some of the older narrow inner island streets here on St. Simons.

As is typical with any solution provided by the government, it's ONE SIZE FITS ALL, DAMMIT.

And is also typical with government, the customer is NEVER RIGHT.

Do I have a second on that motion?

All in favor?

Those Opposed?

The yeas have it...

(Next on my agenda...the City of Brunswick's abysmal "Insanitation Sanitation" Department.)

Falling Down & Screwing Up

Best Laid Plans Of Mouse & Man...


Well, we're HERE.

The only problem is, bits and pieces of our stuff is...

STILL over THERE.

By "over THERE", I mean over at the Condo.

Dang it...

We only managed to make two of the five or six final trips in my Suburban yesterday, with yesterday's second excursion featuring a final visit to the swimming pool.

Pat and Missy the Turbo Pup hung out poolside because Pat's back is bothering her, and I spun around in circles moving most of the plants out onto the front patio and loading another load of boxes and the more fragile stuff on board the SUV.

The ambient temperature was about 94 degrees F, with a heat index over 104 degrees F by 6 PM. We came home, unloaded most of our booty, and I collapsed on the sofa.

Then I got back up and, after making a late pizza dinner featuring a funky "eyeballed " crust (the measuring cups got left over at the Condo), I was asleep in the bed by 10 PM.

I woke up at midnight with a huge headache and with every muscle in my body cramping--at least that's the way it felt like.

It was my own fault. I sorta forgot to drink much Gatorade yesterday, and the water and white wine I consumed poolside just didn't get it when it came to replacing the minerals lost while sweating out a couple of gallons of my insides in the loading and moving process.

After drinking a few quarts of Gatorade and jumping around the living room walking like a three legged dog for an hour or so, I finally managed to settle down about four AM and get some more sleep. Come 8 AM I was still groggy and weak and, as a result, today has been a bust when it comes to picking up and moving more stuff from point A to point B.

As a further deterrent, the Weather Channel says that today it's a frigid NINETY SEVEN DEGREES FAHRENHEIT outside, with a heat index near 110, so paying our old landlord another $34 is an acceptable penance for my middle aged slovenly conditioning.

Expert procrastination has ensued all day, using my faint heart and wobbling legs as a mental excuse. I ended up sleeping until noon, then I did manage to open and unpack a few boxes standing inside in AC comfort while Pat made a rare solo jaunt over to Brunswick to pick up some necessities.

Just now when it came time to sneak back over to the condo we realized that Georgia Power had probably turned off the electricity because we were supposed to move last Wednesday rather than Saturday.

Sure enough, after placing a phone call and enduring the inevitable English/Spanish menu questions, we learned the juice was indeed off as of about noon today, but they would be happy to turn it back on for a $22 fee.

Sure...go ahead...it's only MONEY.

So I'm going to lounge around breaking down empty boxes, pack plastic bags full of foam peanuts, and cram bubble wrap squares back into the original boxes and possibly attempt to stash the whole moving mishmash somewhere up into the attic over the garage.

Then I'm going to write myself an industrial strength rant about the stupidity of the County GOVERNMENT forcing its home owning citizens and landlords to accept paying for trash services in their property tax bill.

No competition equals crappy service, no matter what the stupid "Bureaucrats" and popularly elected "gummunt officials" tell you...

Boxaphobia

Pack Me Up & Ship Me To Jamaica...


Well, ninety-five percent of our stuff is sitting here, mostly still in boxes.

Actually maybe ninety-eight percent.

Originally I was just going to move the plants and the framed photos and other flat fragile stuff hanging on the walls, but we managed to run out of room on the truck yesterday, so I inherited having to move anything left over that would fit into the Suburban.

That included Pat's desk, a bunch of chairs and patio stuff, and a bunch of "space storage" bags full of sheets and blankets...crap we'll probably never use again but every woman loves to hold onto "just in case."

So any way, we anticipate making five or six more round trips today, plus having to clean up the place, then we can focus our attention on opening all the boxes and surprising ourselves with what isn't broken and what wasn't labeled, weighs 100 pounds, and is sitting in the wrong room of the house.

I'd really like to design and build us a house to live in down here and get out of this paying rent business, but then again--when the Weather Nerds over at the Weather Channel start freaking out and NOAA puts a big Hurricane symbol on the map heading toward Northeast Florida and Southeast Georgia I'm happy that I only own the contents of the building I'm sleeping in.

Speaking of Hurricanes, the Federal Flood Insurance Program (something that I've bitched about as being taxpayer subsidised insurance for wealthy people) threw us a curve ball last week and is making us endure yet another 30 day waiting period before our coverage goes into effect.

Three months premium for one month of coverage...the government definitely put the screws to us on this one if something wet and windy comes roaring ashore here before September 1st.

Still, if the coverage is available and cheep (about $350 per year), I'm gonna sign up and send in a check.

I guess that you could call it "Just Rewards" for being a hypocrite...

Five Hours Later...

The Truck's Gone


Al and his guys have already came and raised a dust cloud, and when they pulled out of the driveway we were three hundred and twenty five dollars richer than if we had worked with our original asshole mover that stood us up.

Time to grab a bite to eat and head back over to pick up the scraps.

I'm tired.

T-Minus Eight Hours...

And Counting


Didn't I mention earlier that I HATE moving?

Yeah...I believe that I did.

Right now I wish that I could just leave town for 24 hours and come back to find everything moved from the condo to the new house here on our little island.

Instead, I'm still looking at filling another dozen or so boxes with last minute stuff and packing both vehicles full of things like plants and lamp shades before our truck and crew shows up at 8 AM this morning.

Missy the Turbo Pup has taken things quite well thus far--getting used to negotiating a maze of boxes here and wandering around her new yard at the other place when we go over to work or deliver stuff.

Since it's rained about four inches over the past 48 hours here, I'm really hoping that God gives us a break tomorrow for a few hours so that that our furniture and boxes don't get soggy in the process.

In the mean time the media has apparently discovered all of the facts about the condition of our nation's bridges that I mentioned earlier, the democrats and other usual suspects are already blaming President Bush for spending all of the bridge repair money in Iraq and the Global Warming Moonbats are barking about the hot weather causing the collapse.

I guess that I don't have it so bad down here after all, so I believe that I'll go back to packing now.

Wish us luck...If you will.

Rain

Global Warming Sucks...


I have a truck coming at 8 AM tomorrow morning, having fired Mr. Moving Guy #1 and hiring Mr. Moving Guy #2 a couple of days ago.

In the mean time, the condo swimming pool is overflowing and all my outside plants are about to float away, the Weather Channel says that there is a flash flood watch in effect for our area, but things will improve later today.

Maybe a nice slow drizzle rather than a steady downpour?

I've got to go paint the foyer of the new house now.

Squish...


.

Progress (Or The Lack Thereof)

Taking Matters Into Your Own Hands


I'm sitting here this morning watching the FOX News reporters spazzing out about the I-35 West bridge collapse which occurred during last evening's during rush hour, and as is usual I'm having to wince and avert my eyes from the stupidity on display by the media in the aftermath of an engineering disaster.

One of the reporters was interviewing some "bridge engineer" live on the telephone and came up with the question "do you think that this situation amounts to 'criminal negligence'?"

The self described "expert" replied..."NO."

Thank God that for once an "Expert" managed to hold his emotions and tongue in check while talking in front of TV cameras and not evoke FEMA or some other knee jerk reaction so early in the process when virtually nothing is known about the event or it's actual physical causes.

Being a fairly well educated competent mechanical engineer, and also having a great deal of practical experience working in the fields of steel and concrete structural engineering, I happen to know something about bridge design and further, about the condition of highway bridges here in the US.

My forensic engineering consulting experience has caused me to spend time reading about the history of engineering disasters, and one thing I've learned in the process is that we are all in big trouble when it comes to the condition of our nation's bridges, and your Government knows about the problem and is doing virtually nothing about it.

Here's the situation in a nutshell.

If it were up to me, I'd never drive across another bridge without first knowing that the bridge had been inspected and/or repaired by competent personnel.

By "competent personnel," I'm basically excluding the government at all levels and the associated government contractors usually employed by the "departments of transportation."

(Yes, I agree that there are a lot of good engineers and many well intended people involved in the bureaucratic process, but I'm afraid that the outcome isn't what was intended much of the time...so don't start E-mailing me saying your Uncle or cousin or mother works for the State DOT and you're coming to my new front door with a load of hot asphalt to repave my butt with...)

That said, I also admit that I cross six bridges every time I drive between our little island and the mainland, and I do this at least three days each week.

So you can feel free to call me a hypocrite because I know about and complain about the problem, but I also insist on ignoring it on a daily basis.

You see, our governments have been taking our tax money--stuff like gas taxes and car tag taxes originally designated for road and bridge construction and maintenance--and instead of fixing old bridges they're focused on building new bridges and widening existing bridges on a wholesale basis in order to meet traffic demands, when they should be spending the majority of our money REPLACING existing bridges that are in crappy, unsafe condition.

They also steal a good deal of the money intended for transportation infrastructure and spend it on "social programs"--things like providing cheese food products and diapers for un-wed mothers living on WIC and "Earned Income Tax Credits."

If you want to give yourself a good scare, go to US Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration Website and look at the number of bridges that are identified as "structurally deficient" and "functionally inadequate."

I just did a spreadsheet to do my own calculations, and according to the data on that website 12.35% of the bridges (73,694 out of 596,808 bridges) are structurally deficient and 13.43% (80,177 out of 596,808 bridges) are "functionally inadequate"...whatever that means.

It's not like I sit around at night re-packing my parachute or stuffing my car full of life preservers each morning before I drive across the causeway over the water and marshes to the mainland, but believe me when I say that I do worry a little about the condition of things under my tires each day. I also believe that the moron's that I witness whizzing past me at 60 MPH in a 35 MPH speed zone that the government allows to keep their driving privileges represent a greater danger to me than than falling steel and concrete beams.

So any way...you can look for this story to fester and swirl for another few days, then things will go back to the status quo with the media's Barack Obama/Hillary Clinton cheer leading party and the Global Warming Hysteria Show.

In closing, just remember that we kill over 40,000 people each year in auto accidents without bridges falling on peoples heads and from under their tires. Then there is also still the risks poised by lightening and shark attacks, not to mention angry, misguided, wild-eyed, towel headed, middle eastern Muslims intent on imposing Allah's will on all of us infidels.

Y'all have a nice day now...If you will...I've got to go finish packing up my belongings...

.

I'm An Incompentence Magnet

Intelligent, Qualified, Conscientious Persons Need Not Apply...


I have a few questions to ask this morning:

#1. How can you run a City government when no one is there to answer the telephone?

#2. How can you run a Cable/Internet company when the person on the other end of your 1-800 telephone number doesn't know where St. Simons Island is and can't make decisions about installation schedules and costs?

#3. How can you run a moving company when you won't answer the telephone or return phone calls?

#4. Finally, how can you run a moving company and not tell your customers when you will pick up their stuff? (See #3 above)

Regardless, we'll be taking possession of the new house today, but our August 2nd through 4th moving window is now somewhere out the window later than planned (maybe the 6th or 7th?)

Mr. Moving Guy will hopefully be getting back with us sometime between now and then.

In the mean time, I think that it's time to go clean my guns now...

.

I Was Robbed

Police Department Useless...Again


I've mentioned here on the blog in the past that, although I still believe in the idea of public law enforcement and harbor a basic respect for law enforcement personnel in general, I find that the implementation of law enforcement to be quite lacking in reality.

Let's face the facts folks: The Police, being human, tend to focus their efforts on high profile crimes like murder, unpopular things like DUI, and violations which are easy to catch like speeding, while letting the majority of daily infractions go undeterred and unprevented.

I see more bullshit driving in one trip to Brunswick from our little island than should ever be tolerated--things like following too closely, weaving from lane to lane, running yellow and red traffic lights--but the police are content to sit by the side of the road smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee while their radar unit does their job for them.

I have a looooooonnnnnnnnggggg history of being a victim of crime, and only once have the police managed to actually catch anyone or do anything about what the vermin of society elected to do to me and my property.

For instance, in my life to date, I've survived:

1. A robbery in a Pizza Hut in Atlanta in 1979 where one of the assholes doing the robbery beat me in the head with a pistol (he broke the barrel off the piece-of-shit gun in the process.)

2. I lost a 1956 Chevy Belair that my Grandfather left me and that I was in the process of restoring. Some idiots drug it from the shed on our family farm on flat tires, onto a trailer, and delivered it to a junkyard where it was crushed for scrap.

It only had about 60,000 miles on it in 1978.

3. I've had my home broken into while in college, losing my class rings and other possessions like a TV and stereo.

4. I've had my S-10 Blazer broken into in Atlanta while attending a Georgia Tech basketball game, losing a stereo and a car phone and a $300 passenger side window.

5. I've had my Suburban broken into while sitting in the driveway of my Atlanta home, losing about $1000 worth of CD's and a neat little telescope (and a $500 side window.)

6. I've had my home broken into and the damaged contents ransacked twice after the building was basically destroyed by fire. Things like my coin collection and and antique radio were taken, even though they were black with smoke and wet with water.

7. I've had my car sitting in the driveway of the burned house vandalized in a theft attempt ($3,000 damage to a car worth $2,500.)

8. Had my rental property in Brunswick broken into three times to date, resulting in the THEFT OF MY PORCELAIN KITCHEN SINK in 2006.

The thing that each of these events had in common, with the exception of the Pizza Hut robbery, was that I had to personally FORCE the respective police/police department to even get excited enough to file a report.

Many if not most of the time I had to go to the Police Station to file the report because the police were supposedly too busy to come out and even try to look for evidence or dust for fingerprints.

Only once has anyone actually been caught and convicted (the car vandals) of the crimes which I have endured.

It was frightening how bored the police acted while taking our statements after the Pizza Hut robbery, and although I said that I could identify the robbers, I never heard another word from the Atlanta police after the incident.

The imbecile prosecutor on the car vandalization case sent me an incorrect court date via mail, and when I was unable to drive on one day notice from Florida to Atlanta to attend the hearing (after previously driving to Atlanta and filing a deposition regarding the cost of the vandalism), then the court refused, because of my absence, to award me any financial compensation from my teen aged black perpetrators.

The little bastards are probably bouncing between jail and the street today, if someone hasn't already put a bullet into the back of their miserable heads.

Now fast forward to Yesterday...

When I walked into my construction project, as usual, I was armed with tools, a couple of gallons of Gatoraid, and breakfast from McDonalds.

So far so good.

Then I decided to wash out a plastic cup and have myself a drink of Gatoraid with my bacon, egg, and cheese bagel.

What, no water pressure?

I paid the bill (I think), but I had no water.

Being the astute, prepared engineer and rocket scientist that I am, I grabbed my "tee handle" water valve tool and wandered out to the street.

Sure enough, the water was turned off.

"Certainally there is some clerical error", I thought, and with a quick ninety degree twist of the "tee handle" I'd have water again to wash my cup with.

Wrong...Mr. Sawdust breath...

I heard a gushing sound, and when I turned to look over my shoulder I saw water shooting out of the side of my building, into the air, twenty feet onto the adjacent vacant property.

Just Damn...

I turned the water supply off, and upon inspection I discovered that SOMEONE HAD STOLEN SIX FEET OF TEMPORARY COPPER TUBING CONNECTING MY WATER SUPPLY TO THE WATER HEATER.

I'm just lucky that the routing of the stolen piping allowed the water to excape outside of the building rather than inside the building, because the water meter says that about SIX THOUSAND GALLONS of water flowed out into the dirt before someone noticed the leak and turned off the valve.

I assume that by "someone", I mean that "someone" with the City of Brunswick turned the water off.

But...

Today, in attempting to communicate with the city by leaving a "voicemail" and finally talking to a human about 4:55 PM, I learned that they claim no knowledge of the leak and I'm now facing the daunting task of convincing them not to charge me for the water.

When I called the Brunswick Police's non-emergency number, I was invited to come down to the station to file a report else wait a few weeks sit around all day die of boredom waiting for an officer to actually show up at my property to make a report of the incident.

Six feet of 1/2" copper tubing is probably worth about $0.25 at the recycler, and I hope they can afford to buy fries with their final meal before the grim reaper comes and puts them out of their misery.

Fix One Problem

Two More Appear...


Well, I'm back online at full speed again as of about noon yesterday. The resolution wasted about twelve hours, involved two calls to Comcast Technical Support (and at least a half dozen other "attempted calls,) and one trip over to Office Depot to buy a new cable modem.

I guess that the good news is that we are no longer renting our cable modem from Adelphia/Comcast to the tune of $5.00 a month, and I guess the $90 price tag for the new Linksys Modem is a bargain compared to the $239 we've spent thus far on the rental unit.

Of course Comcast would have replaced our old modem for free, but I managed to resist taking them up on their generous offer of sitting here in the Internet dark ages until sometime late Wednesday when a technician could stop by.

In renovation/construction news, nothing at all has happened in my absence.

Imagine that?

I've been waiting for three weeks for the City of Brunswick to pick up two giant piles of leaves and tree limbs which I placed on the curb on each side of the property.

The Sanitation Department is in theory supposed to pick up lawn debris every Friday, but three Fridays have passed and I'm getting tired of picking beer cans, discarded lottery tickets, and other trash conveniently deposited on top of my edifices by passers by. In the spirit of being neighborly, it seems that any time you build anything resembling a trash heap the locals feel obligated to assist you by adding their own contributions to the assemblage. I fill at least half my curbside trashcan each week with their generous donations.

My hired man James is appearing to be either a scoundrel else he is in Jail or something because when I left town I paid him in advance for a half day of work clearing overgrown vegetation off of the rear of my property. I also left him in possession of a cheep new digital wristwatch and over a $100 of tools like a sling blade, a machete, pruning shears, and "loppers" for his use.

From the looks of things yesterday morning, neither he, his watch, nor any of my tools had been anywhere near the place since last Monday.

Just Damn...

He was supposed to work at least the five hours I prepaid him for in my absence, and we had a deal that the entire job was worth fifteen hours of time which he could work and be paid for Monday morning upon my return from Alabama.

I'm afraid that I am about to learn a cruel lesson about human nature and the rewards of trying to assist the "downtrodden." Jessie Jackson and the bleeding heart "homeless advocates" can cry all they want to, but I've bent over backwards to give James every chance to earn as much money as he can (at $10 per hour) and he continues to waste my time and challenge my goodwill as I've rearranged my own schedule countless times to make work hours available to him--only to have him show up late or in this case not at all.

I hope that he'll show up today with some reasonable explanation and get caught up on things, but our relationship has gone backwards at least a couple of months as it appears that I cannot trust him to get anything done without employing direct supervision.

The new house is finally vacant as of last Saturday, about three weeks later than first scheduled so we're getting screwed out of a new interior paint job. We went by last evening and most of the walls didn't look too bad, but the entry foyer and the bedroom hallway will definitely need a coat of paint once we move in because of the wear and tear of the moving process.

Speaking of moving, our moving company rep managed to dodge my three phone calls yesterday and not return my request to tell me whether his truck and three gorillas would be here on Thursday, Friday, or Saturday of this week. He better call today or I'm buying another machete and driving down to Tampa for a face to face discussion on Wednesday.

I'm already virtually paralyzed in the Kitchen because almost everything relating to cooking and eating is sitting in boxes waiting to be taped closed. We're over half way through the packing process, but we've got to LIVE HERE for at least one other day beyond today, and it would be nice to know the move schedule so I don't sit around eating peanut butter sandwiches and wearing dirty clothes because we were ready on Thursday and the truck didn't show up until Saturday.

It also costs us an additional $34 per day plus utility costs to sit here beyond Wednesday, but that expense was incidental to the process--I just hate to do all of this planning and have some moron that has already cashed our $350 deposit check jplay immature games and jerk me around at the last minute.

Needless to say that my other professional endeavors are festering in nearly finished but not quite complete piles on the coffee table. If I could put the time I've put into fixing Internet related computer problems I'd be finished by now.

Now I have to go get organized to spend another half day making sawdust, praying that my hired help shows up, and that the now daily thunderstorms abate for the rest of the week so when we move the furniture doesn't warp and have the veneer fly off of it into outer space.

It is, after all, tough being me...Isn't it?

Running At A Crawl

Comcast Isn't My Friend Right Now...


We made it back home to our little Island in record time today--about five and one half hours--just in time to let Missy the Turbo Pup run around in the rain to do her "business" and get everything unloaded and put away.

The rain kept coming, and it was a good thing we weren't an hour later on the road or the last segment of the trip from Waycross to home would have been very soggy. Thunderstorms lined up the entire length of US Highway 82.

Once Turbo Pup was settled in we snuck out to dinner at Bubba Garcias Mexican Restaurant, then came back home in time for my date with the sofa for a nap.

When I awoke about 11:30 PM I found that I had no VoIP phone service and no Internet,

Modem power off...reset...stand on my head...try as I might nothing worked.

Then I spent a half hour trying to call Comcast's "24 hour customer service on the back up land phone line and every time I got to the part where I could talk to an actual person in English the stupid phone system cut me off.

I finally dug around on my computer and found an unused three month free subscription to AOL that I hadn't used, so now at least I'm on line although it's at about 40 Kbaud dial up.

The real pisser is that Comcast's Website is set up for use with their cable modem service so all of the screens are HUGE and take forever to load and now I'm having trouble getting through their "chat" troubleshooting process to see if someone can help me without having to schedule a service call for sometime probably in the year 2010.

If comcast doesn't get their rental modem fixed pronto they are guaranteeing Bellsouth our DSL business at the new house.

I guess that you could say that High speed Internet is sorta like women...

Can't live with them...

Can't live without them.

Aaaaarrrrrrrrgggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh


.

Barfalotahulalula

How Do You Say "Hangover" On Maui?


Well, after so many months of anticipation, it was all over with in what seemed like a flash last evening.

My reunion, that is.

Our flower Leis were a big hit, and a LARGE time seemed to be had by all.

As is usual, there were some notable absentees that live within ten miles of the country club and always manage to come up with some excuse not to attend.

One girl came all the way from Alaska for the event, and several more like me made trips over three hundred miles.

There were also fourteen souls that had no other choice in the matter as they had left this Earth sometime since graduation. I guess that isn't that high of a number of deaths when you consider that our class had 270 members.

Once again our reunion committee outdid themselves in the planning and preparation, and I look forward to the next opportunity to see friends I've known practically since the day I was born.

Time to get on the road back toward our little island now...

See Y'all again in about six hours.


.