Excessive Scrolling Causes Heartburn

Internet Form Induced Late Night Insanity...


Does anyone but me get chafed when, in the process of filling out that final form you always have to do in order to buy something on E-Bay or Amazon or Paypal, you get down to the part where they ask for your "Country" and instead of having "USA" or "United States of 'Merica" at the top of the list you have to poke at the scroll bar and slide down the "computerized world tour" all the way from Albania to the bottom near Zimbabwe to find the name of the place where we all live?

I find that many if not most companies--even those solidly situated here in the good old US of A--today use web forms which insist on placing our country's name at the bottom of the list rather than at the top.

So what's up with that?

Add to my petty ill "formed" aggravations the realization that in the past couple of years since we moved from Georgia to the Turbo Pup Compound here on the banks of the Mighty Tennessee River I'm also forced to scroll down past Alabama and Florida and Georgia to find Tennessee on the "State" list.

Alabama and Georgia and Florida appear when you first hit that blank on the form, while Tennessee is stuck down there with Texas and the Mormons in Utah...you know?

And inevitably I manage to screw up both the country and the state at least once in my haste and have to hit the back arrow once I get to the checkout page because I don't want to send industrial electrical parts to Uganda having paid for the overnight FedEX on my Debit Card.

And now finally I have to admit the truth....because all of the above aside what really got me going on this topic this morning was that while punching in my personal information into a Web Site page selling of all things "wiper seals" for these stupid expensive valves I'm getting paid to re-build, when I got to the DOB blank on the form I had to watch 49 numbers go by...from 2010 down to 1959...before I could hit "Enter" followed by the "Tab" key.

(In a few more years it will be quicker for me if they put 1900 first and the current year last on the list I guess.)

In closing, wandering back to my initial "Country Listing in the Internet Form" complaints, on second thought I have to admit that I can sorta kinda see the rational of foreign companies or domestic companies with huge foreign market share including us (the US) at the bottom of the list, but if all you sell is parts for old Chevy Camaros and Ford Mustangs, Crotchless overalls from the "Frederics of Hooterville" Dutch Quaker Lingerie Collection, or those stupid fake fireplaces made by the Pennsylvania Amish...do you really think the Austrians or Australians are going to come clamoring to your Internet doorstep with a credit card number in hand???

Thereby causing me to have to wear out my mouse button finger scrolling around looking for the wealthiest part of North America in your list of countries???

Think about it people...

In the mean time, I have to go put a new water pump on my Camaro, then jump in the shower before donning my new overalls in time to sit in front of the bay window waiting for the UPS driver to deliver my ventless electric fireplace with a real hand made wooden cabinet.

Talk to y'all later...

PANTS ON THE GROUND?

Seen This?





Heh...

CNN & MSNBC Anchors Committing Suicide

"Tea Bagged" Out Of Office...


Generally you have to duct tape me to a chair and take the TV remote control away from me to make me watch CNN (or any other legacy product from Ted Turner's former media empire) or MSNBC.

Thus I spend about five minutes each year watching either network unless I'm stuck in a "departure lounge" at the airport or sitting in a bar/restaurant where the idiot kid bartenders think people want to watch the drivel spewing out of Anderson Cooper's retarded mouth.

Tonight I made an exception to my viewing habits and, after Scott Brown's US Senate victory in Massachusetts, I turned over to CNN see what the tone was like.

I don't believe I've seen a group of people with sadder, longer faces (and poop stains on their skirts and pants) in the past 25 years.

These people were in disbelief, and still, in the moments following the loss of what I call the "Kennedy Memorial Life Guard Chair" instead of an actual "Senate Seat," they're turning their attention to how Obama and the Obamamaniacs can continue to ram the current stinky smelly pile of crappy legislation down the voters throats or up our behinds.

It's going to be real damn interesting to see what unfolds over the next couple of weeks in the US House and Senate relating to continuing along the path of the past year or shifting gears/changing tracks in an effort to avoid a giant negative landslide in November.

If you're not paying attention or you're just hiding in the closet afraid to say anything, I hope that this will be a wake up call to all of the people out there that just wandered to the voting booth last year after hearing jingoisms and slogans and voted for what was sold to you as "Hope and Change."

Based on what I've seen so far, all I can do is "Hope for a Change" else the last few decades of my life could end up being a hellish existence in a foreign country...that country being the one I grew up in and was stolen from me and my family.

Think about it...

I Put That Sucker In A Box...

And Shipped That %$#@#er Down The Road...


If you read this blog you probably know what I'm talking about this afternoon, and if you don't you probably wouldn't care or won't understand.

Time for a half bottle of Bourbon and a Cigar, if you will excuse me...

Thanks For Reading

Another Dubious Milestone

More People I Want To Be More Like...

Hey...I Can DREAM...Can't I?


The ultimate Ladies Man:


"...don't mess with my Belovid Ramona..."

and the Ultimate salesman:



"Mr. Douglas...have I got a deal for you..."

Absolutely No Comparison

RIP Dr. King

















(We all got the short end of that political stick today I'd say...)

Obscure Musical Stuff I Know

And Things I Think That You Should Know Too...


Have I mentioned that I spent a good deal of my life with a Trumpet in my hands a long time ago?

Probably not, because I never really mastered the instrument beyond a tolerable level of competence although I played it through junior high, high school, and into college in the GT Naval ROTC band.

In fact, the first time I went to Mardi Gras in New Orleans I was actually IN Mardi Gras, trumpet in hand, as our band was invited to march and play in three major parades--Bacchus, Edymoyn and Poydras (I think)--on Canal Street and in the Superdome.

Any way, today I currently own an old Holton B flat trumpet and a cheap Chinese Fluglehorn like Chuck "Feels So Good" Mangione plays, but best intentions aside they spend most of their time in their cases these days as my lips have lost their finely tuned pucker as a result of disuse. (By disuse I mean that talking and eating don't qualify for keeping your skills using an instrument with a mouthpiece in tune...)

I also have a real Australian Didgeridoo, a genuine Hawaiian Ukulele, and a whole box full of Horner and Lee Oscar Harmonicas laying around in my office at any given time, and I can make strange noises with my armpits and wet my hands and make funny fart like sounds and wait a minute...I lost my train of thought here...

...wait...

...I've got it...

...I know, what I was saying was that I consider myself to be sort of a musical person on and off through the years, and I pride myself in carrying fairly high standards when it comes to the music I listen to because I find silence or the roar of a power tool to be vastly superior to much of the stuff put out on CD since they stopped making 8 track tapes and vinyl records.

Any way, I've been working on singing the Blues when we do our karaoke nights out the past half year and you already saw the Elvis Presley's "Tryin' To Get To You" and some other stuff I've put up here in the past.

Tonight I present for your enjoyment a man I greatly admire--Big Joe Turner --who's career spanned 60 years from the 1920's until he died in 1985.

As I understand it, Big Joe started out singing without a microphone or electricity in taverns and juke joints and a result became famous not only for his singing but for belting out his lyrics at a HUGE volume, with no amplification.

I'm a fan of his work and if you Google him or go to Best Buy and check out the blues section you'll be surprised of the volume of his work and the songs he did that other people like Elvis covered in later years.

Here's a couple of links to YouTube showing Big Joe doing what he did best at the Apollo Theater in about 1954:




...then about ten years later in 1965:





And if you haven't had enough, listen to this:



I find it to be comforting to find stuff like this recorded for posterity on YouTube...maybe some day a hundred years from now people will see me singing Big Joe's hits at the local karaoke bar...

Then again...Probably not, but that will be all...for now...

Can I Get Any More Lazy?

Professionally Frivolously Distracted...


Oh...I don't know...where to start blithering this morning...

I'm sitting here looking at the boxes and giant bags of packing peanuts laying in a pile in one corner of the shop, but I've been paralyzed the past day and one half trying to get the final details checked off the punch list on these PLC Panels, and even with hiring a software programming consultant last week I managed to go backwards on Friday and Saturday because he did the revisions in version 9.0 of the Cscape software and I was running version 8.8 on both my computers.

And did I mention that my customer asked for some changes on the second panel that required "free" software and hardware revisions and the associated delay so we could make both panels match each other since they were both still laying here in the building?

And of course as usual with the downloading and updating of new technical non-consumer software, it was generally a pain in the butt requiring me to do cartwheels and mental hand stands and back flips before getting things back to normal...a couple of extra unplanned hours when it was all said and done.

Just now when I thought I was "home free" with regard to shipping things out on Monday my Infrared Sensors seem to have lost their collective minds and so when I get through writing here I'm going to have to take a hammer and beat the crap out of everything go back through the calibration process and see if I can make the temperature readings make sense.

Apparently I'm smart, but inevitably not smart enough many times when I'm allowed to wander off in the business world and start selling things I sometimes shouldn't be allowed to get involved in I guess.

Do me a favor and hang up if I call your house and in a fit of entrepreneurial fever offer you some sort of new super duper gun or a hand grenade or a new slimming, form fitting Kevlar/Spandex/Nomex fire proof bra and/or girdle for your wife or Grandmother.

Somebody save me from myself...

PLEASE???

(did I tell you about my new Rogers' Turbo-Sonic Hydrodynamic Pulse Doppler Laser Nippleometer?)

Gun Porn

I Wish I'd Said That...

A good friend sent this to me in an E-Mail this afternoon and I couldn't resist putting it up here on the blog because it's good stuff if you are a law abiding gun owner...here goes...


Clint Smith, Director of Thunder Ranch, is part drill instructor, and part time stand-up comic (Thunder Ranch is a firearms training facility in Arizona ).

Here are a few of his observation on tactics, firearms, self-defense and life as we know it in the civilized world.

"The most important rule in a gunfight is: Always win and cheat if necessary."

"Don't forget, incoming fire has the right of way..."

"Make your attacker advance through a wall of bullets. You may get killed with your own gun, but he'll have to beat you to death with it, cause it's going to be empty."

"If you're not shootin', you should be loading'. If you're not loadin', you should be movin', and if you're not movin', someone's gonna cut your head off and put it on a stick."

"When you reload in low light encounters, don't put your flashlight in your back pocket.... If you light yourself up, you'll look like an angel or the tooth fairy...and you're gonna be one of 'em pretty soon."

"Do something. It may be wrong, but do something."

"Shoot what's available, as long as it's available, until something else becomes available."

"If you carry a gun, people will call you paranoid. That's ridiculous. If you have a gun, what in the hell do you have to be paranoid for?"

"Don't shoot fast, unless you also shoot good..."

"You can say 'stop' or 'alto' or use any other word you think will work, but I've found that a large bore muzzle pointed at someone's head is pretty much a universal language."

"You have the rest of your life to solve your problems... How long you live depends on how well you do it."

"You cannot save the planet but you may be able to save yourself and your family."

"Thunder Ranch will be here as long as you'll have us or until someone makes us go away, and either way, it will be exciting."

More Excellent Gun Wisdom.......

The purpose of fighting is to win.

There is no possible victory in defense.

The sword is more important than the shield, and skill is more important than either.

The final weapon is the brain. All else is supplemental.

1. Don't pick a fight with an old man. If he is too old to fight, he'll Just kill you
(blogger note...at this point in my life...that would be ME .)

2. If you find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics suck.

3. I carry a gun cause a cop is too heavy.

4. When seconds count, the cops are just minutes away .

5. A reporter did a human-interest piece on the Texas Rangers. The reporter recognized the Colt Model 1911 the Ranger was carrying and asked him

'Why do you carry a 45?'

The Ranger responded, 'Because they don't make a 46.'

6. An armed man will kill an unarmed man with monotonous regularity.

7. The old sheriff was attending an awards dinner when a lady commented on his wearing his sidearm. 'Sheriff, I see you have your pistol. Are you expecting trouble?'

'No ma'am. If I were expecting trouble, I would have brought my rifle.'

8. Beware of the man who only has one gun, because he probably knows how
to use it very well.

"The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him."
---G. K. Chesterton---

A people that values its privileges above its principles will soon lose both.

"Those who hammer their guns into plows will plow for those who do not.."

---Thomas Jefferson----


And I think that THOSE words pretty well sums things up here on a warm balmy (it's 53 degrees F here in my back yard) Friday afternoon...

Stuff I Don't Usually Talk About

Not Braggin'...Just Sayin'...


I'm sitting around here this morning waiting on a couple of things to happen regarding paperwork and the Internet and project stuff, and I keep glancing with one eyeball at FOX News' coverage of the hellish situation going on down in Haiti since the Earthquake.

I can't even begin to tell you how my heart goes out to the private citizens of that country, and the amount of anger I feel toward the corrupt, abusive government and government "officials" which in past and present administrations have taken advantage of and in the process neglected innocent men and women and children over the past 200 years the country has been free from the French.

The song lyrics from Janice Joplin comes to mind saying "Freedom's just another word for...Nuthin' left to lose" when it comes to thinking about Haiti.

And I have to ask where Jessi Jackson and Al Sharpton and all of our other demagogue "race war-lords" are when stuff like this happens outside of Watts or Harlem or anywhere USA and the leaders are BLACK taking advantage of other BLACKS?

The scenes of people digging through the rubble of crushed houses and apartments and hospitals and orphanages with their bare hands has brought back to me this week some uncomfortable memories of my time spent in the Philippines back in the late 1970's while that country was still under the rule of Ferdinand Marcos.

Like Haiti today, the Philippines was and is a country of vast social and economic stratification, with a very thin upper class and almost as thin middle class sitting over and around a giant group of people living in abject poverty--which when I was there meant living on less that $1000 per year.

They would offer to sell a young Midshipman in the US Navy EVERYTHING and ANYTHING for any minimal piece or part of the equivalent of $18,000 per year stipend we earned while wallowing around on a ship in Subic Bay on our summer orientation cruises.

Any way, it was Monsoon season while I was there stationed on the USS New Orleans LPH-11 Amphibious Assault Carrier (a boat load of "Squids" and "Jar Heads" and clunky helicopters) and it rained almost every day and some days it rained so much that the sides of the surrounding mountains would get so wet that they decided to slide over and cover the crude roadways carved out between the little towns and villages surrounding the Naval and Air Force Base.

They had this one big rain and mud slide and word came out for volunteers to go help look for survivors and dig people and some cars and a bus and other stuff out of the debris.

I went.

I lasted a half day.

After hitting a dead woman in the head with a shovel before excavating the rest of her body and finding a purple colored cold wet tattered kid--striking him in the arm and making a cut that didn't bleed--I had to leave the recovery effort along with several other young 19 year old men because it was obvious there were no survivors and the more experienced guys were tired of watching us suffer in an operation which was beyond our capacity to process mentally and emotionally.

They let me leave on the first truck out, and I hate to admit that I was actually glad to get out of that situation because I guess I was just not up to it all in the end.

In my considered Redneck opinion, it's real easy to sit around and watch TV and pontificate about how you would do things in any given situation, but I'm here to tell you that what's going on down there in Haiti right now would drive most average Americans mad, and I'm fairly certain that most of the idiots we've elected to our House and Senate would run screaming from the scene if they actually had to face the realities on the street there.

And still, look at the fundamental, critical, vital role that the US and the US Military is playing... and how utterly useless the United Nations is in this process, and then please consider reality rather than wish for "hope and change" the next time you go to the polling booth to vote in an election.

New Toilet Seat

I'm So Excited I Can Hardly Set Down...


But when I do...it's C O M F O R T A B L E

Dead Internet Service

Creative Juices All Backed Up...


I think that I need some "Mental Liquid Plumber" this morning as I look at the back yard weather station display showing a temperature of 19 deg F.

That would be because my synapses are starting to feel clogged up if not frozen for a variety of reasons beyond my control this week.

If you stopped by here before 8 AM you only found yesterday's ramblings because by the time I got through working on fine tuning PLC #1 (a.k.a. Ava) I couldn't get to the Internet to write anything.

Comcast apparently was performing maintenance and had a "system outage" allowing me to still have cable TV so I could watch Food Network reruns with Alton Brown--at the same time preventing me from accessing the www since some time around 3 AM until just now.

I'm probably only one of two people over the age of 45 in Knoxtown that regularly gets pissed off when my Internet provider decides to cut a wire or fiber optic cable in the wee hours of the morning...of course all of the perverts and college students are inconvenienced because they have to log off and stop looking at photos of naked strangers and Twittering about what they ate for dinner or the hot babe/guy that made eye contact with them walking down the street.

Then of course after the outage I had to perform my usual ritual of bowing down to the Technology Voodoo Gods, scurrying around the house with a painted face, splashing goat's blood on random surfaces with a petrified Rooster's foot & chanting gibberish while rebooting the server PC and two laptops and two VoIP boxes AND the wireless router to get things back up and running.

In the mean time the lost couple of hours of Internet time not only stopped my blogging, but also ended some work I was doing putting together the owner's manuals for the PLC's (a.k.a. sisters Ava and Eva.)

As you probably know, very few companies actually send you an owner's manual these days when they sell you anything made from China or Silicon Valley no matter whether it cost $9.99 plus shipping and handling or a months salary...they make you go online and spend your money on paper and printer ink if you want a real hard copy of the instructions rather than clicking on the "Help" button and wading through a list of unrelated topics a couple of miles long.

So now it's time to try to chase my programming consultant down on the telephone and get back to downloading some stuff for Ava and Eva's documentation and other than that...

y'all have a FANDAMTABULOUS day...

If you will...

Crap What Pisses Me Off

I've had Better Days...


Sometimes on this blog I enjoy indulging myself by screaming and ranting and raving and yelling and uttering explicatives like %$#@%$#@ and *$&# and bluuuuuuuuuuaaaaaaaahhhhhh youuuuuuuuuuaaaaaaah to my heart's content.

Then there's day's like yesterday when I'm angry and upset and generally out of sorts but I prefer to keep my discontent to myself and suffer in silence.

Yesterday was most definitely one of those days.

Still, having suffered a couple of month long visits to the hospital in the past couple of years and disappearing from the Internet as a result, and having developed a semi-regular following, and not wanting to appear to be a "drama queen/king", I pretty much try to put something up here every day just to try to make a few people laugh and let the balance of the population that find me more annoying than funny know that I'm still alive and well and still breathing.

All of that said, just know that it seems that when I do as little as I manage to do all day for as many days as I do or don't do it, it's sometimes hard to remain upbeat when I don't accomplish anything at all for large periods of time.

I often pride myself in and with my sloven-ness and devil may care attitude toward life, but in then end I'd like to be remembered for having carried my fair share of the freight around here...and I'm afraid I might be a wee bit short of that task when looking at the black ink---falling into the red column of the ledger books if I don't straighten up here shortly.

I beg of you to please excuse my terse, tense tone if and when I let it leak out, and await the day when the warm balmy winds & salty breezes awaken the lofty, carefree wisps of my spirit allowing the eruption of steaming, stinky BS which would otherwise normally tumble out of my mind...

...through my fingertips...

...across my computer keyboard...

on to your expensive finger print smudged monitor for your enjoyment and/or dismay.

(did I just write that?)


Then...in the words of "Emily Latella"...

... never mind...

It's A L I V E !!!

Still Stupid, But Better Looking Than The First Model...











And don't do anything to make me cause it to "probe" your temperature because it knows several places to look...

Yawnnnnnnnn

Somebody Poke Me With A Pointy Stick...


I guess that about says it all this morning. I have a serious case of lethargy complicated by sunlight deprivation.

Years ago when things got like this I just started looking at airfares to the Florida Keys or Jamaica.

Today I guess I have no choice but to put on a sweatshirt, go down to the shop, and turn up the heater and go to work...

...trying to avoid the unfinished sled on one workbench and concentrate on the nearly finished PLC panel on the other.

Y'all have a LOVELY day...if you will...

Better Send Over The Guys With The White Coats And The Net

My "Transformer" Beach Chair...


So here I am, sitting around today looking at the heat wave we have going on outside--it's up in the HIGH 20's right now on the other side of my front door--and it occurred to me that rather than fighting the inevitable weather conditions I should just go with the flow and come up with some way to enjoy the coming twenty couple of feet of snow we're going to get between now and April.

Then I started looking around for some sort of plans for a cool sled that I could build to replace the three sleds that burned up when my house burned down in 2001.

The problem I have with most sleds is that I am 6'-3" tall and now weigh about 240 to 250 pounds, depending on how much Chili and Ribs and Pizza and Liquor have been through the house in the past week.

And most commercial sleds, at least the ones you can find at Ace hardware and Toys-R-Us and the other local home improvement stores, are designed for children and midgets and women that do underwear and weight loss "system" commercials that could ride down a snow covered hill on a potato chip or a sheet of heavy duty aluminum foil.

I, on the other hand, want and NEED a real sled--a MANLY SLED--something that will take my bulk and is actually able to handle different kinds of snow and ice conditions and most of all can actually turn a little so I can avoid busting my brains out against the local oak tree or wedging myself under a Volvo SUV going 30 MPH.

Then I found this website selling this sled and I was in LOVE instantly...

Problem is, I can't really justify spending $345 plus freight for something I'm pretty sure won't work on the beach in July.

And since I'm resolute that we won't be living anywhere more than a couple miles from the beach as soon as possible i.e. NEXT WINTER I won't really need a sled unless I open a Ruby Tuesdays or Applebees Restaurant and want to hang it from the wall or ceiling in the bar area for very long.

Then I said to myself...I says...

"Virgil, you're an Injuneer, Right?"

"And you've got that new high tech workshop with all of those power tools from your previous home and investment property renovation work, Right?"

"And you, being a pack rat at heart, also have a bunch of scrap stuff--metal and lumber and pieces of old cars and washing machines--laying around your property in various boxes and bins and piles just waiting for your next invention to come along, Right?"

So...

"Why not B U I L D your own version of the ultimate adult sled, and use familiar, surplus parts and pieces to accomplish your plan."

Then instead of answering myself directly by talking to myself, I went to work this afternoon on the project, and here's a look at what's currently happening in my basement...with only a couple of hours of thought and a little bit of grinding and drilling and otherwise making sharp metal chips.

I took an old used beach chair like this (this one is still new):



And the reflector off of a cheap old Home Depot shop light that had crapped out last year, then I cut everything apart and now I'm in the final stages of the AutoCAD drawings for a suspension and steering mechanism to make this haul my lumbering Butt down my front yard or the side streets in the neighborhood the next time we get any significant frozen precipitation:





The front handles you see there will ultimately allow me to hold on for dear life and once I cut the "skis" apart into two sets in theory I'll be able to steer the silly thing around barking dogs and police cars and maybe I can get my own reality show or at least make it onto FOX news in the process.

More photos and Autopsy results to follow later...

Wish me luck

Sittin' Around Doin' Nuthin'

I Got A Bad Case Of Winter Malaise...


Well, it's the tenth day of December, 2010 here on the calendar at the Turbo Pup Compound on the banks of the Mighty Tennessee River, and I'm pretty sure that the temperature hasn't made it above freezing yet this year.

Looking at the wireless display on the backyard weather station, it's 19 outside right now as I write...an improvement of 5 or 6 degrees over the past half dozen overnight lows.

I don't care who you are, but if you live more than a few inches south of the Mason Dixon line that's cold weather by most standards.

Since I'm actually working sorta-kinda part time these days I've indulged myself in doing ABSOLUTELY nothing so far this weekend if you don't count blogging and otherwise fooling around on the computer...

...wait a minute, I did work on a project spreadsheet and write a couple of invoices yesterday in anticipation of FINALLY shipping these stupid PLC panels out of my basement this week.

I know that starting a business requires an investment in time and money, but if I actually tracked the hours I have invested in getting the Alpha and Beta versions of this Touch Screen PLC based Infared Temperature Sensor Panel (TSPLCITSP for short) put together and fine tuned I made something like $0.025999 per hour.

The good news is that if they work as advertised our customer is threatening us with needing another DOZEN panels this year, and phase Two of our efforts is a new, even bigger and complex custom panel designed to monitor the performance and energy usage on an air dryer system which will also be utilized in multiple locations once the concept is proven.

Continuing in my description of my slovenly-ness, I did manage to take the time to watch the Georgia Tech Basketball Team (previously ranked #17 in the country in spite of losing to UGA last week) solidly BEAT the Duke Blue Devils (formerly ranked NUMBER FIVE in the country) yesterday.

Oh...and I made a new kind of White Pizza with a real home made white sauce for dinner that came out pretty good.

I also trimmed my nose hair and cut a few extra inches off a couple of toe nails while wallowing around in the bed reading the newspaper and looking at junk mail and sales ads did most of the laundry and sharpened my other domestic skills in anticipation of resuming my responsibilities of being a "kept man" as Patricia re-enters the workforce, in the process earning about five times more than I made last year as a professional beach bum and part time brain surgeon, rocket scientist, political commenter, and forensic injuneer.

Time now I guess to grab a early morning nap before resuming my efforts in doing nothing all day (possibly interrupted with some work finishing the control panels...)

Regards Y'all...

Happy 75th Birthday Elvis

Sorry I'm A Day Late...


Up or down, in or out, here's a look at "The King" in his prime in 1968:




...RIP Mr. Presley

I Bought A SNOW SHOVEL?

Just Shoot Me I Guess...


I went out yesterday and did something I SWORE that I'd NEVER, ever, Ever, EVER do no matter what, but early in the process of spending our second winter owning a house in a city at the northernmost latitude I've ever lived in I felt compelled to do it.

I came home from Home Depot with two bags of sand in the trunk and a Snow Shovel laying in the floor of the back seat.

The sand was purchased to add weight to the ridiculously light back end of our
Chrysler 300 (which is also rear wheel drive,) but I felt better when I rationalized that the sand will do double duty in June this spring when things finally thaw out because we can add it to the beach area in the Turbo Pup Pool Compound.

The bad news was that they were out of their $8.00 per bag "Ice Melt" stuff, some of which I had used earlier on our driveway in order to rescue the car from it's parking place in the grass.

I'm resolute that as soon as they get another shipment anywhere in Knoxtown (Lowes, Home depot, and the grocers were all out of it I heard) I'm going to buy an entire tractor trailer load pick up a few hundred pounds of the stuff in anticipation of needing it to be able to get to the grocery store to buy bread, peanut butter, and toilet paper later this month.

(I wonder how the left over stuff would taste on the rim of a Margarita glass...Roy?)

And does anyone but me think that I'm too old to be involuntarily learning this "Winterization Process", and thereby see a basic problem with this picture in general?

Let me explain.

Here you have a guy (that would be me) which spent most of the first 42 years of his life waiting to go on vacation...where?

Not sitting around in snow in Ski Apparel.

Not sitting in front of a slot machine in Las Vegas or Atlantic City.

Not sitting around or playing golf in the Desert in Arizona or Southern California.

Try sitting around with his feet in the sand, hand wrapped around a cold adult beverage, looking at the OCEAN.

Then FINALLY, realizing a lifetime of dreaming, I was fortunate enough to be able to give up just Vacationing and spend most of the next SEVEN years of my life actually LIVING on or near the beach on the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean.

Fast forward to TODAY, AND I find myself not only not sitting in the sand...but ACTUALLY BUYING sand and hauling it around in my car trunk, and BUYING giant shovels which are good for nothing but shoveling WATER...

FROZEN water.

Problem is...I don't want to SHOVEL W A T E R.

I want to wade in and lay in and swim in water.

L I Q U I D Water, preferably in it's WARMER forms.

That said, all I want to know is...

Who's idea was this Frozen CRAP any way?

Two People = SIX Phone Lines???

A Tale of Two Three Cities...


Man I have to tell you, I'm worn out mentally and now physically because in the middle of all of the other stuff going on around here I just got through dragging a heavy duty 100' extension cord and my hammer drill with a 15" long concrete bit on it around two sides of my house in the snow and ice.

"Why would you be doing THAT...Mr. Rogers?" most sane people might inquire?

Because the idiots at AT&T jerked us around since Wednesday waiting for them to send a so-called "technician" out to install Pat's new business phone line, and after the 8 AM appointment deadline passed we found that all they really needed to do was throw a switch at NASA or in Washington DC or maybe at the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia and we'd have a dial tone.

Earlier this morning I walked outside with an old trimline phone in my hand, plugged it into the "network interface", and found that they'd turned the stupid thing on quite by accident.

So any way, all complaining about Utility companies aside, did I mention that with Pat's new company supplied land line and cell phone that we have...

Get ready...

SIX TELEPHONE LINES FOR TWO PEOPLE (and ONE TURBO PUP who doesn't have thumbs and doesn't dial the phone very often.)

I know, I know I KNOW...maybe an explanation is in order so I can get all of this straight myself, and in the process see if I can rationalize paring things down a little because I think that there's an itty bitty chance that we're spending WayyyyYYYY too much money taking unsolicited offers of insurance and debt consolidation and God knows what else these days on all of these communication devices.

First of all there's MY cell phone, something I've had in various incarnations since about 1990 before every man woman and infant on the entire planet had one and felt the need to walk and drive around blabbing all day.

It currently has our old home number from Vinings, Georgia ported over to it so bill collectors people we knew in the Atlanta area could find us when we moved to St. Simons. It's a 404 area code which constantly confuses people when they call and I say I live in Knoxville.

Then there is our home phone, which is actually a Vonage VOiP phone and phone number that we got when we lived on St. Simons. The wierd thing was that while south Georgia has a 912 area code, that it wasn't available on VOiP so Vonage gave us another 404 Area Code. In the process we eliminated AT&T/Bell South from our lives in regard to land lines and telecommunications as of 2003.

Next there's Pat's cell phone, which has her old Atlanta era cell phone number which we never changed as we moved from city to city and from Bellsouth/Cingular to T-Mobile and now to Verizon.

Confused yet?

Well, I actually am, because with speed dial, since I never actually DIAL any of our numbers I can only remember one of them most of the time without bursting a blood vessel thinking about it.

Next comes along my new company, and in the interest of trying to look like a real business enterprise I decided that it would be nice if when my customers called me here in Knoxville they actually called a Knoxville number, and when my suppliers here in town called they didn't have to call long distances soooooo...

Along comes phone number number FOUR.

We bounced along quite comfortably from October to this week running around the house playing hide and seek with the EIGHT WIRELESS HANDSETS answering FOUR TELEPHONE NUMBERS...

looking in sofa cushions and under the bed sheets and in other out of the way places when something started making noise or we actually wanted to of all things place a phone call.

For some reason there must be a law or a rule or something that says that no matter how many phones you have there is never one closer than 25 feet through at least two pieces of Sheetrock from you when it rings or you want to call and talk to someone or order Pizza.

All of that rambling aside, it brings us to this week when Pat finished her paper work and the last hour when I went out and drilled a hole through 12" of brick and concrete block and 2x4's and poked a wire through the wall (the old wiring was 46 years old and I didn't want to fool with making it work.)

So now we have our third dial tone in the building, the first associated with a "land line" in almost seven years, and with this week's experience I can tell you that the legacy phone companies' customer service is still operating in a "Monopoly mentality" and it's no wonder people continue to eliminate "Ma Bell" or whatever incarnation they call themselves from their lives.

And then finally, with the arrival of the package containing the new Cell phone any day now, I'm fairly certain that I'm going to literally DROWN in A SEA OF DIAL TONES AND DIFFERENT RINGS.

Six phone lines and ten phones.

I must be out of my freaking mind.

Would somebody PLEASE wrap a phone cord around my neck and put me out of my suffering???

And don't write, CALL...operators are standing by....

Frozen Out Of My Own Driveway

Mother Nature Laughs At Global Warming Zombies...


So we sat around most of the day yesterday waiting on the predicted "winter weather" to arrive and all it managed to do until about 3 PM was spit and sputter and produce maybe a dozen snowflakes in my yard.

Then I walked outside about 3:05 and it was sleeting lightly as the temperature at the back yard weather station rose toward freezing, then things turned to snow shortly thereafter and the temperature started to slide back south on the thermometer.

Then of course the inevitable happened and I managed to break the only #8-32 tap available in the building which I was using to cut threads in some holes in the steel back plate of the latest PLC control panel, so we ran out the door to the bank and Home Depot and on the way home stopped at our local watering hole for some drinks, fried green tomatoes, and "naked" chicken wings for dinner.

Things kept going down hill but since they had closed schools early and a bunch of people had already left work we ended up arrogantly sitting around talking to our friend "Barber Bob" (who has actually trimmed my hair a little twice in the past two years.

Then we headed home and things were fine on Kingston Pike but the streets in our neighborhood were getting a little slick and when we got to our driveway we discovered that it was impossible to make it up past about the half way point.

I tried it forward.

I tried it backward.

I tried driving with two wheels on the grass but without positraction all I ended up doing was making a wound on the grass I'll have to repair when things finally thaw out--probably in March.

So the good news is that we don't have to worry about sliding down the driveway if we have to go anywhere in the next week, but the bad news is our car is parked off the street in the edge of my front yard as a target for the asshead vandals to put a cinder block through the windshield or beat with a baseball bat.

OK, we really don't have that kind of crap going on here in this area of West Knox but still I hate leaving things to temptation because in my experience many people generally lose their mind when it snows and the aforementioned kids will be out of school, unsupervised, and some won't be able to resist getting out and risking life and limb driving around doing nothing (except denting my fenders.)

...more...

Good God, I just re-read what I just wrote and realized I've officially become an old curmudgeon...without even trying.

That said...everybody better not act up...don't make me come over and beat you with my walker...

Cold Snow Day

Hot In The Basement...


Well, I'm back up thrashing around this morning trying to avoid the inevitable 8 hours slaving away building stuff people want to pay me to do, and looking at the Internet weather sites I see that the snow has made it somewhere between here and Nashville this morning.

According to my back yard weather station it's 18 degrees F and the projection is we'll have a major heat wave arriving after noon with the temperatures climbing all the way up to FREEZING for the first time in nearly a week.

The forecast is for 1 to 2 inches of the white stuff with flurries continuing over the next couple of days, and since everything outside my front and back doors is frozen solid I expect that it will stick around for a while this time.

The good news is that the newly installed insulation and space heater has half of the basement warm and toasty.

Honestly I should be working on control panels rather than blogging right now, but my brain is fried and I have some sort of mental block which is keeping me from making some of the program logic work the way it's supposed to--I'm still saying the first PLC is possessed by some demon...

Any way, my Sales Rep for the PLC's and IR Probes is stopping by later today so I have to clean up the kitchen after last night's Pizza construction extravaganza and go pick up the socks and underwear and puppy toys out of the living room floor make a little more progress on the second panel so I have something to show him while asking him idiotic clueless questions.

Y'all have a LOVELY day in the cold...if you will...

Hey...YOU There With The Frozen Bird Bath...

Taking Responsible Care Of Our Fine Feathered Friends...


Once we moved down to St. Simons Island, quite by accident we developed an affinity for taking care of the needs of a variety of the local avian population which was easily attracted to our doorstep and locations outside our windows with the offering of food or water or in the case of this posting a "bird bath."

Before that time I pretty much could care less about any bird which wasn't battered and fried else breaded and sauteed and served in the "Piccata" style as in "Chicken Piccata" over angel hair pasta with Capers in a rich Lemon/Butter sauce.

Fast forward to today and I find myself filling various substances into not only two hummingbird feeders each summer, but one Thistle Seed feeder for the little birds and one Safflower Seed feeder for the bigger birds and then something new we hadn't had to manage before came with this old house...

a 1960's vintage ornamental concrete birdbath.

If you don't have one you've missed the antics that occurs in one when it is the only water source within a 1/4 mile of your property.

The point of this story this afternoon, however, in the middle of this Arctic blast of weather is this...

Check your feeders first, then...

IF you DO have a birdbath, be sure to boil some water on the stove and go out a couple of times a day and thaw that sucker out, because like us you most likely have a couple of generations of little feathered guys and gals that have grown up only knowing your feeders and birdbath as their primary source of food and water, and with the ground iced and snowed over they will appreciate your attention to helping them get through OWL GORE's latest bout of GLOBAL WARMING.

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

I'm A Ramblin' Wreck From Georgia Tech

Once Again Wrecked This Morning...


What can I say?

Iowa 24...GT 14... another season down the crapper with season ending losses to the University of Georgia and now Iowa in the Orange bowl.

Did I mention Georgia also beating us in Basketball in Athens last night also?

Sigh...

Oh well, I guess that it's time to get back to Injuneering and leave the football and basketball games--and the winning thereof--to the youngsters...

Saving Private Ryan Screening Grandmas' Privates

Government Pictures Of Trusses, Pubic Hair and Stretch Marks...


I had a couple of cocktails with my lunch today, so I'm sure you will excuse me if I offer these semi-profane sentiments after listening on Fox News to our Community Organizer President's new take on efficient methods of keeping the next wild eyed idiot Jihadist off an airliner here on America's sovereign soil...

You know, little idiots surviving in life like tapeworms or a brown stain on a few slices of toilet paper like our "pantie bomber Christmas Terrorist" Alg Umar Abdulmutallab:

Or the imminently feared rocket scientists with the fuses in their shoes like Richard Ried a.k.a. the "Shoe Bomber" that caused the government to make me buy a couple of drawers of new socks that actually match to wear when I'm forced to walk through the airport in my stocking feet.

Using that same logic they applied after Reid's shoes didn't explode I expect to now have to buy new underwear that actually fits, is clear and free of "skid marks", and doesn't have the elastic bands alternately showing in around the legs and in the waist because of that idiot



Then of course there's those stupid Muslim/Islamic Jihadist Camel/Goat Loving Bastards (MIJCGLB for short) that pulled the original 9/11 attack on PA and DC and NY City.

Assholes like this Guy is who they should be be looking for:

Khalid Shaikh "I'd Like to Buy a Vowel" Mohammed who was convicted of planning the NY City bombing:



Or this giant piece of Camel Dung that flew one of the planes into one of the twin towers:



But NooooooOOOOOOO...

The government still is worried about people like this and looking at their Girdle and inspecting their oxygen bottles,



or this lady's Gopher Gravy, Pickled Buzzard eggs, Possum Stew and "Rumatiz Medicine"...



YOUR government (not mine) is spending inordinate amounts of their time worrying about what people like Clara Peller and Granny have in their Gel soles in their shoes, the size of their Deodorant and Shampoo Bottles, and now what they are carrying in their underwear.

And Obama's crowd still can't stop worrying about cute little suckers like this doing stock trading commercials and their Mother's containers of breast milk and breast pumps and God knows what else they haul around in their carry on diaper bags to annoy me (but not kill me) on any given flight...





I say that you are a beyond stupid if you feel in any shape form or fashion to be safer with the implementation of this latest Government Crappola.

Further, if people like me keep getting pissed off more and more...when we've finally reached our breaking point...

YOU run the risk that we'll all just agree to avoid the Obama administrations "anti Terrorism" initiatives and start a club or fraternity or franchise designed for the single purpose of going around running IN the OUT doors at every single airport every single day of the year and you know what?

It won't matter if anything ever explodes...if anyone ever is wounded or is ever killed...

with that mental attitude and approach to "security", all of the Soccer Moms and idiots that watch CNN will be too afraid to fly and the rest of you will be permanently be stuck in a giant "terrorism induced" traffic jam at the airports and...

in my book, when it's all said and done, the TERRORISTS will have won the battle, if not the WAR as a result of our Government and a population of sheepish idiots...

Their Terrorism campaign can AND will succeed without ever claiming another life if we continue along this path...

because they changed our way of life and so many people set around trembling in their boots stocking feet in the process.

...and that's just WRONG, in my considered Redneck Opinion...

Dammit

Burrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Dang It's Cold Up Here.....


It was 13 degrees F when the sun came up this morning, and now it's all the way back up to 16 degrees with a 30% chance of snow.

Problem is, who in the heck can use snow when it's this cold?

Even with bibs and a parka and other Ski gear I say that you can't enjoy it.

At least I can't.

Of course everyone in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan; Erie,Pennsylvania; and Buffalo, New York are probably laughing at me right now if they're reading this, but regardless I sure wish I could have afforded the time and expense to get out of the cold and go down to Miami tonight to watch Georgia Tech play in the Orange Bowl.

The Weather Nerds say that it will ONLY be 52 degrees F at kickoff time, but that's about 35 degrees warmer than it's supposed to be here and I have enough of my own warm personal memories of that city to get me back up to about 85 or 95 degrees in my mind in the process.

Time to go install insulation I guess...

Playing A Game Of Technology "Twister"

I'm COLD And My Brain Hurts...


You might have noticed the absence of ranting and raving here on Monday.

That's because, besides being extremely busy in my basement shop where it almost feels like I'm working in Antarctica, pretty much anything I would have had to say over most of the past 24 hours would have melted MY computer keyboard before it made it onto YOUR computer monitor.

If it can go wrong, it's pretty much gone wrong over the past few weeks with components being out of stock and back-ordered and then yesterday realizing that the power supply company shipped me a 15 Volt DC supply rather than the 24 Volt DC supply I ordered for the first panel.

And now with the temperature not getting above freezing here at the Turbo Pup Compound for the past two days, and snow flurry's and similar temperatures predicted for the foreseeable future I had to stop and go to Home Depot yesterday afternoon to buy another space heater for Pat's new basement office and a couple of rolls of insulation to put in the walls of the new shop to keep things warm.

Seriously, last winter we might have had two or three days with temperatures running between the low teens and freezing daytime highs--and I wasn't living in the basement working at that time--and now our neighbors are telling us that this is more like normal winter weather for Knoxtown so the old uninsulated 1963 concrete block basement walls are going to have to have some help to make things habitable.

Of course the central heat pump system also has duct work vents in the basement but last winter we had some THREE HUNDRED DOLLAR electric bills which we really don't want to repeat this year so while I'm not busy playing the part of "Chief Electrical Engineer" I also have to do an encore performance as our "Chief Mechanical Engineer" and get some improvement in the thermodynamic performance of our building envelope.

...wait a minute...

...I just checked my fancy wireless weather station and outside my house it's 16 degrees F right now (and it didn't make it above 25 degrees F yesterday or the day before.)

...and they're predicting winds up to 25 MPH on Thursday so with the wind chill we're looking at numbers near ZERO going into the weekend.

...and checking the Internet it's going to be in the mid 50's on St. Simons this weekend.

...all I want to know is...

WHO'S IDEA WAS THIS---MOVING UP HERE---ANY WAY?

Christmas Decorations Stored Away

Time For Reality To Set Back In...



I don't know about you, but I had a pretty darn good holiday season this year in spite of living in a household were both of the adults were "officially unemployed" for most of 2009.

Yes, I did manage to get a a little consulting work along the way and sold a piece of property in the late summer that gave us funding to keep from starving and missing house payments, but the funny thing is that in spite of all of the doom and gloom on TV telling me the world was ending and it was George Bush's and Carl Rove's fault; and unless we gave the Democrats total control of everything from our bank accounts to our toilet paper supplies we were all going to hell in a hand basket; I'm approaching 2010 on an upbeat note and planning on hitting the ground running full speed tomorrow morning.

I have work to do and phone calls to make and I don't need the government to come over to my house and help me do it or offer me mental health counseling to get through the month (after all, everyone that knows me knows I'm closer to stark raving mad than I am to textbook sane and sober and I actually pride myself in my special form of carefully crafted insanity.)

That said, the other good news we learned over the holidays before everyone went home to eat Turkey and Ham and watch football bowl games was that Pat's company where she worked for almost 24 years before merging and closing her office in Chicago was offering to hire her back.

She'll be telecommuting from here at home in Knoxville with a Product Implementation Team that is spread all over the US. There's a little travel involved but with my flexibility the Turbo Pup and I can go along if it's longer than a few days and it will be nice to rack up the frequent flyer miles and rewards nights in hotels because we've pretty much used up everything we had over the past couple of years.

Not only does she start work again on January 11th, but they restored her to full seniority including an ENTIRE month of paid vacation and of all things a RAISE in pay from her last salary.

You can imagine the weight that takes off of our shoulders as we attempt to continue to grow Plastics Engineering Technologies in our second quarter of operations. It also allows me to be able to fund our operations and build some lines of credit because if things go as planned we see some really nice revenue projections in the next couple of quarters and it takes money to make money and now we're in a position to grow steadily as we build our customer base.

So here's wishing everyone a good New Year of self reliance and profitable endeavors in spite of our meddling government and pandering politicians. If they will just get our of our wallets and out of our way I say everything and most everyone is going to be just fine in 2010.

What about you?

Who You Gonna Am I Gonna Call?

Ghost Busters???


Apparently I know nothing about computers and computer software.

At least that would be the case if you judged my skills based on the progress we made this weekend.

As my blog title says, I think we're haunted and need an Exorcist or a Witch Doctor or someone else skilled in the occult and/or goblins and spirits and such to get things moving again.

My laptop seems to have lost it's mind and no longer wants to talk to our fancy expensive infrared temperature probes, and Vince's computer--running Windows 7-- won't properly install any of the software for the Programmable logic control OR the IR sensors so our holiday business pow wow is most likely going to end a marginal success at best.

And when they get on the airplane to head back home to Missouri this morning that leaves me alone here in Knoxtown to put the final touches on the software and the panel hardware--something I can be considered barely competent at at best.

I know that it will get done one way or the other, I just wanted a good deal less drama in the process but now it seems that there is no way around it being a nail biting theatrical event as the deadlines approach this week.

I guess it were easy everyone would do it and make money in the process, so on that note it's time to head back to my basement shop and beat on the machines a little more.

Wish me luck, If you will...

Everybody Have a Flabby Happy New Year

My Kitchen Jihad...Grown Men Quiver In Their Boots


What's going on in my kitchen right now probably could be against the law in many states.

I give the idiots in Washington DC another ten years and it probably will be.

No "trans-fats" and artificial sweeteners mind you, I'm talking REAL fat from pork and Turkey and Cows here in my world.

Did I mention a whole POUND of butter spread around in different places?

First there's the pot of black eyed peas which have been soaking all day and now have a smoked ham hock laying in the middle of the pot as I slowly heat things up.

Next there's the giant five gallon pot of mustard and Collard Greens, with not only a smoked Ham Hock but also a Turkey leg--bone in--wallowing around in there for flavor.

That pot of greens is just getting started on the stove top in anticipation of being available with the black eyed peas, a big pone of home made corn bread, mashed potatoes, sauerkraut, beer bratwurst, and a giant stuffed pork tenderloin which I as yet have to go slice and fill with fruit and breadcrumbs and tie it all up with butcher's twine.

Then there's the breakfast casserole of bread and eggs and sausage and colored bell peppers and onions and bacon and cheddar cheese that's already put together, sitting in the basement fridge, and just needs to slide into the oven tomorrow morning for breakfast.

There's a half stick of of REAL, unsalted butter in that dish.

Then Saturday for dinner there's my soon to be famous White "Green Butt" Pork Tenderloin Chili which is still in the raw component phase.

And Pancakes and link sausage for breakfast Saturday and Huevos Rancheros (Mexican Eggs) for Sunday morning Brunch and I figure the ambulance will be arriving around noon to take me to the Cardiac Recovery Unit at Fort Sanders Medical Center.

If you don't hear from me here on the blog, somebody send up a flare....

2010?

What Ever Happened To 2000?


The way "Time is Flying", I find myself thrashing around this morning trying to get focused and organized, but then again since we're bumping up against YET ANOTHER holiday on the calendar I realize that everything's going to pretty much come to a screeching stop until next Monday morning.

I'm sort of looking at this "holiday" as a nussiance rather than a benefit because it's costing me money to stop and celebrate something that doesn't really matter in the big picture.

Because most everyone has the day off on Friday I had to beat some suppliers into shipping stuff I ordered last week, with one causing me to have to pay for over night FedEX because they were sitting on the shipment for apparently no good reason.

We've got guests in town for the extended weekend starting tomorrow evening so I have to get cooking later this morning to prep the New Years luncheon meal and plan Saturday Dinner and Sunday Brunch.

Sometimes I wonder why the heck I always end up putting myself in the position of making everybody's gastrointestinal satisfaction and needs a top priority on my personal time line, but I do and I did for this weekend so it's time to go consider the last minute grocery list and the details of getting things done on time.

In the mean time I'm fairly sure something in the news will piss me off and give me some additional blog fodder, but until then...

...regards Y'all

I Can't Win For Losing

Silly Crap That Makes Me Crazy...


So I wander up to Staples yesterday to buy my end of the year load of office supply crap, and when we get up to the checkout with the cart full of paper and divider tabs and .5 mm pencils and Desk Lamps and all the other stuff we think we need I ask the rocket scientist girl at the counter this:

"I know that I left my Staples "Rewards Card" here last week, can you check and see if you have it?"

She then proceeds to drag us over to the "service desk" (there was no one else in line at the time) and we watched while she fumbled around in a bunch of bags under the counter...then she gayly announced that she didn't have a single "Staples Reward Card", just a couple of cell phones and a WalMart card in their lost and found.

Isn't that amazing, that the store which insists on assaulting you every time you walk in the door with a sales pitch to make you take one of their "affinity" cards has exactly ZERO cards left behind by customers?

In a place where they want every single customer to have their card, and where their employees are brainwashed to deliver a sales pitch over and Over and OVER again until in capitulation (and to shut them the heck up) you finally take it?

I'll tell you what's going on at Staples these days.

Once you finally succumb to their sales pitch, those son's-of-guns are throwing your cards away if you leave them at the checkout so that you can't retrieve the "rewards credits" you've earned over all of your purchases.

According to the website, we spent nearly $800 at Staples in 2009 and it really does add up when you include recycling printer ink and all the other stuff we buy, so I know a good thing when I see it.

And I, being a self proclaimed "Super Genius", had gone online prior to our visit when I realized that the last rocket scientist sales clerk had failed to return my "Rewards Card" to me (I have to ask for it back almost every time) and found my "Rewards Number" and had it written down on the back of one of my business cards for future reference.

This visit being in "the future", after five minutes fumbling around and not finding the card in the store I then presented the rocket scientist lovely woman with my business card bearing the number on the reverse (BCBNR for short.)

Do you know what that silly bitch rocket scientist lovely female sales clerk did?

SHE COMPLETED MY TRANSACTION AND FAILED TO GIVE ME CREDIT FOR MY $100 PLUS PURCHASE ON MY "STAPLES REWARDS CARD."

WTF?

Yep...She smiled as she told me about how to get my online rebates for some stuff I had bought and mentioned in passing that she had had a "brain fart" and that I also needed to call the 1-800 number she wrote on my receipt so I could have them add the purchase to my "Rewards Card" account.

I exited the facility with Pat pinning my hands together behind my back in order to keep me from spending New Years Eve in jail for assault.

Is it just me?

It's Almost New Years

Where's My Limo?


I have to say that I'm already tired of all of the "retrospective" stories on the TV and in the Newspaper rehashing everything we were forced to live through in 2009.

Of course a little bit of nostalgia goes a long way with me anyway.

I think the people that made the least contributions to the goings on in our country and in the world--those with the most minimal of actual accomplishments--by virtue of having nothing of consequence or responsibility to do are the ones which most enjoy reveling in and reminiscing about the death of people like Michael Jackson and the inauguration of our impostor professional poser President Obama.

I, on the other hand, have "bigger fish to fry," and I prefer to spend my time looking forward on the calendar rather than backward.

I'm just happy to have made it through 2009 after my company closed down last December 19th without missing a house payment, while at the same time managing to earn some semblance of a living and minimally maintaining my professional beach bum lifestyle.

In spite of the cash flow crunch, in 2009 I still managed to spend about two weeks back on our little Island of St. Simons (in April my team won second place, "People's Choice" in the 2009 Chili Cookoff using my recipe), spent time on another Island--Cedar Key-- last summer, and finished the summer off on Santa Rosa Island Labor Day weekend.

Not bad for someone who was "officially" "unemployed."

The key (excuse the pun), in my considered Redneck opinion, is just keeping your priorities in order.

Any way, the New Years' celebrations this year here in Knoxtown at the Turbo Pup Compound on the banks of the Mighty Tennessee River will be somewhat subdued, with family guests (my new business partners) arriving New Years eve in time to eat a blended southern northern feast of Pork, Wurst, Sauerkraut, Greens, and Black Eyed Peas with Cornbread.

We're basically keeping a low profile and trying to get the second PLC panel put together so we can open the year with a shipment of new product in anticipation of rolling out a couple of new control panels and actually making some good money in 2010.

No limos, no funny hats and no staying out in a club until midnight, I doubt if I'm even awake at 12:00AM so riding around in something like this like we did last year in Kansas City between Christmas/New Years is out of the question:



I don't know about you, but I'm not waiting on the government to stimulate my personal economy, I just want them to get the hell out of my way and let me do what I know how to do.

The Imperial Federal Government of the By-God United States of 'Merica and all of the other "do-gooder" busy bodies can just go somewhere else and help someone that thinks that they need it...

...and I wish everyone the best of luck in 2010.

(I'm afraid we're gonna need it)

Old Enough To Remember Seeing This Image On TV?

Then You Know It Means This Blog Is "Off The Air" Right Now...






If you're bored, scroll down and re-read the insanity I wrote yesterday and I'll talk to y'all later.

I'm Starting al Qaeda Airlines

Nobody Move...Everybody Has a Bomb!!!


Isn't that a brilliant idea?

The Government Idiots in Washington DC could take all of the Taxpayer dollars they waste on fake, useless Airline security measures and just start an airline or charter service for Arabs.

If you have "al" or "el" or any name with more than twenty four syllables that requires extra phlegm to say, or you insist on wearing table and bath linens on your head, you could fly for free from any destination inside the united states to any destination in the middle east.

One way, on the taxpayer dollar.

And before you get on board a government employee would pat you down and run you a couple of times through the metal detector, and then if they couldn't find anything they'd loan you a box cutter, strap a load of plastics explosives around your waist, and shove a stick of dynamite up your ass before putting you on the airplane.

Then once everyone was on board and they were taxing for take off the cabin steward, a big wild eyed hairy sucker with a turban, a bandoleer full of ammunition, and a machine gun would come out and deliver the "preflight briefing" which would go something like this:

"cuickkkkkk (the sound of a microphone opening)

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, and welcome on board el al Qaeda Airlines flight 666 to Mecca.

In order to ensure your safety and that of the passengers around you we ask that you remain on your prayer rug, with your Velcro knee pads and palm pads securely fastened to the carpet until the captain has turned off the "Velcro knee pad sign."

This Ismail Industries Allah 705 "Virgin Buster" Jet has four emergency exits...two over the wings and two behind the flight deck, although according to TSA and FAA regulations they have been welded shut from the outside prior to departure.

Although smoking is allowed on board once we reach our cruising altitude, we ask that you resist the urge to blow yourself up until we are safely over the Arabian Peninsula.

During our in flight cabin service refreshments will be available including goats milk, Camel Urine, olives, and crackers with feta cheese. Fermented sheep's milk would be available along with various wines and malt beverages for $5 each, but then we will have to slit your throat if you consume them because alcohol is forbidden in the Koran.

The in flight movie will be the 2009 remake of "Lawrence of Arabia" starring Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as Peter O'Toole, Lybia's Muammar Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi as Omar Sharif, and Yasser Arafat as the Ghost of Christmas Future....er...wait a minute...that's a different film.

any way...

The operation of cell phone bomb detonators, satellite phones, laptop computers, and other portable electronic devices is strictly prohibited (but we know you don't care what activities are allowed in flight so go ahead and do as you please...we won't stop you.)

On behalf of Captain Mohammed and First Officer Abdul and your Detroit based el al Qaeda cabin crew, we ask that you kneel down, relax and enjoy our flight as we head directly toward Mecca and your 100 virgins.

We know that you have a choice when making your air travel arrangements and we appreciate you choosing el al Qaeda Airlines

We hope you enjoy your flight.

...click...(the sound of the microphone going off)"



Heh...I wrote that myself...I amaze even me with my insensitivity sometimes...

Terrorism For Dummies

An Open Letter From An Angry Redneck...


Hello Mr. Terrorist,

I hope you're having a lovely afternoon there kneeling facing Mecca, chanting Allah, and visualizing your 100 Virgins out there in the after life.

Seriously, I'm starting to agree with you that some of the "Infidels" over here in the US need to have an industrial strength sized can of WhoopAss opened on their heads enjoy a little personal Jihadist terrorism, and here's my ten cents worth of advice on how you can totally screw up America and large portions of the "civilized" Western world--sometimes without even killing yourself by blowing up the first tennis shoe or lighting the first fuse on the bottles of liquid and powder you have strapped to your scrotum and shoved into your rectum, but I digress...

FIRST, you really have to understand that MANY of the people in charge of security here in the US are at best mentally retarded, and the ones that aren't are either too stupid to prevent any serious threats from occurring else they actually hate America and Americans enough that they don't care what happens and what the effects of their actions or in-actions are in the process. The rest of the people I haven't identified are too politically correct to risk offending you so feel free to run amok around the "enhanced" security measures they're putting in place this week.

SECOND, you need to realize that the American people are too interested in watching Reality Shows and American Idol or College Sports to actually get up off of their asses and elect anyone with any real capability to defend themselves and our country at large.

THIRD, you can sleep peacefully knowing that even the most inept members of your rag tag band of Muslim Missionaries can strike terror in the hearts and minds of our leaders and most of the population just by showing up and doing something to get yourself arrested--even if it actually never really posed a serious threat to anyone but yourself. The US Congress will pass a new law at the drop of a hat and the Obama Administration has a spoken policy of "never wasting a crisis..." so I think that you get my drift here.

FOURTH, you can count on our lamestream media--NY Times, CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC and the ASSociated Press et. al.--to tell you our every move and leak classified information from "confidential sources" and other people that should know better but "decline to be identified" or "spoke on condition of anonymity" because things like Treason are against the law here but unless you're driving DUI or speeding the laws are mostly not enforced these days.

So, with that groundwork laid out for you to see, lets talk about how you and a couple of dozen of your swarthy, bearded, Allah loving associates can totally F**K up the American way of life in a single 24 hour period.

First of all, each of you needs to fly somewhere wearing obvious Arabic/Islamic/Muslim cultural garb and act as strange as possible. That will start shutting things down and make all of Soccer Moms wet their panties right off of the bat. Some people will go home and some will take the next flight, but isn't that what terrorism is really all about--attacking our civilization and our way of life?

Further, the night before your flight and at the airport you need to eat two or three bowls of Applebys or Ruby Tuesday Chili, then, traveling in pairs on airline flights at least two hours long, in the the last hour of the flight jump up and yell "Oh Allah my colon's going to explode" and run up the isle and try to use the restroom on the flight.

When they refuse, and after the five fellow passengers finish duct taping you to your seat, just smile and soil your pants leaving a giant stain that Ajax won't remove.

I mean something which will require the replacement of the tray table, seat back (in the upright and locked position), and the seat cushion/flotation device when you're done with it.

Then once you arrive at your destination, have spent your seven hours in interrogation, and have changed into your free Government issued underwear, go out to the rental car counter and ask for the largest truck/van they will rent you.

Be sure to load a couple of packages of radical Muslim propaganda into the trunk and glove box and leave it there for the company to find at the end of the day, then drive to the local fireworks stand off the interstate at the state line and buy $1,000 worth of roman candles, bottle rockets, and Cherry bombs.

Go to your motel room (leaving more fake radical Muslim propaganda on the desk) and pack the fireworks into two or three suitcases fused together, then go to the local mall, go inside, and light the fuse.

Step back and watch the fun.

You'll be arrested, but you'll be out of jail in less than a year, still alive, and will in fact have accomplished almost the exact same result as if you had driven into the building with a 1000 pound bomb.

You see Mr. Terrorist, in addition to being stupid, many Americans are Chicken Shit Cowards, and their reaction is only mirrored in the actions of their leaders, so by doing what I just described six times in a single day, you will have paralyzed the American Air transportation system and shut down the American retail sales system for weeks if not months in the future.

You see, our leaders won't just stop Terrorists with Turbans and poop stains on their flowing robes from coming into malls and getting on airplanes.

NooooOOO Sir.

They will want to force EVERY SINGLE PERSON to use the restroom at the airport at gun point prior to boarding. Heck, because it will become so difficult to fly, many airlines will go out of business else many low volume routes will be eliminated.

Instead of flying non stop from LA to NYC, they'll close the restrooms on planes and chain everyone to their seats and you'll be forced to "hopscotch" your way across the country in one hour segments with mandatory restroom stops along the way.

And all of the Malls will also probably close down and everyone will have to do their shopping on the Internet because you can forget carrying a bag of packages into the Mall to make a return for at least six months to a year without going through a metal detector and playing with a bomb sniffing dog.

Yes Mr. Terrorist Jihadist, many things are possible through Allah's will, and it's the LITTLE things that really get under peoples' and the government's skin...so why not give up the 9/11/2010 plan and just wear everyone down with crap like you did this past week?

Makes sense to me, although I'm just a silly middle aged Redneck. Think about it and get back to me if you have any questions, and until then...


Peace Be To Allah,


Virgil Rogers



Heh...