Our President Is A Dumbass?

Or At Least His Administration Is...

So the Obamarama's think that it was a good idea to fly Air Force One, chased by a fighter jet, at about 1500 feet over NY City without warning:

Here's a link to the story...

And here's a YouTube video...

I'm sorry people, but if you don't see some problem with silly ignorant crap like this happening because people elected to run the ENTIRE COUNTRY don't have a clue...

Crap like this just keeps on happening over and over and over and OVER. If Obama's people can't even handle scheduling a "photo op," do YOU really trust him with your defense and your WALLET?

(feel free to fill in the rest of this posting because I'm going to insult EVERY ONE'S sensibilities if I continue writing this morning...)

Home

Ahhhhhh...FAST INTERNET


After staying an extra day on our little island, we just walked in here to the Turbo Pup Compound on the Banks of the Mighty Tennesse River having completed the 8 hour trip from the Georgia Coast in 478 minutes including gas and pee stops.

Time to check E-Mail and go eat some Mexican food.

I may just sleep with my keyboard tonight.

Three Credit Card Transactions Later...

I HATE Starbucks....

What a &%#@ cluster #$*& it is trying to use Starbucks for 15 minutes of Internet access.

It took me 45 minutes this morning to log on because "I hadn't had a 'Qualifying' transaction on my account in the past 30 days."

Apparently somewhere in the fine print AT&T and Starbucks have decided among themselves that if I'm not some sort of yuppie coffee shop denizen that lurks around the espresso machine at all hours of the day and night (read that--I have high speed Internet at my house and don't live under a bridge or in a homeless shelter or commune) that they can take my money and then make me jump through all kinds of hoops in order to check e-mail every two months.

Can you believe that sort of crap? No wonder Starbucks is closing down stores and laying off people.

Any way, since I hadn't been to a Starbucks since the last time I was here on our little island six weeks ago my TEN DOLLAR Starbucks card wouldn't let me into the Internet without "verifying my e-mail address."

Since I couldn't get into the Internet to respond to the "e-mail" verification process, I went and bought another FIVE DOLLAR card but guess what...

Since I registered the new card under the same name I STILL COULDN'T LOG INTO THE INTERNET BECAUSE I HAD TO CHECK MY E-MAIL TO RESPOND TO THE E-MAIL THEY SENT ME WHICH WOULD ALLOW ME TO LOG ONTO THE INTERNET.

How screwed up is that?

So I finally had to resort to charging $3.99 on my credit card for TWO HOURS of access and given that I have to leave within the next half hour I ended up paying...get this

the equivalent of about $16 per hour to check e-mail today.

Thus my reason in blasting the inane feckless stupidity of AT&T wireless and Starbucks.

I say that in my opinion you'd have to by default an idiot to hang out somewhere which requires that you show up every few days just to use a service which they made you pay for in the first place.

Screw AT&T and Starbucks...

I have to go have a drink now and get back to having fun at the beach...

Dammit...

On To The Georgia Coast

The Journey Continues...

We reluctantly leave Cedar Key later this morning after adding an unplanned third night to our stay. Yesterday was spent on the beach and walking around the shopping area with the Turbo Pup in tow as the entire Island and most restaurant decks are "Pet Friendly."

Later this morning we start back toward St Simons Island for a couple of nights and a little Real Estate business before heading back to the banks of The Mighty Tennessee River on Sunday.

Oh...by the way...here's a look at our home away from home for the past three days--The Cedar Key Bed & Breakfast

YOU really aught to get in the car or on an airplane and get your butt down here because this truly is a unique little place on the ocean. No crowds, no go cart tracks, no bungee jumping...just old time Florida peace and quiet and relaxation.

Regards Y'all...

Sunrise On Cedar Key

The Moon & Venus As Co-Stars



(Click to enlarge)

And I think I can get you a really, really good deal on this house if you're interested...



...on second thought, I want it.

Smoking Sleeping In "The Girls Room"

Home Away From Home?




(I didn't name the room...I'm just staying there...)

Too Tired To Bark

But She Might Grunt A Little...


After doing this all day...







...you could end up looking like this...



(Decided to Stay on the Key another night...stay tuned for more Turbo Pup antics)

How I Spent My Summer Vacation The Fourth Week In April

Musings from Florida's "Big Bend"...


In my considered opinion, if it weren't for the mosquito's and "sand gnats", this place could almost be considered to be the perfect vacation spot.

OK...one of several I know about and have mentioned here on the blog in the past...including Mexico Beach on the "Forgotten Coast" and of course our Little Island--St. Simons--on the south Georgia coast. (we're doing all three in a week this time)

And especially if you can come in the middle of the week in April rather than a weekend like Memorial Day, fourth of July, or Labor Day.

That's pretty much how I've handled my vacations for the past near twenty years--off holiday and off season.

Of course I understand that you have to be retired or un-employed (and independently wealthy) or self-employed to be able to do that schedule, and of course you can't have school aged children in order to spend weeks of the time in spots like this in the late fall and early spring/summer.

Add to the location and schedule the ability to meet business obligations and even do business in/near one or more of the locations and I just don't know how much luckier a fellow could be in life.

Believe me I don't take my good fortune for granted, and I don't mean to appear to brag too much here but I just want to tell everyone about the places I love to visit in hopes that you might take the time to visit too sometime.

I've been all over the US and the Caribbean and a number of other places around the world and when it comes to the perfect coastal experience, I think I know a thing or two about the details.

Cedar Key today is like Key West was back in the late 1970's the first time I visited it--before the Spring Breakers and the modern ill behaved asshole tourists arrived and the Overseas Highway was widened to four lanes.

Of course by writing about it I guess I'm contributing to spreading the word and risking dooming this little place to the same fate.

But then again, there aren't any "ill behaved asshole tourists" in my regular readership. Some come on down next October and Pat Missy the Turbo Pup and I will meet you here.

Time now to head on over to the dock to get on a boat for a few hours touring the outer "Keys."

Turbo Pup Vacation Pics

Fancy Dining On Two Coasts...


Mexico Beach at Sunset:





Then a late Lunch on the water with Mom and Dad on Cedar Key:




Time to go wander around the island Key some more...

Good Vibrations Vacation

Internet Hell...


Well, as our stay on the Florida Gulf Coast ends, I'm happy to report having a GREAT business meeting yesterday morning, a good afternoon in the sun, and dang fine food for all three meals during the day.

I put a dent in some oysters and part of the Grouper population while I was here, but from a business/Internet standpoint I'm glad to be getting out of what I call "Internet Hell" for the past couple of days.

The little Inn we're staying in on the beach only has 16 rooms and as far as their network support and Internet connectivity capabilities they only have 16 brain cells as when you ask about connectivity "ISSUES" they just blankly respond...

"we got wireless..."

I managed to pirate my way into someone else's nearby unsecured Linksys network sporadically on Sunday evening and a little Monday morning, and finally tonight I got through again thus the source of this posting.

As a result, I checked over at Cedar Key about the next two night's accommodations and found out the little 1960's vintage waterfront hotel over there also didn't have Internet.

WTF?

I had to cancel that reservation and spend AN EXTRA $100 for two nights in a "Pet Friendly" Bed and Breakfast away from the water in order to find somewhere on that island which had high speed wireless.

This in anticipation knowing that our friends providing Thursday and Friday's free accommodations over on Our Little Island on the Georgia Coast still live in the dark ages without Internet except for dial up on and old desktop computer

AOL

...aaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAhhhhhhhhhHHHHHHHHHH

I can't possibly live for four weekdays without decent internet...and Thursday and Friday will be spent with twice daily visits to Starbucks to check E-mail and the news.

So any way...wish us luck as we continue on our journey east across Northwest Florida and I'll try to not bust a blood vessel or go into Internet withdrawal in the mean time.

Regards Y'all

Live From LA

The Cross Country Turbo Pup Rides Again...


Well, we got the first 6 1/2 hours behind us today, arriving mid afternoon in time to get a little work done and grab some Mexican food for dinner.

After lunch tomorrow we'll be moving on south to the coast...

apparently in the rain.

At least for a piece of a day or two.

That's OK though, because last trip we enjoyed near perfect weather for the entire 17 days and the odds were going to catch up with us at some point eventually.

Ya'll have a lovely weekend...what's left of it...

The Turo Pup's Big Adventure

Another Swing Through The Southeast US


Just in case you couldn't tell by the light blog posting the past couple of days...I've been busting Butt here at the Turbo Pup compound on the Banks of the Mighty Tennessee River the past week catching up on personal stuff and cleaning up some professional details in anticipation of making yet another Spring trip.

You see, early Early EARLY Saturday morning we're going back on the road again for another 1,500 mile adventure.

The Turbo Pup's lockers and sea chests are packed and staged by the kitchen door for loading into the car.

And Pat's got a new paint job on her toe nails and finger nails...

and ME?

I'm trying to get my scraggly unshaven visage together along with my laptop computer and ten pounds of files and paper in order to get out the door and packed into the car trunk with some towels and beach chairs in anticipation of fishing on the farm this weekend, moving on late Sunday to attend some meetings on the Florida coast on Monday

Then we're slowly moving to the East on across the state of Florida to Cedar Key for a few nights, then lunch with Uncle Darrell in Lake Butler, finally crash landing back on our Little Island on the Georgia Coast on Wednesday to continue recharging our batteries and say hello to old friends and eat a little sea food.

We can hardly stand the wait, but by spitting the car drive up into managable daily segments with known destinations rewarding our patience I find the milestones to be well worth the efforts.

I'll try to talk to y'all from the road as Internet connections will permit...now will someone pass me another dozen Oysters and some cocktail sauce...

Tax Day

"Free" At Last?


I'm pleased to report that as April 15th slips by on the calendar, I didn't spend five minutes fooling with income taxes and income tax forms today...

Or Yesterday.

This would be because I've already spent near a hundred dollars on Turbotax software and spent more than a week of my time in January/February meeting my family's Federal and State income tax documentation "requirements."

It drives me crazy that so many people out there in the general population are eligible for a "refund" (read that "earned income credit") and they wait until the last minute to file, end up paying H&R Crock Block $55.95 to file a simple two page tax return, then pay another $30 as interest and fees to procure their "refund anticipation check."

If you're going to take money from me in the form of "earned income credits"...could you at least do it EFFICIENTLY?

I'm one of the first ones to support "trickle down economics," but spending 25% to 30% of your share of my and my fellow "upper income" redistributed taxpayer dollars just to get the ink on the forms and the check in your bank account is ridiculous.

The interesting thing is that, while by law we didn't have to file income tax forms in Tennessee--because Tennessee has no personal state income tax--we managed to fool around and let Pat's company withhold Georgia income tax from her employment severance agreement for the entire year and now the state of Georgia is balking at paying her "refund"/"return" back to her on a timely basis.

Thousands of "tax dollars" stranded in the state coffers, money that should be sitting in our bank accounts instead of theirs...and we've already been through two cycles of written correspondence and a couple of phone calls where the state's position is that it's our fault we can't justfy the "tax return" and they're not getting our paperwork and even if they have..."it will take 4 to 8 weeks for them to process our information" and get back to us.

Government Idiots...

As is typical of the government, they ignore mail and Fax messages and it's virtually impossible to get anyone of authority on the telephone so apparently we're going to be in Government bearucratic hell for the summer trying to prove to the State of Georgia and their inane employees that WE DON'T LIVE THERE ANYMORE.

Even before the dust settled, Georgia made me spend the time and energy to belatedly file a Tennessee Income Tax Form on Pat's behalf showing she owes no income tax in 2008, and that isn't good enough thus far so they insist on still holding OUR money.

As far as I can tell, slavery hasn't ended with Abe Lincoln's administration and the so called "Civil War" of the 1860's

I say that slavery is alive and well today, it's just that the chains and bonds which bind us to our masters are FINANCIAL rather than steel and leather.

I sure hope that you are happy with YOUR government, because if it was MY government things would be quite different on a daily basis.

I've got to go to my tea party now...

Sweating With The Socialists

Hardy...Har...har...

I'm busy this morning ...so in the mean time, instead of being pissed off at something I SAID or WROTE here, here's something I pointed out already on the Internet...

Enjoy:



That Will Be All...For now

The Silence Of The Lambs

Excellence In Mediocrity and Complacency


Amazingly enough the US Navy was allowed to fire three gunshots yesterday--Easter Sunday afternoon--on a day we were supposed to be celebrating a religious holiday instead of smelling gunpowder.

When the smoke cleared, I was happy to learn that there were three dead "pirates." and one other kid with a slightly higher IQ or a little less gumption/guts/resolution in US custody.

It annoyed me that FOX News spazmo reporter Hernando Revolver Geraldo "At Large" Rivera insists on calling the detainee and the deceased of all things "Buccaneers." I didn't take the time to change channels but CNN and MSNBC are probably calling them "Freedom Fighters" or Somali Rebels."

When the US Navy got through with them "Corpses" and "Life Prisoner" fits better I think.

Regardless of the linguistics details, in the process the brave Captain of a ship with the schizophrenic sounding name "Maersik Alabama," Richard Phillips, was a free man.

Wait a minute...

"Buccaneers"...Geraldo?

"Buccaneers" are something you see at Halloween parties or in a Disney movie.



These guys are/were different, and instead of fantasy land this is REAL LIFE.

I'd call them THIEVES.

Or perhaps ROBBERS.

Or in today's world, let's call them what they are...

MUSLIM TERRORISTS.

That deduction and definition is pretty easy for me to formulate in my mind because most if not all of the dead men and their peers, in spite of living in Africa, are actually Muslims, and their actions terrorize people who have been conditioned to believe that it's against the law to take measures to defend their own personal safety and their personal property.

Muslims found terrorizing other people = Muslim Terrorists.

Isn't that simple?

And the other people in the above equation are generally law abiding citizens of the US or other non-muslim countries which today through our modern enlightened education system have been convinced that guns are E V I L.

Then there are those which, like many of the Europeans, have been outright disarmed by force by their government through the criminalization of the private ownership of weapons.

Today even here in the US common thinking is that you're supposed to call 911 and wait on the GOVERNMENT to respond...and in the event that things get crazy and you actually fear for your life and you do take action, you risk being second guessed in criminal proceedings thereby facing jail time and/or you risk being sued in civil court because you shot the penis and kneecap off some asshole trying to take your wallet in a Pizza Hut.

Excuse me if I appear insensitive, but my opinions might just be strongly influenced by first hand knowledge gained when I personally had a 32' foot boat I owned stolen, after a couple decades earlier having a "downtrodden victim of socioeconomic disparity" pump a shotgun in the small of my back while another "disadvantaged minority" beat me in the head and broke the barrel off his revolver on the back of my head.

In neither event did the "authorities" do anything to prevent the "crimes" nor did they provide any relief after the fact or catch the "suspects"... so I say all of the Kumbaya singing sniveling tree hugging booger eating why-can't-we-all -just get-along progressives liberals should just shut up crying and demanding non-lethal measures and UN Resolutions solving misbehavior's atrocities committed by the same kind of animals which have tortured others throughout history.



...until you've been there.

Until you've had a loaded gun pointed at you by a stranger, I think you're full of crap pontificating on the acceptable measures which are legal or societally acceptable for use in defending your life and property.

Let me put this memo out there for future reference so you won't be surprised when you turn on the TV and see me describing the demise of "the assailant" the next time I have a gun pointed at me and the person isn't wearing a uniform/badge....

I grew up shooting a gun, and today I'll shoot a three hole grouping through your "center of mass"-your face and/or your chest--before you can say "just kidding" if you put me in the position where it's me and my family and my property against your misplaced, misguided, alcohol and drug induced mal-intentions.

I'll use the same level of force if you're stone cold sober or certifiably insane and you start acting up on my front porch--so don't plan on using the "under the influence" defense because I simply don't care and don't have time to negotiate with you once you point the business end of your gun at me.

And skin color be damned...I'll verify the threat, offer a verbal warning, obtain a clear sight picture, and pull the trigger.

Unfortunately this is something which many people apparently have a hard time understanding, but I see it like this.

Passing a new gun law or trying and convicting the person which took my life does ME no good once I'm DEAD.

I'm DEAD.

Dead because I was shot.

Or dead...beat to death kind of dead or run over with a pickup truck variety of Dead.

And since they're not going to pass laws making fists and boots and frying pans and baseball bats and pickup trucks illegal, I feel I have to choose my method of defense and perfect it.

My idea of gun control is "hitting the intended target--every time."

Even if they did produce a new list of things it's illegal to hit me in the head with or drive across my torso...just like hand guns in England or Washington DC...I'm pretty certain that they'll have a hard time with the confiscation of these newly declared illegal "weapons."

And the criminals and thugs that don't obey the current gun laws we already have on the books won't give up their Ford F-250's because they need them to go hunting and to get to the liquor store.

So I figure sitting around worrying about the latest laws or lobbying for the passage of new ordinances is time better spent by the lawyers and politicians--people that make their living making the law useless and un-understandable.


(I'm taking a big breath here boss...and changing the subject completely...)

So any way...if things work out on the Professional Injuneering front I'm heading back to South Alabama this weekend before conducting some more business on the Florida and Georgia Coasts next week.

In my computer bag I'll have along with me my new plans and drawings for the construction of my own personal solution to the Somali "piracy" issues:



I call her the "Mozark Alabama", and she's powered by an old Chinook helicopter turbine burning ethanol we distill on board from corn squeezin's. She'll only sleep six but everybody has a king sized bed and a private crapper and I'll handle kitchen duty three days a week.

And here's her smaller sister ships...the SS Mozark Enterprise guided missile cruiser:



and the more modern Mozark Elba PT Submarine attack boat:



Using current world standards and relying on the UN, I hope to augment law enforcement efforts on the high seas and suspect there won't be any ship hijackings off Panama City, Mexico Beach, Lake Eufala, or St. Simons Island anytime soon.

Sorry, but the rest of you out there in San Francisco, Boston and off northern Long Island are on your own...

Back Home

Head Still Spinning...


Oh...I don't know...where do I start after reading the newspaper and watching the news this evening?

Tonight I find that we live in a world where a Zillon ton steel ship with an all American crew (something I thought didn't exist any more except in the US Navy) is conquered by a bunch of skinny Negros in a wooden boat powered by an outboard motor.

It apparently happens all the time for years now.

It's repeatedly been on the news so no one should be surprised of their intent or past history in these waters, so my jaw drops when I hear of the reason for their success.

You know...don't you?

Polite society, lawyers, insurance companies, and the @#$% idiot Steamship Company owners WON'T ALLOW ANYONE TO HAVE A GUN ON A MERCHANT SHIP because somebody might shoot somebody.

After all...guns are E V I L.

All I know is that one 50 calibre machine gun would have prevented this current situation...but instead we have a brave man--the Ship's Captain--still facing his own mortality in the hands of savages.

Heck, one 45 revolver and a case of bullets would have dispatched these idiots to heaven or hell or off to meet Allah and the crowd of virgins...but noooooooOOOOOOOO.

Can't have a gun on board the boat, so the crew sits around and watches these black bastards THROW A GRAPPLING HOOK OVER THE SIDE OF THE BOAT AND THEN CLIMB ABOARD?

Give me a break...

If I was on board and these SOB's pulled up to the side of the boat the first thing I'd do was start dropping the contents of my tool box over the side onto their flea and lice infested heads.

A Craftsman crescent wrench and a dozen screwdrivers moving at 100 MPH would at least slow down their progress I think.

Next would come the empty toolbox, then I'd move on to larger things like fire extinguishers and propane tanks and anything else not bolted or welded down to the deck.

And what about taking something as simple as a KNIFE and cutting the rope before the shitheads climb to the top and drop over the railing?

I guess that like the TSA rules for boarding an airliner today that anything larger than a toenail clipper is also against the rules. The crew of these vessels are probably having to resort to cutting crappy, tough, company pork and beef steaks with butter knives or just gnawing their way through the slabs of meat with their teeth.

Is this where we all really are today?

A group of "law abiding citizens" are prevented from defending themselves by politically influenced Corporate rules or the "government" and placed in a position where animals with no regard for civility or the "the law" inflict injury or death upon them in pursuit of wealth and pirated private property?

Yeah...that's the ticket...all you sniveling, booger eating, tree hugging kumbaya singing liberal and progressive MEN just keep on voting these gun hating idiots into political office for another 20 years... and keep cutting the Military funding and keep relying on dialing 911 to protect your miserable asses and that of your wives and mothers and children.

Since you and your Politicians will have taken my guns by then, I'm just likely to turn my head, ignore your screams for help, and wait to read the headlines of how your beloved "Government Officials" arrested the "suspects" after they found your families' dead, dismembered raped bodies in your basement.

I have to go now because my head hurts...

Words From The Wise

I Wish I Wrote That...

"The poisonous harvest of our most toxic decade, the Sixties, is a bizarre notion that the young are smart. In truth, the young are generally fools. I certainly was. But back in the Sixties, the left managed to seize on one or two things the old had been wrong about–things like racism and reckless pollution–and convince the young that the old were wrong about EVERYTHING. Since then we have been producing insolent, unprincipled, overconfident, weak children who think their tiny brains hold the keys to a bright and happy future where everyone eats tofu and and smokes free dope and has sex with no consequences."

Steven H. Graham
Blogger, Christian, Lawyer, Physicist, and Crazy Tool Guy

Quote O' The Day

If I Had Just Thought Of These Things First...



"Everywhere is walking distance if you just have the time."

"It doesn't make a difference what room temperature is...it's always room temperature."

"It's a small world but I wouldn't want to paint it..."

"There's a fine line between fishing and just standing on the shore like an idiot."

"You can't have everything...Where would you put it?"

Steven Wright
(strange comedian)

Busy

Pizza & Meetings...


After a last minute meeting cancellation and a day spent sitting around the Prince Engineering Condo yesterday, I cooked not one...but TWO of my soon to be famous pizzas for dinner last night for an appreciative audience.

Today's schedule is a little more aggressive with morning and afternoon convocations with various persons bearing the titles of PE and MBA and CPA and me along as "chief cook and bottle washer" just plain old working injuneer.

Hopefully some cash will flow as a result of my independent economic "stimulus" efforts.

Stay tuned for film at eleven....

The Turbo Pup's On The Road (Yet) Again

Through The Appalachians...


What a glorious day we had Sunday.

Five plus hours spent making what could be a three hour drive, with a late lunch/dinner at Sidestreet Pizza in Tryon, NC on the way, and the trees blooming and sprouting and the light traffic of a spring Sunday afternoon on I-40 and I-26...you get the picture.

This week the light Blogging will be caused by me being busy in South Carolina trying to make a living.

You'll have to excuse me if I appear to be "Profit motivated"

Things Which Make My Head Spin

Crap You Should Know... But Probably Dont....


I just saw a Saturn Auto commercial on TV, and they were yapping about the company or someone they designate making your payments for you if you lose your job while still paying them back for their loan....blaa...blaa...blaa...

All I want to know is...

Is that the level where we've all sunken to today?

A. You'd buy a car you don't need because you probably already have a perfectly good one.

B. You buy a car that costs more than you can afford because you "just want it."

C. Now you'd buy a car because the company selling you the car will make your payments for you because you're insecurely employed and can't afford the vehicle in the first place.

D. Under "el Presidente" Obamarama you'd buy a car from a company that THE GOVERNMENT has to guarantee the warranty for because the company is financially insolvent?

(cue the sound of the crickets chirping while I catch my breath...)

OK, the "financially insolvent company" I'm talking about would be none other than...

get ready...

General Motors.

The one and the same General Motors which has a thinly veiled stinky history of double dealing and politically aided self serving activities that many if not most people either never knew or have forgotten.

To wit...I remind you of The Great American Streetcar Scandal.

To paraphrase the story if you're too lazy to Google it or click on my link, just know that it's been proven that in the late 1940's and early 1950's companies like GM and Firestone joined with other like minded companies in buying up city public transportation systems i.e. electric trolley lines and then proceeded to scrap them and tear up the tracks in favor of either replacing them with gas/diesel buses or in most cases private automobiles which they sold and made profit from.

I say that the fact that you can hardly get anywhere these days without a car in most smaller towns and cities is a direct result of GM's self dealing exploits, and the fact that they're responsible for putting an excessive cost burden for basic transportation on "working families" is an unpardonable sin for which they're finally being held accountable for today.

What a horrible ending to what was once considered to be a great company we're witnessing in 2009.

But then again...maybe it's a well deserved reward for the self serving, corrupt, behind the scenes dealing which ended up putting us all in the position we find ourselves in in the first place.
I say let the giant rotting corpse die, and take the idiot union goons with it to the grave...

Today's Topic

Summary Investigation

of Recoginzed Industry Testing Standards

For High Density Polyethylene (HDPE)

Jacketing as they Relate to the In-Situ Installation

of Direct Contact Steam Distribution Piping Systems

at Kent State University

There's no blogging this morning, because I spent my time writing a report with that garbage as the title, and it included the above aerial infrared photos and drawing of the pipeline I put together with my Photoshop skills...

Somebody shoot me...Plueassssseeee...

President Obama Sez "Some Are To Blame...But All Are Responsible"

Blaa...Blaa...Blaa


I just watched the Obamarama press conference live from London with the British Prime Minister, and what BLEW ME AWAY was Obamarama's insistence in pre-selecting the questions and the questioners in his news conferences.

WTF?

This stupid SOB can't answer a question off the cuff or on the fly?

Horry Crap Batman...the idiot doesn't answer a question when he "answers a question" which is pre-screened.

And he has the audacity to complain about about "the press" being unfair in their portrayal of the non-issues we're throwing shit-loads of money at.

World Class Chili

Recipe By Request


Looking back, I find it to be somewhat amazing the circumstances which have produced some of my best recipes and cooking experiences over the past fifteen years since I began cooking on something other than a charcoal grill and moved into my kitchen almost full time for good portions of the week each week.

After my ten year apprenticeship spent learning which end of the spoon and ladle to put in a boiler or pot, and the difference between the spices Nutmeg and Cumin, the past five years have found me cooking larger and larger quantities of food for ever increasing crowds of people in a variety of venues--most recently...

PUBLIC venues.

With the assistance of Pat and my good buddy Rusty I've done a killer Mexican menu for over thirty people at our 2006 celebration of "Sies de Mayo" (actually an unintended insult to the illegal immigrants' Cinco de Mayo national holiday because the fifth of May that year fell on Friday.)

I've almost single handedly done Christmas dinner for seventeen during a recent holiday season including main courses and appetizers like Oysters Rockefeller.

Then this past holiday season I handled the main Chef duties for my soon to be defunct former employer's company Christmas party including about 24 guests and featuring Chateau Brianne, pan seared Salmon, and my signature Chicken picatta over angle hair pasta.

Now, on April fools day, I find my head spinning as we continue to move forward into 2009 and, looking back across the month of March, I seem to vaguely recall figuring out how to cook Chili for something like what...a THOUSAND people?

In preparation I cooked half gallon quantities of Chili three times in February to fine tune the recipe, then on March 7th my team man -handled 10 gallons of beef stock, 5 gallons of chicken stock, 40 pounds of top round roast cut into 1/2" steaks, and THIRTY pounds of ground beef and when we put it all into a giant pot with a ton of spices and stirred the concoction with a boat paddle we ended up with about THIRTEEN GALLONS of "Peoples Choice" award winning chili.

I don't care if I ever see another bowl of Chili for about two more months now, but I want to publish the recipe before I forget it and as a warning if you don't care about how to make my Chili you can stop reading right now, because "Virgil's World Class Competition Chili" recipe ensues:

To do about a half gallon batch of my "World Class" Chili in your home kitchen...You'll need...

Meat:
1-1/4 pound top round steak (about 1/2" thick)
1-1/4 pound ground beef or ground chuck

Other Stuff:
1 cup white wine
1 cup water
2 (14) oz cans beef stock
1 (14) oz cans chicken stock
1 (12) oz can tomato paste
2 (12) oz cans red beans (pureed in blender and reserved on the side until needed later)

Spice Blast #1

1 tsp Cayenne pepper
2 tsp flaked onions
1 tsp garlic powder
3 tbsp chili powder
1 tsp cumin
2 tsp Wyler's Instant Beef Bouillon Granules
2 tsp Wyler's Instant Chicken Bouillon Granules

Spice Blast #2

3 tbsp dark brown sugar
1 tsp Garlic Powder
2 tbsp Chili Powder
1 tsp white pepper
3 tbsp Goya Reciato (look for the green Cilantro sauce in the "ethnic food" isle at your local grocer)

Now...as to the process of making the Chili...

Toss your top round steak in a big boiler pot or dutch oven with the cup of wine and the cup of water.

Cook it covered for 1-1/2 to 2 hours over medium heat until it falls apart when you poke it with a fork..checking it often after about 75 minutes so you don't boil it dry.

Dump the cooked round steak out into a colander to drain, then break up your ground beef and render it in the same boiler/pot/dutch oven until it's cooked through.

Now dump it in a colander to drain (removing your round steak so you don't get it all greasy again.

Go through the round steak pulling out any "chewy" bits and break it up into 1/2" to 3/4" chunks or smaller so it will assimilate into the pot with the ground beef when the time comes.

Is your drained/degreased meat now sitting back in your boiler/pot/dutch oven?

Well then...put it back in there and set your burner heat on medium and dump in your beef and chicken stock.

Stir, stir, stir, stir...

Add the Tomato Paste.

Stir...

Now...While you're standing around drinking some wine or a beer and bragging about your favorite NASCAR driver or the College basketball final four, dump your red beans into your blender or a food processor and grind those suckers up until they look like baby food.

Now hold them (the pureed beans) on the side until you see how things work out in the next couple of hours.

Once everything is starting to simmer nicely on the stove top, dump in what I call "Spice blast #1."

Smell that?

Don't get too close or you'll hurt yourself...

Stir, Stir, stir and turn the heat down a little and put the lid on the pot.

Now go watch Fox News or CNN while your eyes roll back in your head for fifteen minutes.

Smell that?

Stop by and check on your chili every fifteen minutes and make sure there isn't any unexpected flames coming out of your pot.

Got a fire extinguisher handy?

Back to reality, cook things slowly for somewhere between 45 minutes and an hour, then add "Spice Blast #2."

If things start to thicken too much you can always add some more beef stock or chicken stock or if you're really cheep..WATER.

Now I have to leave things up to you from here on out.

Cook my Chili recipe down as thick or thin as you like and you can dump any or all of the pureed red beans in at any time to thicken the whole pot out and to increase the volume of the mixture--I use the beans as a filler rather than a basic ingredient, but be prepared to stay on top of things for the last half hour of the cooking process lest you screw things up and have to start over again.

in the mean time...

Bon Appetite...!!!

Obama And Population Of Government Schooled Idiots Take On Executive Compensation

AIG and General Motors Today...Your Family Business Tomorrow...





I say that you're STUPID if you agree with the government being able to kick out the GM CEO and keep a dead company alive (can you say corporate Zombie?) in order to prop up the United Auto Workers Union.

Take the $100 Billion they project they'll have to spend to keep GM out of Bankruptcy (forgetting the $17 Billion Bush tossed to them last December), and divide that by the 140,000 GM workers and another 60,000 supplier jobs...and it comes out to FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS PER JOB PERSON.

(taking a big breath...)

A HALF MILLION DOLLARS TO SAVE ONE JOB?

Why not just pay the people the half million each and tell the union to kiss the US taxpayers asses take a hike?

I have to go now before my head explodes.

Russian Ship With Tourist Docks With Space Station After Glitch

More Headline Confusion...


When I read the headline to the story linked on Drudge Report I immediately had this mental picture until I read the story (click to enlarge):

The real story is here: http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.fcf7d52916b4b8d5cd940c4df33235a1.7f1&show_article=1

You can understand my confusion, because it was a Russian SPACE SHIP...

(not a CRUISE Ship)

Silly me.

The Mate Was A Mighty Sailin' Man...The Skipper Was A Fool Brave & True???

Look Closely...

(Image stolen from my blog buddy Steve over at Tools of Renewal blog.)

Azeotropic Rectification

Living In Technical Information Overload...


I just noticed that I hadn't written anything here in nearly two days.

It's not that I'm not reading and writing these days, it's just that after reading two or three hundred pages in the past week and writing another several dozen pages of notes and calculations I guess my blogging enthusiasm is a little off.

Take today's information flow, for instance.

In the middle of proof reading mass and energy balance diagrams and developing preliminary site plans with railroad sidings and tractor trailer access I noticed we were producing a sizable waste VOC (volatile organic compound) stream and decided to take a look at what the heck was in the stuff we were writing about.

Turns out that when you heat a bunch of wood chips up the way we're planning we capture several thousand TONS per year of Acetic Acid...the same stuff in tomato sauce, orange juice, and of all things cooking vinegar like you have in your kitchen.

Problem is, our Acetic Acid is mixed with an even larger quantity of water along with some trace tars and resins and the only way to get the stuff all separated involves a process called "Azeotropic Rectification."

Besides not being sure if it's legal to "rectify an Azeotrope" in Tennessee and most other southern states, I'm also still not exactly sure what's involved in such goings on.

I guess that I'll know a lot more about how much it costs to do the "rectification" on my fluid sometime next week and in the mean time it makes my head hurt thinking about it...so I think I'll go watch TV and rest my reading glasses for a while.

Talk to y'all later...

"You Know, and We Know, and You Know That We Know..."

You Can't Spend You Way Out Of Recession...Or Borrow Your Way Out Of Debt...


These words were expressed in British Parliament...Directed at British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

I wish someone in the current House or Senate had the balls and mental aptitude to talk to our current president and his fellow "congressmen/congresswomen."

Just once...

Please?

MORE: (I found the Video on YouTube)

Biting The Hand That Feeds Them

Dumbasses Running Wild...



This whole "Excessive Executive Compensation" hysteria bullshit has my ever greying, ever balding head spinning at just slightly less than orbital rotational velocity for a couple of reasons this morning.

Let me lay my view of things out there for your consideration and in a few minutes we'll see if you agree with me that we've hired a new bunch of government morons that are leading us into dangerous territory.

In a nutshell, it seems to me that much of the population and almost all of the government "officials" have the opinion that exceptional performance should be controlled and limited by government mandate--rewarded with financial compensation and employment benefits only slightly greater than that earned by a high school dropout working at the local McDonald's or Seven 11 convenience store...

because it "ain't fair."

What the owners of the companies in question--the shareholders--think is immaterial because the American public and the assholes in Washington DC have decided that in spite of running a failing deficit spending, feckless, obtuse government they know more about business than the "businessmen/businesswomen."

You want "curbs" on executive compensation?

I have a suggestion to test the results of your program in about ten years.

How about you jump in your "hybrid vehicle" and drag your stupid, sympathetic, tree hugging, booger eating, liberal ass down to the local government health clinic after a week of passing a load of blood in your urine or feces.

Then sit there in your paper shirt with your ass hanging out on the cold stainless steel examination table and remember the outcome of your "consultation" is a direct result of events happening this year when you and your senators/representatives voted to limit executive compensation.

Smile and say hello as you bend over and let some idiot making $64,000 per year (limited by government mandate) spread your butt cheeks and peek up inside your neither regions and remember that they missed that day in class when they studied rectums and urethra's because they were out of free government medical school for the day in "sensitivity training class."

Then let's talk about the next time you go on your government mandated "Vacation."

As you walk out of the Jetway in the international terminal at your local airport, take a peek inside the cockpit and see the freak show sitting there programming the autopilot--another group of government supported beneficiaries of "racial and ethnically disadvantage socio-economic class members" that learned how to fly last month and have a government grant to study the "societal impacts of race and gender stereotypes" on the air transport system.

Yeah...that's the ticket...I want to go careening around at 44 thousand feet above mean sea level at 500 MPH with some idiot beneficiary of an official government mandated experiment in social engineering running the flaps and throttle of the aircraft.

(Hopefully Gretta Van Sustren will twist her crooked mouth for several hours describing the accident scene while "experts" pontificate on the icing conditions over Jamaica in July.)

So if the hysteria continues and the Democrats get their way we're all going to somehow benefit by your banker and your dentist and your septic tank pumper and your clerk at Target all making within ten dollars an hour of the same salary?

Funny thing, but it seems to me that if high incomes are outlawed, at some point the tax structure and tax base is going to disappear and when the government runs out of people to steal money from--who's going to pay the taxes to support the social programs?

Don't you want the airliner on your next trip flown by some guy making a shit load of money?

Do you want your doctor to be some poor slob that can barely afford gas in his car to get to the hospital each day? Further, do you want your MD to be the smartest guy in his high school graduating class or the towel boy for the football team in Community College?

And suppose you or one of your kids manages to invent something valuable or get hired to do something special for a company that's willing to pay you more money than you ever managed to THINK about earning in your life.

Do you honestly want to wake up and have the GOVERNMENT have the ability to tell you and your employer/customers that all you can make is $50 or $60 per hour?

And if you don't "win life's lottery" in the words of the politicians, and you have to settle for the status of being in the class of people defined as "working families", don't you still want to believe that one day you or your kids can do better financially if not for the government boot stomping on your earning potential?

Yes?

No?

Well then, put that in your pipe and smoke it... I have injuneering to do...

Back In The Saddle Again Home

Major Injuneering Effort Ensues...


I was too tired and lazy to write anything yesterday, but needless to say we made it home mid-afternoon Saturday to find every thing in order here at the Turbo Pup Compound on the Banks of the Mighty Tennessee River.

Sunday I took a break and shuffled mail and laundry and files around in my office (laundry in the basement) and generally just chilled in front of the computer catching up on what was going on in the world.

I'm busy, busy, busy...and it feels good, good, good to be working for myself again instead of having to sit through Monday morning cheer leading sessions wasting a half hour each week instead of doing productive work on a project.

I've got to design about $2,000,000 worth of equipment and get it on site in North Carolina and installed ASAP, so you'll have to excuse me if the blogging suffers a little over the next few months.

Hope everyone has at least half as much fun as I'm having thumbing my nose at the "economic downturn recession."

Finally Heading Home

Epic Journey Yields Rest and New Employment...


It turns out that we've missed most of the month of March on the banks of the Mighty Tennessee River because we left town March 4th and haven't been north of Greenville, SC since.

After 17 days I'm ready to go home and read some mail and make a few bank deposits.

This trip has been a HUGE success, as we've enjoyed glorious late winter/early spring weather (it only rained three days), spent time on beaches on the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, and covered five southern states (Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, and South Carolina) in the process.

Did I mention winning second place in a Chili cookoff March 7th?

Of course the real success of this journey has been my ability to negotiate long term consulting agreements with not one but TWO separate Green Energy companies here in the Greenville area to do development and marketing work over the next year--hopefully extending over the next five years.

After two and one half months of uncertainty since Lambert Engineers "downsized" I find myself comfortably back in the independent consulting engineering business with a steady work flow and clients eager to pay me to do clearly defined projects which very likely will grow exponentially--resulting in having the opportunity to build and run larger teams of engineers and designers supporting our efforts as we move the projects out of the R&D and Pilot Plant phases into commercial operation.

I'm tempted to continue to thumb my nose at the President and the usual suspects in Washington as they flounder around in the News headlines, but to be honest I must admit that, while I've gone out and found the work on my own by using my thirty plus year old network of friends and associates from my college days at Georgia Tech, when the economic dust settles our new endeavors most definitely benefit from the coming "Carbon Tax/Cap & Trade Program" and possibly from funding resulting from the "stimulus bill."

So now it's time to do a little more Internet news reading, cook breakfast for four, load Missy the Turbo Pup's lockers and sea chests into the car, and make the three and one half hour hop back across the Smokey Mountians through Asheville to Knoxtown.

See y'all later (and wish us a safe trip...If you will...)

Chris Dodd Does His Best Captain Renault

"Your Cash Is Good In My Pocket At The Bar"

Shamelessly stolen from here: http://www.investors.com/editorial/cartoon.asp

You Doesn't Has To Be A Resident...To Be Da President?

Political Insanity Continues...


I stayed at the Condo and worked "from home (away from home)" yesterday.

I also watched the circus they called a "hearing" on Capitol Hill where the clowns we call Senators and Representatives put on a little skit for public consumption on TV.

The poor bastard that's getting paid $1 this year to run the mess the government's made over at AIG sat there and let the usual suspects like Bawney Frank lispingly slap him around.

I say that it's a good thing these idiots have Secret Service Security surrounding them else they wouldn't last three minutes the next time they appeared in "public."

Of course if I'd been at that hearing and they were treating me like they were treating Ed Liddy I'd have jumped out of my seat and done a little bitch slapping of some puffy pasty democratic faces...dropped my trousers, and mooned the camera before exiting the facility screaming obscenities.

I guess that's why it's safer that I'm sitting here in South Carolina this morning doing Injuneering instead of running Insurance companies in NY and DC.

Time to make the coffee and get at it again...

Danger...Danger...Will Robinson...

Paypal "Security" Full Of Shit...


I guess when I look in the mirror I'm just a smug, stupid, naive, web consumer this morning.

You see, over the past few years I've grown more and more confident in my ability to shop and spend money on the Internet to get things I can't find within walking distance five miles of my house in Knoxtown.

Last Christmas I did all my Christmas shopping on the Internet...EARLY...and got free shipping and saved money and never left my computer keyboard in the process.

So any way...yesterday morning when I arrived at my new "office away from home" and fired up my computer on the company network the first thing I got was an E-mail from Paypal saying they had approved a purchase for THREE THOUSAND TWO HUNDRED SEVENTY TWO DOLLARS AND FIFTY TWO CENTS.

Funny thing, but it was shipping to:

duyen nguyen
2625 Stevens Ave South. # 305
Minneapolis, MN 55408
United States

Anyone but me notice that my name isn't "duyen nguyen"?

Anyone but me notice that I didn't go to college with or otherwise know anyone named "duyen nguyen in "Minneapolis, MN"?

Now here's what ended up pissing me off and opened my eyes to how full of shit useless all of Paypal's "security guarantees" and reasoning for charging people money to do business through their website are.

The first thing I did was call Paypal and tell them that I had been notified of a "pending transaction" which I did not make and demanded that they stop the FRAUDULENT transaction from going through.

You know what they did/said?

They said that they could do NOTHING, and that I'd have to call the merchant in order to stop the transaction.

Even though I gave them their "transaction number" which they sent me in THEIR E-Mail they could do nothing but watch it FRAUDULENTLY go through against my checking account, then jack around for their obligatory 14 DAYS investigating the situation and then and only then would they refund my money if the FRAUDULENT transaction I was talking about went through.

Next I called my bank credit union in Knoxtown and was told that there was nothing they could do about the situation except charge me FIFTY DOLLARS for a "stop payment" and attempt to intercept the transaction, but if the amount was one penny less or more than THREE THOUSAND TWO HUNDRED SEVENTY TWO DOLLARS AND FIFTY TWO CENTS or the "ACH transaction code" was different then I would be out the FIFTY Dollars and either be overdrawn or still lose the money until their after-the-fact "FRAUD" investigation at Paypal and their institution was competed in the next TEN to FOURTEEN days.

Finally, I called the vendor (who's name will remain un-named until they finish their work today) and told them about the situation and in spite of having a hard time communicating with them because I didn't have a "customer number" or an "order number" (because I didn't actually place the order) I still have hope of them stopping the transaction because as of the close of business yesterday the equipment was still in their hands.

In the mean time I'm still faced with not only not being able to close my Paypal account, but also being unable to remove my debit card from their payment authorization records because I still have a payment "pending."

I was able to delete the other two credit cards from their clutches, but I'll probably have to spend another two hours today arguing with people in India who can barely speak English.

Not only should this situation be a lesson to me, but I hope that by telling you about the inane process I've been through in the past twenty two hours you will evaluate and reconsider your own relationship with Internet vendors and Companies like PAYPAL that promise the world and then deliver virtually nothing in return for their charges and fees.

In short, I say that PAYPAL SUCKS.

Paypal currently has my official designation of "BLACK HOLE OF THE INTERNET", and their "customer non-service department" SUCKS TOO.

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

Busy Busy Busy

New Engineering Work In Hand...

Looks like we'll be extending our stay here in SC until Friday, then it's back to Knoxtown for the weekend and back to Florida on business again the middle of next week.

I hate it...NOT!

Five States In Twelve Days

The Turbo Pup's Big Adventure...


I'm pleased to report that through the use of modern satellite pictures, NOAA websites, and the Weather Channel, yesterday we were able to execute the fourth leg of our never ending journey through the southern US without getting blown off the roadway or washed into the adjacent rivers and streams.

After delaying our departure from lower Alabama by about two hours, we traversed past Auburn University, Atlanta, GA and arrived at the home of my my old GT roommate's home in Greenville, SC about dinner time.

Today's meetings with various and sundry persons and parties will determine not only the schedule for the balance of this week, but also the goings on at the international headquarters of Industrial Energy Systems for the next three to six months.

That said, it's time to go walk the Turbo Pup, grab a shower, and head into the days meetings.

Wish me luck...if you will...

New Cupola

Progress?

Old-vintage 1984...




NEW...



Hope this one lasts another 25 years...

Touring The Scene Of The Crime

Uncanny Coincidences

Sorry for the light posting Folks, but we've been traveling and then had limited Internet access when I wasn't standing on the roof building a new Cupola on my Mom's house.

By diverting our route from Panama City westward about 3 miles at one point we were able to travel in reverse the route Michael McClendon took last week while shooting everything in sight.

As I understand it, the "incident" started at his mother's house in the little town of Kinston:



then proceeded down though Sampson, Alabama before moving on to Geneva (off our route.)



The scary thing was that this moron worked here at Kelly's--the meat packing plant within about 3 or 4 miles from our family farm where my Grandfather had his cows butchered since the late 1950's.



I'm glad he decided to drive in the other direction and kill his own relatives rather than coming after mine...

On The Road Again

Strange Circumstances


We're moving north this morning to "Lower Alabama for a few days now.

It turns out our family farm is within five miles of the place he quit working at last week.

I'm glad he went the other direction from us when he decided to make headlines.

Y'all have a lovely day now...if you will...

Gulf County Sunset

Here's What I Saw...













And overseeing it all was of course little Missy The Turbo Pup...

Mexico Beach Induced Coma

More Wastage Of Time...


After a short stay with family in Northeast Florida Monday night, we got here to the Florida Panhandle just before lunch time yesterday.

Between the sand and the sun and the waves and the restaurants (and the crappy wireless internet) I just haven't had the time to sit down and write anything until now.

The weather is awsome, and we have one more day to look forward to before heading back north to lower Alabama to spend a long weekend with Mom.

(No...I wasn't the guy driving around around shooting people in nearby Geneva, Alabama yesterday.)

Hope y'all are having at least half as much fun as we are down here...

Letter From A Law Student

Couldn't Have Said It Better Myself...


This little Gem was published last Friday on Neal Boortz's website:

Dear American liberals, leftists, social progressives, socialists, Marxists and Obama supporters,

We've stuck together since the late 1950s, but the whole of this latest election process has made me realize that I want a divorce. I know that we tolerated each other for many years for the sake of future generations, but sadly this relationship has run its course. Our two ideological sides of America cannot and just will not ever agree on what's right. So let's just end it right now while we can do it on friendly terms. We can smile, shake hands, chalk it up to irreconcilable differences and each go our own way.

So here's a model separation agreement.

Our two groups can equitably divide up the country by land mass, each taking a portion. That's going to be the difficult part, but I'm sure our two sides can come to a friendly agreement. After that, it should be relatively easy. Our respective representatives can effortlessly divide other assets since both sides have such distinct and disparate taste. We don't like redistributive taxes so you can have those. You are welcome to the liberal judges and the ACLU. And since you hate guns and you hate war, we'll take the firearms, the cops, the NRA and the military. You can keep Oprah, Michael Moore and Rosie O'Donnell. But you are going to be responsible for finding a biodiesel vehicle big enough to haul them around.

We'll keep the capitalism, the greedy corporations, the pharmaceutical companies; we will keep Wal-Mart and Wall Street. You can have the homeless, the homeboys, the hippies and illegal aliens. We will keep the hot Alaskan hockey moms, the greedy CEOS and all of the rednecks. We'll keep the Bibles and we'll let you have NBC and Hollywood.

You can be nice to Iran and Palestine and we'll retain the right to invade and hammer anybody that threatens us. You can have the peaceniks and the war protesters. When our allies or our way of life are under assault, we will provide them with security. You won't have to worry about it. We will keep our Judeo-Christian values. You are welcome to Islam, Scientology, Humanism and Shirley Maclaine. You can also have the UN, but we will no longer pay the bill.

We will keep the SUVs, the pickup trucks and the oversize luxury cars. You can have the compacts, the subcompacts and every Subaru station wagon you can find. You can give everybody healthcare, if you can find any practicing doctors. We will continue to believe that healthcare is a privilege and not a right. We will keep "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" and the national anthem, and I am sure you will be happy to substitute in their place "Imagine." I'd like to teach the world to sing "Kumbaya" or "We are the world." We will practice trickle-down economics and you can give trickle-up poverty your best shot. And since it so offends you, we will keep our history, our name and our flag.

Would you agree to this? If so, please pass it along other like-minded liberal and conservative patriots. And if you do not agree, just hit delete. In the friendly spirit of parting, I'll bet you ANWAR which one of us will need whose help in about 15 years.

Sincerely,

John J Wall

Law student and an American

P.S. You can also have Barbara Streisand and Jane Fonda

Beach Dog

The Turbo Pup in Action In Her Native Environment...


Well, things are winding down here this evening after a wonderful four day visit back to our little island on the Georgia Coast...we extended our stay by a day because we were too tired to drive toward Florida.

Now our adventure takes us on to the Florida Gulf Coast for a few days for some business and more time with little Missy the Turbo Pup doing things like THIS:

That's a darn fine dog we got there...