More Forensic Injuneering Ensues...
I was busy this past weekend getting ready to travel to Atlanta this week to do a bunch of business stuff, thus the light posting the past half week.
First and foremost I have to attend a "pre-arbitration" meeting with a bunch of pointy headed lawyers to explain some of the stuff we've been writing and talking about on this steam accident investigation for the past nearly three years.
I have some advise for you if you are ever injured in an industrial or other workplace accident.
GO AHEAD AND DIE EARLY IF YOU NEED TO DIE...
...because the lawyers and OSHA and the Department of Labor will make you wait so long to get your financial settlement that you will wish you were dead if you really need the money to pay bills.
Seriously, THREE YEARS OF INVESTIGATION...and three and one half years after the accident and we're still fooling around explaining the obvious.
Someone screwed up a design/installation of some fairly simple stuff and as a result something exploded (I have pictures) and someone was badly burned in the process, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees and expert testimony later we're still basically saying:
Shazam...it went and blowed up and the guy standing beside it got burned...
It makes me crazy sometimes, and what is even more frustrating is I'm probably the least credentialed and lowest paid guy at most of these events and I know more about what I'm looking at than most if not all.
There are firms out there that investigate everything from car wrecks to airplane crashes to baby bed disasters and washing machine fires, and they show up at an accident scene claiming to know everything about anything.
Sort of like the guy they called "The Professor" on the TV show "Gilligan's Island"...except most of these oafs are more like Mr. Howell or even Gilligan than they are "The Professor."
On the other hand, my Partner and I don't do anything but steam plant accidents and after spending twenty plus years looking at smoldering broken steel and cast iron tanks and pipes we know a thing or two about what's going on and the possibilities of how things went wrong.
So any way, Travel on Tuesday afternoon and Forensics on Wednesday Morning and possibly a meeting or two with a couple of clients on Thursday and Friday, and then a weekend visit with some family, and as usual Blogging will be hit or miss based on my mental attitude and the available Internet connections.
Monday, November 08, 2010
Sunday, November 07, 2010
No More Tomatoes
Some Sort Of Record...
We harvested the last of our tomatoes this afternoon...November 7th. The heavy frost and freeze over night finally did the plants in. Some of them still had blooms on them yesterday afternoon.
I got a dozen or so ripe fruit which wasn't damaged and a ton of green tomatoes which I'll either batter and fry or possibly pickle if I have the time and energy.
I'm saddest about the three Roma plants I raised from seed this spring. I remember them when they only were an inch tall and had two leaves each.
The pepper plants took it on the chin also.
Thus goes the ebb and flow of the tides and the seasons, I guess.
The frost makes my old bones hurt too...maybe someone should consider frying ME after I get through pickling myself...
We harvested the last of our tomatoes this afternoon...November 7th. The heavy frost and freeze over night finally did the plants in. Some of them still had blooms on them yesterday afternoon.
I got a dozen or so ripe fruit which wasn't damaged and a ton of green tomatoes which I'll either batter and fry or possibly pickle if I have the time and energy.
I'm saddest about the three Roma plants I raised from seed this spring. I remember them when they only were an inch tall and had two leaves each.
The pepper plants took it on the chin also.
Thus goes the ebb and flow of the tides and the seasons, I guess.
The frost makes my old bones hurt too...maybe someone should consider frying ME after I get through pickling myself...
Thursday, November 04, 2010
Living "Large"
Classy People...
Check out this story about an average blue collar Canadian couple that won over $11 million in the lottery and GAVE MOST OF IT AWAY...
A retired Canadian couple who won $11.3 million in the lottery in July have already given it all away.
"What you've never had, you never miss," 78-year-old Violet Large explained to a local reporter.
She was undergoing chemotherapy treatment for cancer when the couple realized they'd won the jackpot in July.
"That money that we won was nothing," her tearful husband, Allen, told Patricia Brooks Arenburg of the Nova Scotia Chronicle Herald. "We have each other."
The money was a "headache," they told the paper...
Of course they probably had to give about $5 million of the cash to the government in the form or taxes, so that was basically wasted, but still...see...some people do manage to let sudden wealth not totally destroy their lives.
I don't know if I could do something like that myself, but I'd like to think that I would try...
Check out this story about an average blue collar Canadian couple that won over $11 million in the lottery and GAVE MOST OF IT AWAY...
A retired Canadian couple who won $11.3 million in the lottery in July have already given it all away.
"What you've never had, you never miss," 78-year-old Violet Large explained to a local reporter.
She was undergoing chemotherapy treatment for cancer when the couple realized they'd won the jackpot in July.
"That money that we won was nothing," her tearful husband, Allen, told Patricia Brooks Arenburg of the Nova Scotia Chronicle Herald. "We have each other."
The money was a "headache," they told the paper...
Of course they probably had to give about $5 million of the cash to the government in the form or taxes, so that was basically wasted, but still...see...some people do manage to let sudden wealth not totally destroy their lives.
I don't know if I could do something like that myself, but I'd like to think that I would try...
I Have An Idea...
Bring 200,000 Indians Here?
Somewhere I saw or heard that President Obamarama's trip to India was going to cost something like $200,000,000 per day.
That's TWO HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS for those of you that went to the University of Georgia and Florida State.
The three day stay will cost over a HALF BILLION DOLLARS based on that estimate.
Here's the story I was reading this afternoon which prompted this posting:
http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/34-warships-sent-from-us-for-obama-visit-64459
New Delhi: The White House will, of course, stay in Washington but the heart of the famous building will move to India when President Barack Obama lands in Mumbai on Saturday.
Communications set-up, nuclear button, a fleet of limousines and majority of the White House staff will be in India accompanying the President on this three-day visit that will cover Mumbai and Delhi.
He will also be protected by a fleet of 34 warships, including an aircraft carrier, which will patrol the sea lanes off the Mumbai coast during his two-day stay there beginning Saturday. The measure has been taken as Mumbai attack in 2008 took place from the sea.
Arrangements have been put in place for emergency evacuation, if needed.
All I want to know, as a simple southern man, is this.
If the President of the US wants to talk to people in India (those especially who are not already handling call centers and customer service for American companies)...people like the leaders of India...
Hey...Why not bring said Indians (Indians from India, not Cherokee, NC or New Mexico or North Dakota) to Washington DC for the event?
By my estimation, spending the same amount of money, the president invites between 50,000 and 100,000 residents of India on an all expense paid trip--business people and politicians--to come over here to talk and dance and eat fancy food wearing elaborate silk attire all the while.
Then in the process of spending between $2,000 and $4,000 PER DAY per person, he might just manage to create some jobs byselling a few hundred convenience store and dry cleaning franchises, some Dairy Queens, and a bunch of Days Inn and Econolodge properties in the process.
Talk about an effective use of "Stimulus Funds."
Is it just me?
Somewhere I saw or heard that President Obamarama's trip to India was going to cost something like $200,000,000 per day.
That's TWO HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS for those of you that went to the University of Georgia and Florida State.
The three day stay will cost over a HALF BILLION DOLLARS based on that estimate.
Here's the story I was reading this afternoon which prompted this posting:
http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/34-warships-sent-from-us-for-obama-visit-64459
New Delhi: The White House will, of course, stay in Washington but the heart of the famous building will move to India when President Barack Obama lands in Mumbai on Saturday.
Communications set-up, nuclear button, a fleet of limousines and majority of the White House staff will be in India accompanying the President on this three-day visit that will cover Mumbai and Delhi.
He will also be protected by a fleet of 34 warships, including an aircraft carrier, which will patrol the sea lanes off the Mumbai coast during his two-day stay there beginning Saturday. The measure has been taken as Mumbai attack in 2008 took place from the sea.
Arrangements have been put in place for emergency evacuation, if needed.
All I want to know, as a simple southern man, is this.
If the President of the US wants to talk to people in India (those especially who are not already handling call centers and customer service for American companies)...people like the leaders of India...
Hey...Why not bring said Indians (Indians from India, not Cherokee, NC or New Mexico or North Dakota) to Washington DC for the event?
By my estimation, spending the same amount of money, the president invites between 50,000 and 100,000 residents of India on an all expense paid trip--business people and politicians--to come over here to talk and dance and eat fancy food wearing elaborate silk attire all the while.
Then in the process of spending between $2,000 and $4,000 PER DAY per person, he might just manage to create some jobs byselling a few hundred convenience store and dry cleaning franchises, some Dairy Queens, and a bunch of Days Inn and Econolodge properties in the process.
Talk about an effective use of "Stimulus Funds."
Is it just me?
Histerical Hysterical
Versus Hersterical?
Sorry Ladies and Gentlemen, but I'm quite worn out this morning and exasperated from worrying about and working on some professional stuff all day yesterday and tonight... after staying up most of last night watching the election returns.
Political concerns aside, my personal emotional pendulum is wildly swinging between laughing hysterically and being near murderously angry as hell at a couple of personal and professional issues which have been festering for a few months in the background and will be forced to come to a head by the end of this year, and it's up to me to force the issues and bring things to some sort of conclusion.
That said...
Y'all have a LOVELY day now...if you will...
Sorry Ladies and Gentlemen, but I'm quite worn out this morning and exasperated from worrying about and working on some professional stuff all day yesterday and tonight... after staying up most of last night watching the election returns.
Political concerns aside, my personal emotional pendulum is wildly swinging between laughing hysterically and being near murderously angry as hell at a couple of personal and professional issues which have been festering for a few months in the background and will be forced to come to a head by the end of this year, and it's up to me to force the issues and bring things to some sort of conclusion.
That said...
Y'all have a LOVELY day now...if you will...
Wednesday, November 03, 2010
I Say We Repeal The 17th Amendment
Why Let The Public Dumbasses Rocket Scientists Elect All National Officers?
Needless to say I am a Fairly Happy Redneck Blogger (or FHRB for short) this morning based on the landslide turn which the membership of the US House of Representatives apparently took yesterday
I wandered into the local middle school to cast my Vote a little after 1 PM yesterday and was out the door less than 15 minutes later.
It's going to be funny as hell to watch that Left Coast psyco-bitch, now soon to be "former" Speaker of the House Nasty Pelosi, have to pack up the contents of her elaborate office full of tens of thousands of dollars of taxpayer funded flowers and catered food next January and hand over the keys to the US Air Force Gulfstreams and Boeing 757 she's commandeered to fly between DC and California since she ascended toher stinky gold plated toilet her position in charge of the House and started banging a Gavel around on unsuspecting white men's heads.
Unfortunately Nevada Senator and Senate Majority Leader "Dingy" Harry Reid managed to gerrymander his way into keeping his seat while another half dozen candidates as far away as Hawaii and in places as amazing as West Virginia (former Robert "Pretty Pretty" "KKK" Byrd's seat) came darn close to pulling off upsets.
Speaking of upsets, anyone who is familiar with history earlier than the first Super Bowl or possibly World War II knows that as our founding Fathers envisioned things the members of the US Senate were appointed by the Governments of the INDIVIDUAL STATES and had the job of protecting the rights of states against crap like the current John Holder lawsuit against Arizona and the ObamaramaCare mandate that states expand Medicare/Medicaid and individuals buy health insurance.
Here's the link to Article 1, Section 3 of the US Constitution text which says:
The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof (emphasis mine), for six Years; and each Senator shall have one Vote.
Immediately after they shall be assembled in Consequence of the first Election, they shall be divided as equally as may be into three Classes. The Seats of the Senators of the first Class shall be vacated at the Expiration of the second Year, of the second Class at the Expiration of the fourth Year, and of the third Class at the Expiration of the sixth Year, so that one third may be chosen every second Year; and if Vacancies happen by Resignation, or otherwise, during the Recess of the Legislature of any State, the Executive thereof may make temporary Appointments until the next Meeting of the Legislature, which shall then fill such Vacancies.
But then the idiots running the Senate itself, aided and abetted by a population almost as silly as some of the people we have out there today, passed the Seventeenth_Amendment in 1913 saying:
The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislatures.
When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, That the legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct.
This amendment shall not be so construed as to affect the election or term of any Senator chosen before it becomes valid as part of the Constitution.
Thus today we see the continued erosion of states rights by a bunch of elitist assholes who once are elected get to sit around for SIX year terms and impose their wrath on the unwashed masses.
And while I'm at it, I'd say that passing term limits on the House and Senate at both the state and national level--two consecutive terms and three total lifetime would change the flavor and color of the drinking water and the cost of living in most places here in the good old By-God United States of 'Merica.
And finally...while on a good rant...
I want the politicians to stop all of this "concentrating on creating JOBS" crappola and get the $#@%* out of my way and let me create my own employment opportunity, and then let me keep enough of MY MONEY as a member of one of their so-called "working families" in order to eat and pay my mortgage and utilities and take an occasional vacation and possibly retire in the next 10 or 15 years if I don't die of a ruptured blood vessel in my forehead in the process...
Got it?
That will be ALL...for now...
OK MORE 4:01 AM:
Here's the MSNBC Dumbass Chris Mathews showing his IQ in a post victory interview with Republican Politician Babe Rep. Michele Bachman (R MN)
I wish someone would stomp that silly idiot's ass just once and give him a good attitude adjustment and make him unsuitable in appearance for Prime time TV crap like he does...
Needless to say I am a Fairly Happy Redneck Blogger (or FHRB for short) this morning based on the landslide turn which the membership of the US House of Representatives apparently took yesterday
I wandered into the local middle school to cast my Vote a little after 1 PM yesterday and was out the door less than 15 minutes later.
It's going to be funny as hell to watch that Left Coast psyco-bitch, now soon to be "former" Speaker of the House Nasty Pelosi, have to pack up the contents of her elaborate office full of tens of thousands of dollars of taxpayer funded flowers and catered food next January and hand over the keys to the US Air Force Gulfstreams and Boeing 757 she's commandeered to fly between DC and California since she ascended to
Unfortunately Nevada Senator and Senate Majority Leader "Dingy" Harry Reid managed to gerrymander his way into keeping his seat while another half dozen candidates as far away as Hawaii and in places as amazing as West Virginia (former Robert "Pretty Pretty" "KKK" Byrd's seat) came darn close to pulling off upsets.
Speaking of upsets, anyone who is familiar with history earlier than the first Super Bowl or possibly World War II knows that as our founding Fathers envisioned things the members of the US Senate were appointed by the Governments of the INDIVIDUAL STATES and had the job of protecting the rights of states against crap like the current John Holder lawsuit against Arizona and the ObamaramaCare mandate that states expand Medicare/Medicaid and individuals buy health insurance.
Here's the link to Article 1, Section 3 of the US Constitution text which says:
The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof (emphasis mine), for six Years; and each Senator shall have one Vote.
Immediately after they shall be assembled in Consequence of the first Election, they shall be divided as equally as may be into three Classes. The Seats of the Senators of the first Class shall be vacated at the Expiration of the second Year, of the second Class at the Expiration of the fourth Year, and of the third Class at the Expiration of the sixth Year, so that one third may be chosen every second Year; and if Vacancies happen by Resignation, or otherwise, during the Recess of the Legislature of any State, the Executive thereof may make temporary Appointments until the next Meeting of the Legislature, which shall then fill such Vacancies.
But then the idiots running the Senate itself, aided and abetted by a population almost as silly as some of the people we have out there today, passed the Seventeenth_Amendment in 1913 saying:
The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislatures.
When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, That the legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct.
This amendment shall not be so construed as to affect the election or term of any Senator chosen before it becomes valid as part of the Constitution.
Thus today we see the continued erosion of states rights by a bunch of elitist assholes who once are elected get to sit around for SIX year terms and impose their wrath on the unwashed masses.
And while I'm at it, I'd say that passing term limits on the House and Senate at both the state and national level--two consecutive terms and three total lifetime would change the flavor and color of the drinking water and the cost of living in most places here in the good old By-God United States of 'Merica.
And finally...while on a good rant...
I want the politicians to stop all of this "concentrating on creating JOBS" crappola and get the $#@%* out of my way and let me create my own employment opportunity, and then let me keep enough of MY MONEY as a member of one of their so-called "working families" in order to eat and pay my mortgage and utilities and take an occasional vacation and possibly retire in the next 10 or 15 years if I don't die of a ruptured blood vessel in my forehead in the process...
Got it?
That will be ALL...for now...
OK MORE 4:01 AM:
Here's the MSNBC Dumbass Chris Mathews showing his IQ in a post victory interview with Republican Politician Babe Rep. Michele Bachman (R MN)
I wish someone would stomp that silly idiot's ass just once and give him a good attitude adjustment and make him unsuitable in appearance for Prime time TV crap like he does...
Monday, November 01, 2010
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Halloweweneeewne
I'm Building Stuff To Scare Kids...
Photos to follow, but this year on the verge of the "Trick or Treat" season my biggest concern is keeping young children from diving head fist off my front porch when I turn on a few switches.
Those of you out there that know me in real life know what I mean.
Time to go back into mylaboratory shop to finish things up.
It's going to be pretty good I think...
Photos to follow, but this year on the verge of the "Trick or Treat" season my biggest concern is keeping young children from diving head fist off my front porch when I turn on a few switches.
Those of you out there that know me in real life know what I mean.
Time to go back into my
It's going to be pretty good I think...
Friday, October 29, 2010
More Random Ramblings & Cogitations
It's EASY To Make Me Cranky These Days...
In addition to being busy as crap professionally, I spent yesterday afternoon helping my neighbor Danny install a "floating" laminate floor in his new sunroom which I designed a few months ago.
We both huffed and puffed and grunted and groaned going from standing up to kneeling to sitting on our butts for what seemed like a thousand times each, and after five hours we had eight of twelve rows of flooring installed.
This morning at 7:30 we'll start again and hopefully after an additional three hours of effort we will be finished. We have to limit ourselves to that time limit because Danny has a lunch date with his golfing buddies followed by a round of 18 holes at a course some distance away from West Knoxtown.
After doing what we have to do to finish the job, I would be so tired that I couldn't play a round of putt-putt golf or "Pick-up Sticks" with any enthusiasm.
But Danny's trying to save a few bucks on the end of the project and (he pours a mean Crown Royal on ice at the end of the day) and if he wants to tile and golf in the same day that's his business.
So any way, now I'm back alive after a good Blackened Grouper dinner and six hours sleep and I want to catch up on what's been going on in the world.
Let's see...
Oh... Yahoo News has this story which gave me pause to do a little mental ranting as I was logging back in to my E-Mail account...see if you agree with me...
Classy New Jersey coach gives skid-breaking game ball to foe
By Cameron Smith
Last Friday, South New Jersey was host to a heated battle between two struggling teams. When the game was finally over, Sterling (N.J.) High coach Jarod Claybourn had to decide what to do with a game ball from his program's first win in two years. According to Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Phil Anastasia, he chose the least-likely recipient in a choice which testified to Claybourn's class: He gave the ball to the other coach.
"I don't even know if I can put it into words," Gateway coach Mike Karp, the ball's recipient, told Anastasia. "We're two struggling programs. Somebody had to lose, and we came up on the short end of the scoreboard.
"But for him to do that, it just shows that we gained some respect that night. That means so much to our kids."
...snip...
Both teams were shooting for respect while carrying the baggage of epic losing streaks. Sterling entered having lost 17 straight games, sitting at 0-5 in 2010. Gateway was also 0-5, and the 20-13 loss it absorbed on Friday pushed its own losing streak to 17 games.
While the game had to have a winner and loser, Claybourn said there was no reason why his team deserved to win any more than its opponent. (emphasis mine) Leading late in the fourth quarter, Sterling declined to punt on a fourth down near midfield to try and salt away a rare victory. Instead, Gateway's defense held strong and earned the ball back.
The coach says "there was no reason why his team deserved to win any more than its opponent???
Say WHAT???
Coach...your team has won only one of eighteen straight games, and I'm pretty DARNED sure that I could go to your next school board meeting and tell them why your team is a laughing stock of the area.
Yes YOU...Coach are the problem, because any decent coach or player (or even entrepreneur) knows that to win in any game...football...or business or just LIFE in general...
there are a number of reasons besides just plain LUCK or possibly GOVERNMENT REGULATION i.e. INTERVENTION that one individual or team or business owner comes out on top in the game they elect to play.
Still with me here?
What about things like BASIC TALENT for the game?
I was a good student and a crappy athlete (if you don't count playing Frisbee), so I never played on a Championship High School or College or Super Bowl team, but I did graduate from college and I have designed several hundred million dollars worth of industrial equipment and managed the fabrication and installation of millions of dollars more.
And in spite of the "Coach's" mindless blithering, there was a REASON why I won the bids, just like there is a reason Bill Gates and Warren Buffet have a few more Pesos than I have this morning.
To say and believe otherwise would be to show my own stupidity or possibly let it be known that I'm the victim of a creeping insanity which I say is insidiously coming over the American Educational System, and most younger citizens by default.
Oh...and "Coach" Clayborne, how about another reason winning teams win...something called TRAINING AND PREPARATION (otherwise known as the "coaches" primary job)?
No matter how good of an athlete someone is, they just can't put on a helmet and shoulder pads and show up in a high school football stadium on a Friday night or on a College Gridiron on Saturday afternoon and expect to be on the winning side of the scoreboard after watching the final minutes click off the game clock.
And if they are on the afore mentioned football teams and they don't spend time conditioning and weight lifting and running a few wind sprints each week, when they trot out past the goal posts under the stadium lights, if the other team HAD spent time in the weight room each week...
I say that there's a pretty damn good reason that the disciplined team of well conditioned athletes should be able to prevail over so-called "Coach" Claybourn's eleven players in any given four quarters of play.
Are you with me, Ladies and Gentlemen?
See, this is the same crap that they've apparently been teaching in grade school and even little league sports for twenty years or so...playing games and teaching kids that there should be no winners or losers after the dust settles and the game has been played.
It started out with the elimination of things like kickball and tag on the playground because losing might make the pasty little pansy assed kids or the over weight kids "feel bad" and have lower self esteem because they lost a GAME.
Heck, in some areas of the country they've stopped KEEPING SCORE in kids football and baseball and softball games for the same reason...it makes some children (and more importantly, their sniveling, booger eating, tye died, Kumbaya singing, patchouli stinking, tree hugging parents by default) FEEL BAD.
And in my opinion it's thepublic schools GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS intent to do this for a reason, so the kids believe that they need the government to "level the playing field" and protect them from the results of their "God Given" inabilities and/or poor life decisions.
Problem is, when these same kids grow up and are running around later in life, having dropped out of high school or whatever, they're going to wake up in the morning in the trailer park and wonder why they aren't living in a gated country club community and driving a BMW 5M...and I guess that they are going to wish their beloved "Coach" Clayborn was there to hand them the "Game Ball of Life" because...
...after all...Coach Clayborn said:
"there's no reasonhis their team deserved to win any more than their opponent their neighbor across town."
You know?
And I say that if the government has their way, that within the next generation this thinking is going to take over our society and "income tax" system in ways we have not even managed to think of with the idea and ideal of "equalizing everything"...
because in the minds of theprogressives liberals there should not be winners and losers in life in general, and if they get their way the government will start coming to your house or your work and then take away ANYTHING that they want which the politicians and "authorities" believe is above and beyond the standards which THEY SET.
What started as the federal income tax system and more recently mileage standards for cars and rules governing how much water your toilet uses to flush and how much water your shower head can spray on your glorious naked body and what kind of light bulb you can bUy at Home depot will soon apply to EVERY SINGLE THING you have in your medicine cabinet and closet and garage and night stand in your bedroom.
It's coming...Ladies & Gentlemen.
We can still stop it, but like a cancer we have to identify it, and then go in and cut it out of our lives and society WITH AGGRESSIVE MEASURES.
So go VOTE next Tuesday, with your brain clear and working instead of with your heart looking for any more of that "Hopie Feelie Changie Thing" we've been living with for nearly the past two years.
You Know?
I have to go now and get some work done and think about something else before my ever greying, ever balding head explodes.
Regards, Y'all...
In addition to being busy as crap professionally, I spent yesterday afternoon helping my neighbor Danny install a "floating" laminate floor in his new sunroom which I designed a few months ago.
We both huffed and puffed and grunted and groaned going from standing up to kneeling to sitting on our butts for what seemed like a thousand times each, and after five hours we had eight of twelve rows of flooring installed.
This morning at 7:30 we'll start again and hopefully after an additional three hours of effort we will be finished. We have to limit ourselves to that time limit because Danny has a lunch date with his golfing buddies followed by a round of 18 holes at a course some distance away from West Knoxtown.
After doing what we have to do to finish the job, I would be so tired that I couldn't play a round of putt-putt golf or "Pick-up Sticks" with any enthusiasm.
But Danny's trying to save a few bucks on the end of the project and (he pours a mean Crown Royal on ice at the end of the day) and if he wants to tile and golf in the same day that's his business.
So any way, now I'm back alive after a good Blackened Grouper dinner and six hours sleep and I want to catch up on what's been going on in the world.
Let's see...
Oh... Yahoo News has this story which gave me pause to do a little mental ranting as I was logging back in to my E-Mail account...see if you agree with me...
Classy New Jersey coach gives skid-breaking game ball to foe
By Cameron Smith
Last Friday, South New Jersey was host to a heated battle between two struggling teams. When the game was finally over, Sterling (N.J.) High coach Jarod Claybourn had to decide what to do with a game ball from his program's first win in two years. According to Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Phil Anastasia, he chose the least-likely recipient in a choice which testified to Claybourn's class: He gave the ball to the other coach.
"I don't even know if I can put it into words," Gateway coach Mike Karp, the ball's recipient, told Anastasia. "We're two struggling programs. Somebody had to lose, and we came up on the short end of the scoreboard.
"But for him to do that, it just shows that we gained some respect that night. That means so much to our kids."
...snip...
Both teams were shooting for respect while carrying the baggage of epic losing streaks. Sterling entered having lost 17 straight games, sitting at 0-5 in 2010. Gateway was also 0-5, and the 20-13 loss it absorbed on Friday pushed its own losing streak to 17 games.
While the game had to have a winner and loser, Claybourn said there was no reason why his team deserved to win any more than its opponent. (emphasis mine) Leading late in the fourth quarter, Sterling declined to punt on a fourth down near midfield to try and salt away a rare victory. Instead, Gateway's defense held strong and earned the ball back.
The coach says "there was no reason why his team deserved to win any more than its opponent???
Say WHAT???
Coach...your team has won only one of eighteen straight games, and I'm pretty DARNED sure that I could go to your next school board meeting and tell them why your team is a laughing stock of the area.
Yes YOU...Coach are the problem, because any decent coach or player (or even entrepreneur) knows that to win in any game...football...or business or just LIFE in general...
there are a number of reasons besides just plain LUCK or possibly GOVERNMENT REGULATION i.e. INTERVENTION that one individual or team or business owner comes out on top in the game they elect to play.
Still with me here?
What about things like BASIC TALENT for the game?
I was a good student and a crappy athlete (if you don't count playing Frisbee), so I never played on a Championship High School or College or Super Bowl team, but I did graduate from college and I have designed several hundred million dollars worth of industrial equipment and managed the fabrication and installation of millions of dollars more.
And in spite of the "Coach's" mindless blithering, there was a REASON why I won the bids, just like there is a reason Bill Gates and Warren Buffet have a few more Pesos than I have this morning.
To say and believe otherwise would be to show my own stupidity or possibly let it be known that I'm the victim of a creeping insanity which I say is insidiously coming over the American Educational System, and most younger citizens by default.
Oh...and "Coach" Clayborne, how about another reason winning teams win...something called TRAINING AND PREPARATION (otherwise known as the "coaches" primary job)?
No matter how good of an athlete someone is, they just can't put on a helmet and shoulder pads and show up in a high school football stadium on a Friday night or on a College Gridiron on Saturday afternoon and expect to be on the winning side of the scoreboard after watching the final minutes click off the game clock.
And if they are on the afore mentioned football teams and they don't spend time conditioning and weight lifting and running a few wind sprints each week, when they trot out past the goal posts under the stadium lights, if the other team HAD spent time in the weight room each week...
I say that there's a pretty damn good reason that the disciplined team of well conditioned athletes should be able to prevail over so-called "Coach" Claybourn's eleven players in any given four quarters of play.
Are you with me, Ladies and Gentlemen?
See, this is the same crap that they've apparently been teaching in grade school and even little league sports for twenty years or so...playing games and teaching kids that there should be no winners or losers after the dust settles and the game has been played.
It started out with the elimination of things like kickball and tag on the playground because losing might make the pasty little pansy assed kids or the over weight kids "feel bad" and have lower self esteem because they lost a GAME.
Heck, in some areas of the country they've stopped KEEPING SCORE in kids football and baseball and softball games for the same reason...it makes some children (and more importantly, their sniveling, booger eating, tye died, Kumbaya singing, patchouli stinking, tree hugging parents by default) FEEL BAD.
And in my opinion it's the
Problem is, when these same kids grow up and are running around later in life, having dropped out of high school or whatever, they're going to wake up in the morning in the trailer park and wonder why they aren't living in a gated country club community and driving a BMW 5M...and I guess that they are going to wish their beloved "Coach" Clayborn was there to hand them the "Game Ball of Life" because...
...after all...Coach Clayborn said:
"there's no reason
You know?
And I say that if the government has their way, that within the next generation this thinking is going to take over our society and "income tax" system in ways we have not even managed to think of with the idea and ideal of "equalizing everything"...
because in the minds of the
What started as the federal income tax system and more recently mileage standards for cars and rules governing how much water your toilet uses to flush and how much water your shower head can spray on your glorious naked body and what kind of light bulb you can bUy at Home depot will soon apply to EVERY SINGLE THING you have in your medicine cabinet and closet and garage and night stand in your bedroom.
It's coming...Ladies & Gentlemen.
We can still stop it, but like a cancer we have to identify it, and then go in and cut it out of our lives and society WITH AGGRESSIVE MEASURES.
So go VOTE next Tuesday, with your brain clear and working instead of with your heart looking for any more of that "Hopie Feelie Changie Thing" we've been living with for nearly the past two years.
You Know?
I have to go now and get some work done and think about something else before my ever greying, ever balding head explodes.
Regards, Y'all...
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Internet Woes
Can't Live With It...Can't Live Without It...
You'll have to excuse me this morning, Ladies and Gentlemen, but my hands are still a little shaky due to the withdrawal symptoms I'm still experiencing.
You see, our Internet provider, Comcast, had a Fiber Optic cable failure here in West Knoxtown about 1:30 AM this morning and both our cable TV service AND worst of all...our Internet connection were down until about 8 AM.
I was probably one of the few people trying to work at that time of the night, so I guess that me and all of the Porno perverts suffered together in some sort of strange digitally deprived silence.
I finally gave up and went to bed about 4:30, hoping that like the experience of major surgery my current bout of information deprivation would be eased if I slept through the rest of the event.
I just got back up and I feel like I've had a near-death experience or something.
Time to go get some work done I guess.
If you pray, pray for my quick mental recovery...
You'll have to excuse me this morning, Ladies and Gentlemen, but my hands are still a little shaky due to the withdrawal symptoms I'm still experiencing.
You see, our Internet provider, Comcast, had a Fiber Optic cable failure here in West Knoxtown about 1:30 AM this morning and both our cable TV service AND worst of all...our Internet connection were down until about 8 AM.
I was probably one of the few people trying to work at that time of the night, so I guess that me and all of the Porno perverts suffered together in some sort of strange digitally deprived silence.
I finally gave up and went to bed about 4:30, hoping that like the experience of major surgery my current bout of information deprivation would be eased if I slept through the rest of the event.
I just got back up and I feel like I've had a near-death experience or something.
Time to go get some work done I guess.
If you pray, pray for my quick mental recovery...
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Six More Days To...
The "BEGINNING"...or "THE END"?
I don't know about you Ladies and Gentlemen, but I'm so tired of the "News" and inherent stupidity associated with this current 2010 "election cycle" I want to go dig a hole under a rock somewhere and not crawl back out until next Tuesday in time to cast my vote while staggering past some Black Panthers or SEIU Union thugs in the process.
And of course next Wednesday morning after the last spit has stopped flying (except for the lawsuits and crys of voter fraud by the Democrats)...
I fully expect the "pundits" and the news persons to pause long enough to cover the fallout from the results of the World Series and possibly the next person getting bit by a shark on a beach out in California before cranking up new polling and discussions and predictions about the next Presidential election in 2012.
And in the mean time I guess I'll just continue to work my ass of earning as much cash as possible so the IRS can stop by next April 15th and pick up their share of my largess.
Time to take a nap after being up all night working again.
Regards Y'all...
I don't know about you Ladies and Gentlemen, but I'm so tired of the "News" and inherent stupidity associated with this current 2010 "election cycle" I want to go dig a hole under a rock somewhere and not crawl back out until next Tuesday in time to cast my vote while staggering past some Black Panthers or SEIU Union thugs in the process.
And of course next Wednesday morning after the last spit has stopped flying (except for the lawsuits and crys of voter fraud by the Democrats)...
I fully expect the "pundits" and the news persons to pause long enough to cover the fallout from the results of the World Series and possibly the next person getting bit by a shark on a beach out in California before cranking up new polling and discussions and predictions about the next Presidential election in 2012.
And in the mean time I guess I'll just continue to work my ass of earning as much cash as possible so the IRS can stop by next April 15th and pick up their share of my largess.
Time to take a nap after being up all night working again.
Regards Y'all...
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Gregory Isaacs Passes Away...
" The Border "
Age 59 is too young.
RIP Mr. Isaacs...and say hello to Mr. Marley from all you guy's fans..
Age 59 is too young.
RIP Mr. Isaacs...and say hello to Mr. Marley from all you guy's fans..
Seven Days To Destiny
Upcoming Election A Critical Moment....
I don't know about you, Ladies and Gentlemen, but I personally believe that the outcome of next Tuesday's election will determine if our country turns back toward it's Constitutional underpinnings or continues out of control as it spins right down the Crapper.
I've been temped to go do "early voting" but there's something about showing up on the day of a vote and looking the election officials and your fellow citizens in the eye--geniuses, idiots, or otherwise--and exercise the most fundamental Right we have as citizens...or more specifically LEGAL RESIDENTS/CITIZENS...in this country.
In other local news, I continue to be distracted with recovering from last weekend's trip to the north Georgia Mountains to visit with old High School buddies, and I have a ton of work to do here this week so the volume of Blogging could continue to suffer.
In the mean time feel free to read something stupid in the political news and get angry or otherwise entertain your self.
Regards Y'all...
I don't know about you, Ladies and Gentlemen, but I personally believe that the outcome of next Tuesday's election will determine if our country turns back toward it's Constitutional underpinnings or continues out of control as it spins right down the Crapper.
I've been temped to go do "early voting" but there's something about showing up on the day of a vote and looking the election officials and your fellow citizens in the eye--geniuses, idiots, or otherwise--and exercise the most fundamental Right we have as citizens...or more specifically LEGAL RESIDENTS/CITIZENS...in this country.
In other local news, I continue to be distracted with recovering from last weekend's trip to the north Georgia Mountains to visit with old High School buddies, and I have a ton of work to do here this week so the volume of Blogging could continue to suffer.
In the mean time feel free to read something stupid in the political news and get angry or otherwise entertain your self.
Regards Y'all...
Friday, October 22, 2010
Silence Is Golden?
Distractions Over-Ride Blogging...
Sorry for the lack of commentary here on the blog this week, but I've been mentally distracted since getting back to town from Alabama last weekend...getting ready to go out of town again this weekend.
This trip we're heading to the mountains of Northwest Georgia.
That, and professionally I've had a bunch of paper work and design crap to do this week and when I had the time to write something I was too mentally exhausted to write anything interesting or even provocative.
You know?
Believe me, when someone as outspoken and opinionated as I can be feels like they don't have anything worth reading to say or write it's a red letter day on the calendar.
I must be getting old and lame or something.
Beingunemployed self employed, I have to live by the rules that when the work comes in I have to do it, and this week I had a unexpected smokestack project to do the preliminary design on, a couple of PLC panels to fool around with the inner workings on, and then out of the blue an old Forensic engineering investigation project which had laid dormant for nearly a year came back to life and I have to get ready to travel to Atlanta in mid November to talk to a bunch of attorneys about the case.
But in the mean time...
My dear old friend Matt who I've known since the second grade in elementary school has a vacation house in a golf course development up in north Georgia, and he insists on having something called "Mancamp" two or three times a year where a some of our old classmates get together and fart and belch and drink BEER and hit a few occasional golf balls and brag and do other Manly stuff.
Turns out that I missed the first couple of "Mancamp" events and I started becoming the butt of jokes about not being allowed out of the house without supervision, so I showed them all last time and came to the event and brought my girlfriend and my dog.
And once again this trip I've poisoned the well water by insisting that I bring my two girls (Pat and Missy the Turbo Pup) so some of the wives and girl friends are also showing up (hopefully only one wife and/or girlfriend per classmate.)
The original purpose of this trip was to do some repair and renovations on a giant concrete "deck" slab which is in Matt's back yard overhanging a little creek which flows through the area.
Of course eating and drinking and other social activities have gradually overwhelmed the weekend's calendar but I hope to at least get some lumber installed around the perimeter of the hulk and get it jacked back up somewhere close to level before we leave town on Sunday.
That said, it's time to scramble around doing some more packing and stuff, so you'll have to excuse me while I tend to the processes at hand.
(stay tuned hopefully to some nice postings of fall foliage pictures)
Sorry for the lack of commentary here on the blog this week, but I've been mentally distracted since getting back to town from Alabama last weekend...getting ready to go out of town again this weekend.
This trip we're heading to the mountains of Northwest Georgia.
That, and professionally I've had a bunch of paper work and design crap to do this week and when I had the time to write something I was too mentally exhausted to write anything interesting or even provocative.
You know?
Believe me, when someone as outspoken and opinionated as I can be feels like they don't have anything worth reading to say or write it's a red letter day on the calendar.
I must be getting old and lame or something.
Being
But in the mean time...
My dear old friend Matt who I've known since the second grade in elementary school has a vacation house in a golf course development up in north Georgia, and he insists on having something called "Mancamp" two or three times a year where a some of our old classmates get together and fart and belch and drink BEER and hit a few occasional golf balls and brag and do other Manly stuff.
Turns out that I missed the first couple of "Mancamp" events and I started becoming the butt of jokes about not being allowed out of the house without supervision, so I showed them all last time and came to the event and brought my girlfriend and my dog.
And once again this trip I've poisoned the well water by insisting that I bring my two girls (Pat and Missy the Turbo Pup) so some of the wives and girl friends are also showing up (hopefully only one wife and/or girlfriend per classmate.)
The original purpose of this trip was to do some repair and renovations on a giant concrete "deck" slab which is in Matt's back yard overhanging a little creek which flows through the area.
Of course eating and drinking and other social activities have gradually overwhelmed the weekend's calendar but I hope to at least get some lumber installed around the perimeter of the hulk and get it jacked back up somewhere close to level before we leave town on Sunday.
That said, it's time to scramble around doing some more packing and stuff, so you'll have to excuse me while I tend to the processes at hand.
(stay tuned hopefully to some nice postings of fall foliage pictures)
Monday, October 18, 2010
My First Edited Video Effort
Out Of The Stone Ages...
I posted one raw video of Missy the Turbo Pup doing a little fishing last week but I wanted to do a better job of showing exactly what was going on down on my Uncle's dock on "Lake Lee" in lower Alabama.
Here's the results of my latest efforts:
As a background story, we wandered out on the dock with the intention of me just throwing a few lures out chasing Bass, but the Catfish which were used to being fed there started biting the first day and Missy started going crazy and I got the idea to bring some bread and set up to catch Catfish instead, and shoot video on my Cannon G3 camera (which is really just a digital camera...not a cam-corder).
Thus you see what happened on Friday afternoon. That dog started yelling at me when she saw me putting the fishing tackle together and kept yelping and yipping untill we ran out of bait.
That's one fine dog we got there...
I posted one raw video of Missy the Turbo Pup doing a little fishing last week but I wanted to do a better job of showing exactly what was going on down on my Uncle's dock on "Lake Lee" in lower Alabama.
Here's the results of my latest efforts:
As a background story, we wandered out on the dock with the intention of me just throwing a few lures out chasing Bass, but the Catfish which were used to being fed there started biting the first day and Missy started going crazy and I got the idea to bring some bread and set up to catch Catfish instead, and shoot video on my Cannon G3 camera (which is really just a digital camera...not a cam-corder).
Thus you see what happened on Friday afternoon. That dog started yelling at me when she saw me putting the fishing tackle together and kept yelping and yipping untill we ran out of bait.
That's one fine dog we got there...
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Silence of the Lambs Hams
Obamarama Admistration Quiet On Chilean Miner Rescue...
I'm sitting here a little after 9 PM tonight checking Drudge Report and the rest of the Internet looking for commentary from the Obama White House about the success of the rescue mission to retrieve 33 miners from near a half mile below the earth in a Copper mine.
Thus far the silence is deafening...
...and I suspect that I know why.
It's like this.
If President George Bush was still running things, not only would he have already called the Chilean President, Sebastian Pinera, at the San Jose Mine and offered our prayers and support, and then would also be out there with a statement of encouragement and/or support and by now congratulations to them for their success.
But from Obama?
As of 9:35 PM on Drudge and everything else I can find on the WWW...
NADA. zilch. Zero.
So do you wonder what I'm bitching about?
Read between the lines in the news reports , ladies and gentlemen.
Obama isn't going to comment because in the process of lauding the Chilean's heroic efforts he'd also have to applaud...gasp...
A M E R I C A...
and American Ingenuity.
and worst of all...E V I L...American C O R P O R A T I O N S.
You know, buildings full of smart people, some of the time of Anglo American descent, with degrees from places like Georgia Tech and LSU and George C. Wallace State Community College (and a couple of Bo Woolbrite scholars at Greenville Tech...Rusty.)
But they didn't.
And as I write this I just watched the Chilean president also thank England and Israel and half of South America and mostly everyone and anyone but the United States.
Hey, he didn't have to thank Obama and the Obama Administration because they basically didn't have anything to do with it if you don't count NASA's contributions, but how about giving the American People, or at least the America companies like Schramm in West Chester, Pennsylvania that made the 685 Drill Rig which pushed the bit through using the Centerrock Drill Bits from Berlin, PA?
After all, this form of mining/drilling technology goes back in history in Pennsylvania to the 1840's according to my research.
But NooooooOOOOOOO...
So, hurray for the Chileans, but at the same time everyone needs to remember that the success of their efforts were a direct result of the use of a drilling rig shipped down from the United States, designed in the United States, built in the United States, and operated by an American citizen-- Jeff Hart -- who was called in from Afghanistan from his job drilling water wells for the military.
And when it is all said and done...
Thirty three miners survived near 70 days underground, and five more rescue personnel managed to descend into hell to help in their retrieval and return safely to the surface...
...and none of it could have happened without Americans and American Tax dollars.
And I don't really give a flying @*%#! if we get any credit in the event in Washington DC and the in the halls of the state houses of the liberal elites which hate our country and all that it stands for.
I'm really, really tired of America and Americans doing the work, paying the tab, and then sitting around letting everyone else celebrate and take the credit and even turn around and slap us in the face on the public stage.
Is it just me?
MORE...9:40 AM Thursday...
The Wall Street Journal has a story this morning sort of agreeing with me...attributing the success of the Chilean Mine rescue to...
C A P I T O L I S M.
Here's the beginning of the text:
Capitalism Saved the Miners
Amid the boundless human joy of the miners' liberation, it may seem churlish to make such a claim. It is churlish. These are churlish times, and the stakes are high.
In the United States, with 9.6% unemployment, a notably angry electorate will go to the polls shortly and dump one political party in favor of the other, on which no love is lost. The president of the U.S. is campaigning across the country making this statement at nearly every stop:
"The basic idea is that if we put our blind faith in the market and we let corporations do whatever they want and we leave everybody else to fend for themselves, then America somehow automatically is going to grow and prosper."
Uh, yeah. That's a caricature of the basic idea, but basically that's right. Ask the miners.
If those miners had been trapped a half-mile down like this 25 years ago anywhere on earth, they would be dead. What happened over the past 25 years that meant the difference between life and death for those men?
Short answer: the Center Rock drill bit.
This is the miracle bit that drilled down to the trapped miners. Center Rock Inc. is a private company in Berlin, Pa. It has 74 employees. The drill's rig came from Schramm Inc. in West Chester, Pa. Seeing the disaster, Center Rock's president, Brandon Fisher, called the Chileans to offer his drill. Chile accepted. The miners are alive.
Longer answer: The Center Rock drill, heretofore not featured on websites like Engadget or Gizmodo, is in fact a piece of tough technology developed by a small company in it for the money, for profit. That's why they innovated down-the-hole hammer drilling. If they make money, they can do more innovation.
This profit = innovation dynamic was everywhere at that Chilean mine. The high-strength cable winding around the big wheel atop that simple rig is from Germany. Japan supplied the super-flexible, fiber-optic communications cable that linked the miners to the world above.
See...I'm right, and if we let the Democrats and the idiot liberal voters with minds full of mush keep picking the direction of our country and stomping on private enterprise there will be hell to pay in twenty years when you or your family member gets their proverbial "tail in a crack."
I said America, they say Capitolism...
...same thing in my considered Redneck Opinion.
I'm sitting here a little after 9 PM tonight checking Drudge Report and the rest of the Internet looking for commentary from the Obama White House about the success of the rescue mission to retrieve 33 miners from near a half mile below the earth in a Copper mine.
Thus far the silence is deafening...
...and I suspect that I know why.
It's like this.
If President George Bush was still running things, not only would he have already called the Chilean President, Sebastian Pinera, at the San Jose Mine and offered our prayers and support, and then would also be out there with a statement of encouragement and/or support and by now congratulations to them for their success.
But from Obama?
As of 9:35 PM on Drudge and everything else I can find on the WWW...
NADA. zilch. Zero.
So do you wonder what I'm bitching about?
Read between the lines in the news reports , ladies and gentlemen.
Obama isn't going to comment because in the process of lauding the Chilean's heroic efforts he'd also have to applaud...gasp...
A M E R I C A...
and American Ingenuity.
and worst of all...E V I L...American C O R P O R A T I O N S.
You know, buildings full of smart people, some of the time of Anglo American descent, with degrees from places like Georgia Tech and LSU and George C. Wallace State Community College (and a couple of Bo Woolbrite scholars at Greenville Tech...Rusty.)
But they didn't.
And as I write this I just watched the Chilean president also thank England and Israel and half of South America and mostly everyone and anyone but the United States.
Hey, he didn't have to thank Obama and the Obama Administration because they basically didn't have anything to do with it if you don't count NASA's contributions, but how about giving the American People, or at least the America companies like Schramm in West Chester, Pennsylvania that made the 685 Drill Rig which pushed the bit through using the Centerrock Drill Bits from Berlin, PA?
After all, this form of mining/drilling technology goes back in history in Pennsylvania to the 1840's according to my research.
But NooooooOOOOOOO...
So, hurray for the Chileans, but at the same time everyone needs to remember that the success of their efforts were a direct result of the use of a drilling rig shipped down from the United States, designed in the United States, built in the United States, and operated by an American citizen-- Jeff Hart -- who was called in from Afghanistan from his job drilling water wells for the military.
And when it is all said and done...
Thirty three miners survived near 70 days underground, and five more rescue personnel managed to descend into hell to help in their retrieval and return safely to the surface...
...and none of it could have happened without Americans and American Tax dollars.
And I don't really give a flying @*%#! if we get any credit in the event in Washington DC and the in the halls of the state houses of the liberal elites which hate our country and all that it stands for.
I'm really, really tired of America and Americans doing the work, paying the tab, and then sitting around letting everyone else celebrate and take the credit and even turn around and slap us in the face on the public stage.
Is it just me?
MORE...9:40 AM Thursday...
The Wall Street Journal has a story this morning sort of agreeing with me...attributing the success of the Chilean Mine rescue to...
C A P I T O L I S M.
Here's the beginning of the text:
Capitalism Saved the Miners
The profit = innovation dynamic was everywhere at the mine rescue site.
It needs to be said. The rescue of the Chilean miners is a smashing victory for free-market capitalism.Amid the boundless human joy of the miners' liberation, it may seem churlish to make such a claim. It is churlish. These are churlish times, and the stakes are high.
In the United States, with 9.6% unemployment, a notably angry electorate will go to the polls shortly and dump one political party in favor of the other, on which no love is lost. The president of the U.S. is campaigning across the country making this statement at nearly every stop:
"The basic idea is that if we put our blind faith in the market and we let corporations do whatever they want and we leave everybody else to fend for themselves, then America somehow automatically is going to grow and prosper."
Uh, yeah. That's a caricature of the basic idea, but basically that's right. Ask the miners.
If those miners had been trapped a half-mile down like this 25 years ago anywhere on earth, they would be dead. What happened over the past 25 years that meant the difference between life and death for those men?
Short answer: the Center Rock drill bit.
This is the miracle bit that drilled down to the trapped miners. Center Rock Inc. is a private company in Berlin, Pa. It has 74 employees. The drill's rig came from Schramm Inc. in West Chester, Pa. Seeing the disaster, Center Rock's president, Brandon Fisher, called the Chileans to offer his drill. Chile accepted. The miners are alive.
Longer answer: The Center Rock drill, heretofore not featured on websites like Engadget or Gizmodo, is in fact a piece of tough technology developed by a small company in it for the money, for profit. That's why they innovated down-the-hole hammer drilling. If they make money, they can do more innovation.
This profit = innovation dynamic was everywhere at that Chilean mine. The high-strength cable winding around the big wheel atop that simple rig is from Germany. Japan supplied the super-flexible, fiber-optic communications cable that linked the miners to the world above.
See...I'm right, and if we let the Democrats and the idiot liberal voters with minds full of mush keep picking the direction of our country and stomping on private enterprise there will be hell to pay in twenty years when you or your family member gets their proverbial "tail in a crack."
I said America, they say Capitolism...
...same thing in my considered Redneck Opinion.
Climbing Out Of A Hole
Wall To Wall Coverage?
I'm sorry, and I'm glad that the Chilean Copper Miners are safe and apparently going to all be successfully rescued, but please...FOX News...
GIVE IT A REST EVERY HALF HOUR OR SO.
Last night they wore out my patience with their coverage just while the final testing of the rescue pod was being done.
Admittedly once they managed to start dragging people out of the shaft I did watch the coverage again--the first four miners--but then I had to change channels again.
I'm impressed that the Chilean President and First Lady are personally standing there on site to greet the rescued men.
Do you think that OUR current Community-Organizer-In-Chief would take time out from playing Golf and destroying our economy and country to do something like that?
Don't think so...
So, any way, I expect the entire day and most of the night to be dominated by the story unless the Joe Biden keels over or someone blows up something or there's an airliner crash or something.
I have to go change channels again now before my head explodes.
Y'all have a LOVELY day...
I'm sorry, and I'm glad that the Chilean Copper Miners are safe and apparently going to all be successfully rescued, but please...FOX News...
GIVE IT A REST EVERY HALF HOUR OR SO.
Last night they wore out my patience with their coverage just while the final testing of the rescue pod was being done.
Admittedly once they managed to start dragging people out of the shaft I did watch the coverage again--the first four miners--but then I had to change channels again.
I'm impressed that the Chilean President and First Lady are personally standing there on site to greet the rescued men.
Do you think that OUR current Community-Organizer-In-Chief would take time out from playing Golf and destroying our economy and country to do something like that?
Don't think so...
So, any way, I expect the entire day and most of the night to be dominated by the story unless the Joe Biden keels over or someone blows up something or there's an airliner crash or something.
I have to go change channels again now before my head explodes.
Y'all have a LOVELY day...
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Greeks' Hope For "Change" Backfires
America...Twenty Five Years From Now?
I was cruising along the Internet this morning catching up on the news when this story titled: "Greek Health System Opts for Amputation as Money-Saver" caught my eye.
Here's the whole text for your enjoyment:
This Saturday, one of Greece’s most respected newspapers, To Vima, reported that the nation’s largest government health insurance provider would no longer pay for special footwear for diabetes patients. Amputation is cheaper, says the Benefits Division of the state insurance provider.
The new policy was announced in a letter to the Pan-Hellenic Federation of People with Diabetes. The Federation disputes the science behind the decision of the Benefits Division. In a statement, the group argues that the decision is contrary to evidence as presented in the international scientific literature.
Greece’s National Healthcare System was created in the early 1980s, during the tenure of Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou. Papandreou, an academic, won election under the slogan, Αλλαγή, which is the Greek word for Change.
I don't think I need to add anything else...except possibly that here in the Good Old US of A we should start paying to have the heads amputated off some of the politicians and voters that got us all into this mess in the first place.
Know what I mean?
I was cruising along the Internet this morning catching up on the news when this story titled: "Greek Health System Opts for Amputation as Money-Saver" caught my eye.
Here's the whole text for your enjoyment:
This Saturday, one of Greece’s most respected newspapers, To Vima, reported that the nation’s largest government health insurance provider would no longer pay for special footwear for diabetes patients. Amputation is cheaper, says the Benefits Division of the state insurance provider.
The new policy was announced in a letter to the Pan-Hellenic Federation of People with Diabetes. The Federation disputes the science behind the decision of the Benefits Division. In a statement, the group argues that the decision is contrary to evidence as presented in the international scientific literature.
Greece’s National Healthcare System was created in the early 1980s, during the tenure of Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou. Papandreou, an academic, won election under the slogan, Αλλαγή, which is the Greek word for Change.
I don't think I need to add anything else...except possibly that here in the Good Old US of A we should start paying to have the heads amputated off some of the politicians and voters that got us all into this mess in the first place.
Know what I mean?
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Saturday, October 09, 2010
All Passengers, Lockers, And Sea Chests On Board Captain...
Aye...Cast Off The Bow And Stern Lines...Rudder To Starboard...
We're excited to be heading back home this morning to the Family Farm in lower Alabama again after a couple of months of business related delays beginning in August.
I hate not being able to get down there more often than every four to six months these days, but since moving nearly eight hours away to the Georgia Coast in 2003 and then here to Knoxtown in 2008, we just can't seem to cover the distance more frequently for an infinite variety of reasons.
So any way, we have about ten thousand pounds of stuff stacked up on the carport and beside the kitchen door ready to be loaded later this morning and I hope to be able to lay my head down and catch a few hours sleep in the mean time but my mind has been racing trying to get everything together so if some business call comes I have the stuff to take care of providing answers without delay.
The Turbo Pup's lockers and Sea Chests are all packed up and she's ready to get out of the car on the other end of the journey and be able to swim in the pool and run around the 5 acre lake chasing whatever pops up in the grass in front of her during her mad rambling adventures.
Of course we have to keep a close eye on her because we have Bobcats and Coyotes and even some Black Bears and the Florida Panther to deal with and her little 11 pound frame isn't a match for those adversaries in spite of her spirit.
I have fishing poles and tackle to load in the car and a half dozen guns and some inventoried boxes of ammunition waiting for me on the other end of the journey and of course I'm dragging my camera and my old HP laptop computer so blogging will be whatever it will be for the next seven to ten days.
Feel free to entertain yourselves and stop back by to see what interesting stuff me and the Turbo Pup get into.
Regards Y'all...
We're excited to be heading back home this morning to the Family Farm in lower Alabama again after a couple of months of business related delays beginning in August.
I hate not being able to get down there more often than every four to six months these days, but since moving nearly eight hours away to the Georgia Coast in 2003 and then here to Knoxtown in 2008, we just can't seem to cover the distance more frequently for an infinite variety of reasons.
So any way, we have about ten thousand pounds of stuff stacked up on the carport and beside the kitchen door ready to be loaded later this morning and I hope to be able to lay my head down and catch a few hours sleep in the mean time but my mind has been racing trying to get everything together so if some business call comes I have the stuff to take care of providing answers without delay.
The Turbo Pup's lockers and Sea Chests are all packed up and she's ready to get out of the car on the other end of the journey and be able to swim in the pool and run around the 5 acre lake chasing whatever pops up in the grass in front of her during her mad rambling adventures.
Of course we have to keep a close eye on her because we have Bobcats and Coyotes and even some Black Bears and the Florida Panther to deal with and her little 11 pound frame isn't a match for those adversaries in spite of her spirit.
I have fishing poles and tackle to load in the car and a half dozen guns and some inventoried boxes of ammunition waiting for me on the other end of the journey and of course I'm dragging my camera and my old HP laptop computer so blogging will be whatever it will be for the next seven to ten days.
Feel free to entertain yourselves and stop back by to see what interesting stuff me and the Turbo Pup get into.
Regards Y'all...
Friday, October 08, 2010
Getting Ready To Go
Travel Preparations...
Normal people, when faced with staying over a week at a location with a lake and swimming pool, typically worry about stuff like packing bathing suits and fishing gear and stuff like that, you know?
Not me.
Since I'm the chef and the mechanic and the chief cook and bottle washer at the place...trying to handle the tasks long distance...I have to sit around this morning worrying about the list of tools I'll stuff in the trunk in anticipation of fixing all of the stuff that has broken since my last visit early in the summer.
That said, guess I'll get back to my list making.
Regards Y'all...
Normal people, when faced with staying over a week at a location with a lake and swimming pool, typically worry about stuff like packing bathing suits and fishing gear and stuff like that, you know?
Not me.
Since I'm the chef and the mechanic and the chief cook and bottle washer at the place...trying to handle the tasks long distance...I have to sit around this morning worrying about the list of tools I'll stuff in the trunk in anticipation of fixing all of the stuff that has broken since my last visit early in the summer.
That said, guess I'll get back to my list making.
Regards Y'all...
Thursday, October 07, 2010
She's Singin' 'Bout Me?
"Virgil Cain Is My Name"...
"Virgil Caine is the name, and I served on the Danville train,
'Til Stoneman's cavalry came and tore up the tracks again.
In the winter of '65, We were hungry, just barely alive.
By May the tenth, Richmond had fell, it's a time I remember, oh so well,
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, and the bells were ringing,
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, and the people were singin'....
They went La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La,
Back with my wife in Tennessee, When one day she called to me,
"Virgil, quick, come see, there goes Robert E. Lee!"
Now I don't mind choppin' wood, and I don't care if the money's no good.
Ya take what ya need and ya leave the rest,
But they should never have taken the very best.
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, and the bells were ringing,
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, and the people were singin'....
Like my father before me, I will work the land,
Like my brother above me, who took a rebel stand.
He was just eighteen, proud and brave, But a Yankee laid him in his grave,
I swear by the mud below my feet,
You can't raise a Caine back up when he's in defeat.
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, and the bells were ringing,
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, and the people were singin'....
Now I have to say this about that song and it's real meaning from the days of the not so "civil" war.
All of the compassionate liberal humanitarian assholes living today would be appalled by the treatment the Union soldiers purveyed upon the people living at the time south of the Mason Dixon line in the name of preserving the so-called "United States of 'Merica."
And if I said any more I would offend 75% of my readers based on the language I would have to use to implicitly explain my position on the actions both then and last week and yesterday by the "progressives"...
...so I believe that I'll just go out and put on a jacket, and take my harps and a cigar to the front porch and sit and contemplate my existence in the cool crisp evening.
And be silent for the time being.
Regards Y'all...
"Virgil Caine is the name, and I served on the Danville train,
'Til Stoneman's cavalry came and tore up the tracks again.
In the winter of '65, We were hungry, just barely alive.
By May the tenth, Richmond had fell, it's a time I remember, oh so well,
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, and the bells were ringing,
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, and the people were singin'....
They went La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La,
Back with my wife in Tennessee, When one day she called to me,
"Virgil, quick, come see, there goes Robert E. Lee!"
Now I don't mind choppin' wood, and I don't care if the money's no good.
Ya take what ya need and ya leave the rest,
But they should never have taken the very best.
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, and the bells were ringing,
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, and the people were singin'....
Like my father before me, I will work the land,
Like my brother above me, who took a rebel stand.
He was just eighteen, proud and brave, But a Yankee laid him in his grave,
I swear by the mud below my feet,
You can't raise a Caine back up when he's in defeat.
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, and the bells were ringing,
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, and the people were singin'....
Now I have to say this about that song and it's real meaning from the days of the not so "civil" war.
All of the compassionate liberal humanitarian assholes living today would be appalled by the treatment the Union soldiers purveyed upon the people living at the time south of the Mason Dixon line in the name of preserving the so-called "United States of 'Merica."
And if I said any more I would offend 75% of my readers based on the language I would have to use to implicitly explain my position on the actions both then and last week and yesterday by the "progressives"...
...so I believe that I'll just go out and put on a jacket, and take my harps and a cigar to the front porch and sit and contemplate my existence in the cool crisp evening.
And be silent for the time being.
Regards Y'all...
Wednesday, October 06, 2010
Strange Harmonica Players
Anyone Know Who This Guy Is?
(My buddy Ferdy edited 5 cameras worth of video from the club and tossed this up on the WWW without my knowledge until tonight. It's not exactly my best vocal effort on the song because it was filmed about 2 AM on a Saturday Morning and then posted on the Internet a few months ago without my knowledge after having a LARGE TIME during an evening of Summer Time mirth and merriment...)
(My buddy Ferdy edited 5 cameras worth of video from the club and tossed this up on the WWW without my knowledge until tonight. It's not exactly my best vocal effort on the song because it was filmed about 2 AM on a Saturday Morning and then posted on the Internet a few months ago without my knowledge after having a LARGE TIME during an evening of Summer Time mirth and merriment...)
Taking Names & Kicking Butt
Random Business Ramblings...
Since Incorporating PET last October and going into business I've found that one of the coolest things about our geographic location here at the West Knoxtown Turbopup Compound is the amazingly close proximity of vendors and services critical to the support of my efforts.
For instance, the guy who is the sales rep for half of the electronic components I use including my PLC's has an office and home within about five miles of my location, and three other vendors are only twenty minutes away if I don't want to wait on FedEX to deliver stuff.
And speaking of FedEX, they have a 24 hour copy/shipping center about 3/4's of a mile from my house and as of this afternoon I'll have been there every one of the past four business days...and by Friday, assuming things go as planned, it will be five out of six business days making shipments.
Like I said in an earlier posting here...THAT'S SOME PROGRESS.
In any business it's not the number of packages coming IN the door, it's the number of boxes full of foam peanuts and bubble wrapped stuff going OUT that determines the amount of money that comes in through the mail box each month...
...and things have been rather clogged up around here for the last half of August and most of September because I couldn't seem to get everyone on the same page on specifications and delivery.
You can't imagine how relieved I am to have broken that log jam this week.
Another interesting advantage we enjoy here in Knoxtown, because of our proximity to the FedEX hub in Memphis, is that we have the ability to ship to and from places like Kansas City, Kansas and Atlanta, Georgia paying FedEX ground rates and getting TWO DAY service in the process. Overnight shipment rates are three or four times more expensive than ground.
Heck, stuff gets here from one of my Atlanta vendors overnight half the time if I place the order before noon.
So any way, I've got another long couple of days ahead of me finishing out this week before heading down to Alabama for ten days or so.
Thus blogging will be hit or miss, but then again if something STUPID happens here at home or in the rest of the world I reserve the right to chime in with some commentary.
Until then...Regards Y'all...
Since Incorporating PET last October and going into business I've found that one of the coolest things about our geographic location here at the West Knoxtown Turbopup Compound is the amazingly close proximity of vendors and services critical to the support of my efforts.
For instance, the guy who is the sales rep for half of the electronic components I use including my PLC's has an office and home within about five miles of my location, and three other vendors are only twenty minutes away if I don't want to wait on FedEX to deliver stuff.
And speaking of FedEX, they have a 24 hour copy/shipping center about 3/4's of a mile from my house and as of this afternoon I'll have been there every one of the past four business days...and by Friday, assuming things go as planned, it will be five out of six business days making shipments.
Like I said in an earlier posting here...THAT'S SOME PROGRESS.
In any business it's not the number of packages coming IN the door, it's the number of boxes full of foam peanuts and bubble wrapped stuff going OUT that determines the amount of money that comes in through the mail box each month...
...and things have been rather clogged up around here for the last half of August and most of September because I couldn't seem to get everyone on the same page on specifications and delivery.
You can't imagine how relieved I am to have broken that log jam this week.
Another interesting advantage we enjoy here in Knoxtown, because of our proximity to the FedEX hub in Memphis, is that we have the ability to ship to and from places like Kansas City, Kansas and Atlanta, Georgia paying FedEX ground rates and getting TWO DAY service in the process. Overnight shipment rates are three or four times more expensive than ground.
Heck, stuff gets here from one of my Atlanta vendors overnight half the time if I place the order before noon.
So any way, I've got another long couple of days ahead of me finishing out this week before heading down to Alabama for ten days or so.
Thus blogging will be hit or miss, but then again if something STUPID happens here at home or in the rest of the world I reserve the right to chime in with some commentary.
Until then...Regards Y'all...
Tuesday, October 05, 2010
Progress
Attitude Improving Marginally?
I'm pleased to report that there's a slight glimmer of hope that this will be the most productive week around here at the International Headquarters of PET in over a month.
Good thing, because I'm seriously behind in a number of areas through no fault of my own.
I managed to get three pneumatic valves with master rebuilds out the door last Friday and three more out yesterday, and FINALLY I'm getting my programmer's attention again and he's stopping by about 9 this morning.
Hopefully we can get the bugs worked out of the code for the rebuilt Baltimore PLC and get it shipped out Wednesday, and then with any luck I'll get a couple more valves rebuilt by Friday so I can leave town and head down to the Farm in Alabama for a week.
Time to get back in the shop I guess and get ready for the day.
Wish us luck, and regards Y'all.
I'm pleased to report that there's a slight glimmer of hope that this will be the most productive week around here at the International Headquarters of PET in over a month.
Good thing, because I'm seriously behind in a number of areas through no fault of my own.
I managed to get three pneumatic valves with master rebuilds out the door last Friday and three more out yesterday, and FINALLY I'm getting my programmer's attention again and he's stopping by about 9 this morning.
Hopefully we can get the bugs worked out of the code for the rebuilt Baltimore PLC and get it shipped out Wednesday, and then with any luck I'll get a couple more valves rebuilt by Friday so I can leave town and head down to the Farm in Alabama for a week.
Time to get back in the shop I guess and get ready for the day.
Wish us luck, and regards Y'all.
Sunday, October 03, 2010
I'm Ready To Fire Everybody And Leave Town
The Fruits Of Ineptitude...
I swear to God, Ladies and Gentlemen, but virtually EVERY SINGLE VENDOR I have working for me has either lost their minds else they have gotten together and signed a pact or pledge saying they were going to screw up my product delivery schedule by every possible method.
And I'm not aware that I have done anything close to a level of deserving this kind of treatment mind you.
I pay their (my vendors/creditors) invoices on time, in full.
I generally allow for reasonable delivery schedules and I pay the asking price for the products without too much haggling.
So they must just want to go out of their way to torture me...
...so they can watch me have shivering, angry fits causing my blood pressure to rise, veins to pop out of my neck and forehead, and what's left of the hair on my ever greying, ever balding head to fall down to the ground.
Seriously...
Twenty years ago there would be a half dozen people in cities as remote as Michigan and as close as Nashville that would have been cursed out on the telephone or possibly in person as a result of the stupidity and mistakes I've had to endure in the past couple of months.
But I've gotten mellow in my older age and elect to hold my tongue more often these days.
It's unbelievable to me that in an economic climate where so many people are out of work that the people that still have jobs can perform their functions in such a feckless and obtuse manner.
You know?
I'd like to put into place some sort of system where customers could hit a button and cause the moron on the other end of the telephone to be ejected from their chair and out of the building and some other poor yet competent slob (or slobbette) would magically appear in their position...pajamas and house slippers and all.
That would make a great TV commercial...sort of like the Staples "Easy Button"...
ONLY BETTER AND MORE SATISFYING.
Now where did I put my really BIG hammer...
I swear to God, Ladies and Gentlemen, but virtually EVERY SINGLE VENDOR I have working for me has either lost their minds else they have gotten together and signed a pact or pledge saying they were going to screw up my product delivery schedule by every possible method.
And I'm not aware that I have done anything close to a level of deserving this kind of treatment mind you.
I pay their (my vendors/creditors) invoices on time, in full.
I generally allow for reasonable delivery schedules and I pay the asking price for the products without too much haggling.
So they must just want to go out of their way to torture me...
...so they can watch me have shivering, angry fits causing my blood pressure to rise, veins to pop out of my neck and forehead, and what's left of the hair on my ever greying, ever balding head to fall down to the ground.
Seriously...
Twenty years ago there would be a half dozen people in cities as remote as Michigan and as close as Nashville that would have been cursed out on the telephone or possibly in person as a result of the stupidity and mistakes I've had to endure in the past couple of months.
But I've gotten mellow in my older age and elect to hold my tongue more often these days.
It's unbelievable to me that in an economic climate where so many people are out of work that the people that still have jobs can perform their functions in such a feckless and obtuse manner.
You know?
I'd like to put into place some sort of system where customers could hit a button and cause the moron on the other end of the telephone to be ejected from their chair and out of the building and some other poor yet competent slob (or slobbette) would magically appear in their position...pajamas and house slippers and all.
That would make a great TV commercial...sort of like the Staples "Easy Button"...
ONLY BETTER AND MORE SATISFYING.
Now where did I put my really BIG hammer...
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Hump Day
This Working For A Livin' Stuff Sucks...
Just in case you haven't noticed, I've actually been sort of busy professionally now for several weeks in a row.
Amazing.
I'm not quite sure how it happened, and some of the time I wish it hadn't happened, but it did any way in spite of my sometimes inept efforts.
And so here I am this morning., too busy to write much in the way of a blog posting.
That said, y'all have a LOVELY day, and I'll try to stop by later if something comes up worth complaining about.
Just in case you haven't noticed, I've actually been sort of busy professionally now for several weeks in a row.
Amazing.
I'm not quite sure how it happened, and some of the time I wish it hadn't happened, but it did any way in spite of my sometimes inept efforts.
And so here I am this morning., too busy to write much in the way of a blog posting.
That said, y'all have a LOVELY day, and I'll try to stop by later if something comes up worth complaining about.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Blogging Deliquency
Mental Malaise
Sorry for the silence here on the blog, but I've been extremely busy this past week.
Instead of sitting around on the beach last week in Florida I've been working my butt off here in Knoxtown courting a new customer which could provide several months worth of full time consulting work designing a new production process, and at the end of the day my mind has just been too fried to write much worth reading some times.
I just realized that I missed writing two days in a row (Sunday and Monday) and a total of four days on the blog calendar in the past week, and if I checked back in my archives I'd find that it's probably only been three or four times in the past couple of years that has occurred (unless I was laying on my back in the hospital.)
So any way, when I wasn't working I've been sitting with my eyes rolled back in my skull watching the feckless, obtuse idiots at the United Nations wander around on US soil telling us how to do things and complain about how the United By-God States of 'Merica and the rest of the developed world doesn't pay their fair share to the "Developing Countries" and their despotic leaders.
And then they let that little Capuchin Monkey, also known as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (I'd like to see that name on "Wheel of Fortune") come to NY City and insult us to our faces.
I wonder just how much money the US taxpayers were forced to spend providing security to keep some good Redneck from taking his Deer Rifle and firing a 30-06 round through this silly little useless bastard's Chest?
I know he brought his own Iranian security goons with him, but the pansy assed liberal US CIA and Secret Service--the same morons that couldn't keep idiots from shooting George Wallace, Gerald Ford, and President Reagan--did a fine job of letting the Iranian President do a smirking Victory Tour right here in our back yard while at the same time threatening Israel and most of the Western World on a daily basis.
Any way, I've got to get an early start this morning again, so I'll have to let that brief rant stand on it's own for the time being.
Of course, as usual, I reserve the right to chime in on a moment's notice if I see something on TV or hear something on the radio talk shows that sets me off in my usual fashion.
Y'all have a LOVELY day now...if you will...
Sorry for the silence here on the blog, but I've been extremely busy this past week.
Instead of sitting around on the beach last week in Florida I've been working my butt off here in Knoxtown courting a new customer which could provide several months worth of full time consulting work designing a new production process, and at the end of the day my mind has just been too fried to write much worth reading some times.
I just realized that I missed writing two days in a row (Sunday and Monday) and a total of four days on the blog calendar in the past week, and if I checked back in my archives I'd find that it's probably only been three or four times in the past couple of years that has occurred (unless I was laying on my back in the hospital.)
So any way, when I wasn't working I've been sitting with my eyes rolled back in my skull watching the feckless, obtuse idiots at the United Nations wander around on US soil telling us how to do things and complain about how the United By-God States of 'Merica and the rest of the developed world doesn't pay their fair share to the "Developing Countries" and their despotic leaders.
And then they let that little Capuchin Monkey, also known as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (I'd like to see that name on "Wheel of Fortune") come to NY City and insult us to our faces.
I wonder just how much money the US taxpayers were forced to spend providing security to keep some good Redneck from taking his Deer Rifle and firing a 30-06 round through this silly little useless bastard's Chest?
I know he brought his own Iranian security goons with him, but the pansy assed liberal US CIA and Secret Service--the same morons that couldn't keep idiots from shooting George Wallace, Gerald Ford, and President Reagan--did a fine job of letting the Iranian President do a smirking Victory Tour right here in our back yard while at the same time threatening Israel and most of the Western World on a daily basis.
Any way, I've got to get an early start this morning again, so I'll have to let that brief rant stand on it's own for the time being.
Of course, as usual, I reserve the right to chime in on a moment's notice if I see something on TV or hear something on the radio talk shows that sets me off in my usual fashion.
Y'all have a LOVELY day now...if you will...
Saturday, September 25, 2010
It's S A T U R D A Y ! !
Foolin' Around All Day...
I'm going to do EXACTLY what I want to do all day today after surviving a withering week of BS and dealing with the incompetence of some of my critical vendors.
It's one thing to be three or four weeks late with some products, but to then have me drive across Knoxtown to pick them up...
...and then get them back here to the shop and find out they were only partially finished?
So yesterday I had to drag the box of parts BACK down to the Machine Shop and hopefully I will see something again some time early next week.
I've been paying these guys early but I suspect they might wait longer than 30 days to get a check from me this time.
So any way...I have a half painted french door in the dining room to finish dealing with, and then Georgia Tech plays NC State on ESPN at noon and it's pretty much going to take an act of congress to get me out of the bed or off of the sofa for the next 24 hours.
Hope everyone has at least half as good a weekend as I plan on having.
Regards Y'all...
I'm going to do EXACTLY what I want to do all day today after surviving a withering week of BS and dealing with the incompetence of some of my critical vendors.
It's one thing to be three or four weeks late with some products, but to then have me drive across Knoxtown to pick them up...
...and then get them back here to the shop and find out they were only partially finished?
So yesterday I had to drag the box of parts BACK down to the Machine Shop and hopefully I will see something again some time early next week.
I've been paying these guys early but I suspect they might wait longer than 30 days to get a check from me this time.
So any way...I have a half painted french door in the dining room to finish dealing with, and then Georgia Tech plays NC State on ESPN at noon and it's pretty much going to take an act of congress to get me out of the bed or off of the sofa for the next 24 hours.
Hope everyone has at least half as good a weekend as I plan on having.
Regards Y'all...
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Self-Induced Home Improvement Insanity
What Ever You Do...Don't Listen To The "Professionals"...
So there I was, sitting around all comfortable on my sofa some time last Summer--I think it was in June or July of 2009--when I put down my beer and I said to my self...I said:
"Self...you need get up off of your butt, drive down to Home Depot, and get the stuff needed to replace that old crappy 48 year old painted carport door you have there in the Kitchen with a nice stained wooden French door with lots of windows."
Then in an extended conniption fit of mental malaise, I said..."and while you are at it, why not cut a hole through the wood and bricks in the back wall of the dining room and put in another Painted French door with a bunch of glass..."
And then, for the grand Finale...
"If you do all of that stuff, you're just gonna have to buy a another 6'-8" high by 3'-0" wide 100 pound slab of wood and replace your front door, but this time make it solid and just drill a little, itty, bitty hole, in it and put in one of those peep-hole thingies so you can spy on who ever is at your door rather than just looking out the giant picture window two feet away."
And so I did.
BUY all of that stuff needed to do all of those projects last summer.
Problem is, by the time I got the hole pounded through the back wall of the house through the bricks and the associated new deck finished...
and did I mention the new Turbo Pup door in the wall, also cut through solid brick?
It was all I could manage to do to get the old carport door taken down and the new bare door slab cut to match the existing hinges and door strike positions in the old hand built, vintage 1963 wood door frames.
Thus through last winter and all of this spring and summer until about three weeks ago two of my three new doors (not counting the Turbo Pup door) hung un-stained/un-painted in their openings.
And the new front door slab?
It's a random piece of art still today out on my carport (hoping to be installed next week.)
And any way, recently I opened up the year old cans of wood grain sealer and Maple colored stain and Spar Polyurethane and proceeded to slather a new color and finish on the bare wood of the Carport door.
Problem was, instead of using blue painters' masking tape to cover the glass of TWELVE GLASS PANES, I listened to an acquaintance's father who is a self proclaimed "professional" house painter and he told me to just slap the finish on the door and then use a razor blade and mineral spirits to clean the stain and paint off when I was finished.
I'd like to just write the word "W R O N G" here and be done with the subject.
But...
I my considered Redneck experience the guy just wasn't W R O N G, he was freaking stoned or hallucinating.
I've just gotten through with three days working part time dealing with the biggest clean up mess ever seen since a buddy's wife decided to give her dog an enema (don't ask.)
At first I swore that dynamite wouldn't get the crap off of the glass panes of my new door.
But then finally, using a combination of razor blades, a chemical called "Goof Off" (Imagine that), and some 000 steel wool along with a pint of Vodka (internal operator lubricant) and some massive personal determination as of about three PM today I have a fairly nice looking new French door.
And all I know is my "Professional" painter might have suffered a good cursing out if I had seen him this past week while I was suffering (and twenty five years ago there might have been black eyes and broken noses involved in the proceedings.)
But any way, one and one-half doors installed (paint on the rear French door going on tomorrow), and then next week I hope to get the front door cut in and installed before the first snow storm.
Wish me luck...If you will...
So there I was, sitting around all comfortable on my sofa some time last Summer--I think it was in June or July of 2009--when I put down my beer and I said to my self...I said:
"Self...you need get up off of your butt, drive down to Home Depot, and get the stuff needed to replace that old crappy 48 year old painted carport door you have there in the Kitchen with a nice stained wooden French door with lots of windows."
Then in an extended conniption fit of mental malaise, I said..."and while you are at it, why not cut a hole through the wood and bricks in the back wall of the dining room and put in another Painted French door with a bunch of glass..."
And then, for the grand Finale...
"If you do all of that stuff, you're just gonna have to buy a another 6'-8" high by 3'-0" wide 100 pound slab of wood and replace your front door, but this time make it solid and just drill a little, itty, bitty hole, in it and put in one of those peep-hole thingies so you can spy on who ever is at your door rather than just looking out the giant picture window two feet away."
And so I did.
BUY all of that stuff needed to do all of those projects last summer.
Problem is, by the time I got the hole pounded through the back wall of the house through the bricks and the associated new deck finished...
and did I mention the new Turbo Pup door in the wall, also cut through solid brick?
It was all I could manage to do to get the old carport door taken down and the new bare door slab cut to match the existing hinges and door strike positions in the old hand built, vintage 1963 wood door frames.
Thus through last winter and all of this spring and summer until about three weeks ago two of my three new doors (not counting the Turbo Pup door) hung un-stained/un-painted in their openings.
And the new front door slab?
It's a random piece of art still today out on my carport (hoping to be installed next week.)
And any way, recently I opened up the year old cans of wood grain sealer and Maple colored stain and Spar Polyurethane and proceeded to slather a new color and finish on the bare wood of the Carport door.
Problem was, instead of using blue painters' masking tape to cover the glass of TWELVE GLASS PANES, I listened to an acquaintance's father who is a self proclaimed "professional" house painter and he told me to just slap the finish on the door and then use a razor blade and mineral spirits to clean the stain and paint off when I was finished.
I'd like to just write the word "W R O N G" here and be done with the subject.
But...
I my considered Redneck experience the guy just wasn't W R O N G, he was freaking stoned or hallucinating.
I've just gotten through with three days working part time dealing with the biggest clean up mess ever seen since a buddy's wife decided to give her dog an enema (don't ask.)
At first I swore that dynamite wouldn't get the crap off of the glass panes of my new door.
But then finally, using a combination of razor blades, a chemical called "Goof Off" (Imagine that), and some 000 steel wool along with a pint of Vodka (internal operator lubricant) and some massive personal determination as of about three PM today I have a fairly nice looking new French door.
And all I know is my "Professional" painter might have suffered a good cursing out if I had seen him this past week while I was suffering (and twenty five years ago there might have been black eyes and broken noses involved in the proceedings.)
But any way, one and one-half doors installed (paint on the rear French door going on tomorrow), and then next week I hope to get the front door cut in and installed before the first snow storm.
Wish me luck...If you will...
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Sunday, September 19, 2010
My First You Tube Submission
Blackwater Grill Rocks...
I mentioned a couple of times here on the blog that back this last spring my buddy John down on St. Simons Island, Georgia had the pleasure of having his restaurant--Blackwater Grill--featured on Food Network's "Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives."
We caught the show when it was broadcast but missed Mr. Howton's viewing party because we were stuck up here in East Tennessee when the show aired (and we were invited to the filming but again we were 8 hours away and couldn't do the trip at the time.)
So any way, here's the You Tube video I sent out last night from the DVD I received in the mail yesterday:
The head Chef Jamie and I have cooked together in the SSI Chili Cookoff the past two years and I've been asked to do the event again next year with this wonderful group of people.
If you have never been to our little island St. Simons you really are missing a beautiful unique destination, and if you've been there you know I know what I'm talking about.
I mentioned a couple of times here on the blog that back this last spring my buddy John down on St. Simons Island, Georgia had the pleasure of having his restaurant--Blackwater Grill--featured on Food Network's "Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives."
We caught the show when it was broadcast but missed Mr. Howton's viewing party because we were stuck up here in East Tennessee when the show aired (and we were invited to the filming but again we were 8 hours away and couldn't do the trip at the time.)
So any way, here's the You Tube video I sent out last night from the DVD I received in the mail yesterday:
The head Chef Jamie and I have cooked together in the SSI Chili Cookoff the past two years and I've been asked to do the event again next year with this wonderful group of people.
If you have never been to
I'm Supposed To Be At The Beach Now?
This Working For A Living Crap Sucks...
OK, I'm not quite sure what is happening but for the third time in as many months we've had to cancel a trip away from the Turbo Pup Compound here on the banks of the Mighty Tennessee River.
This most recent malfunction was due in part to Pat having a a slight illness causing Vertigo, and then I came up with a fit of new work which had to be done by the middle of next week. Thus leaving town for ten days or two weeks was just out of the question since the trip was supposed to begin last Wednesday.
Pat's still taking a week off and just hanging around with me and the Turbo Puppy, but I have an erratic work schedule and am also trying to get some lingering home improvement projects finished--like the year old wood door stain and polyurethane on the carport project, and the new front door slab installation project and so on ...
...and...well, you get my drift.
I really, Really, REALLY would rather be at the beach right now but other more important things prevented that from happening, and what drives me crazy is how the government treats people that work for themselves and earn a living without actually getting a regular paycheck from some evil rich business owner or the government.
You see, I don't get paid unless I work, and I can't just run off on vacation and still have money coming in the door in the form of sick leave or vacation pay, and yet the government--local and national--acts like every single dollar I manage to bring into the mail box is their money until I can prove that I have some reason to claim it for myself.
Doesn't that suck? And next year or the year after if things go as planned our family could actually be one of those evil groups of people with an apparent income of over $250,000 because I own a Subchapter S business and all of the money earned passes to the owner(s)and Pat makes a nice living at her job.
It's a sad day when class and wealth envy created by the government and the government education system and associated programs make a large part of the population believe that people don't deserve to keep a substantial portion of the money they earn by working and sacrificing and doing the things that it takes to make above "average" income.
I guess you could understand why there might be an incentive to not make any money if all the government is going to do is step in and claim 39% or 50% of it at the end of the year.
Maybe I'm just dense or stupid, but still, here I sit this morning, 600 miles away from the ocean, processing invoices and purchase orders and worrying about having to beat the idiots at the local Machine Shop into getting some finished parts back to me next week....
...and worrying about how I can afford to hire an accountant this year to keep me out of trouble with the IRS next year.
It's amazing that I'm trying to throw money at vendors and having trouble getting them to do anything in the process?
I guess that the good news is that apparently there is some business being conducted out there somewhere, and the few people that still have jobs are busy so I just have to wait for their services.
Speaking of busy...time for me to get back to work I guess...
Y'all have a LOVELY Sunday...If you will...
OK, I'm not quite sure what is happening but for the third time in as many months we've had to cancel a trip away from the Turbo Pup Compound here on the banks of the Mighty Tennessee River.
This most recent malfunction was due in part to Pat having a a slight illness causing Vertigo, and then I came up with a fit of new work which had to be done by the middle of next week. Thus leaving town for ten days or two weeks was just out of the question since the trip was supposed to begin last Wednesday.
Pat's still taking a week off and just hanging around with me and the Turbo Puppy, but I have an erratic work schedule and am also trying to get some lingering home improvement projects finished--like the year old wood door stain and polyurethane on the carport project, and the new front door slab installation project and so on ...
...and...well, you get my drift.
I really, Really, REALLY would rather be at the beach right now but other more important things prevented that from happening, and what drives me crazy is how the government treats people that work for themselves and earn a living without actually getting a regular paycheck from some evil rich business owner or the government.
You see, I don't get paid unless I work, and I can't just run off on vacation and still have money coming in the door in the form of sick leave or vacation pay, and yet the government--local and national--acts like every single dollar I manage to bring into the mail box is their money until I can prove that I have some reason to claim it for myself.
Doesn't that suck? And next year or the year after if things go as planned our family could actually be one of those evil groups of people with an apparent income of over $250,000 because I own a Subchapter S business and all of the money earned passes to the owner(s)and Pat makes a nice living at her job.
It's a sad day when class and wealth envy created by the government and the government education system and associated programs make a large part of the population believe that people don't deserve to keep a substantial portion of the money they earn by working and sacrificing and doing the things that it takes to make above "average" income.
I guess you could understand why there might be an incentive to not make any money if all the government is going to do is step in and claim 39% or 50% of it at the end of the year.
Maybe I'm just dense or stupid, but still, here I sit this morning, 600 miles away from the ocean, processing invoices and purchase orders and worrying about having to beat the idiots at the local Machine Shop into getting some finished parts back to me next week....
...and worrying about how I can afford to hire an accountant this year to keep me out of trouble with the IRS next year.
It's amazing that I'm trying to throw money at vendors and having trouble getting them to do anything in the process?
I guess that the good news is that apparently there is some business being conducted out there somewhere, and the few people that still have jobs are busy so I just have to wait for their services.
Speaking of busy...time for me to get back to work I guess...
Y'all have a LOVELY Sunday...If you will...
Friday, September 17, 2010
Age Old Old Age Paranoia
Am I Getting Ready To Hunker Down Or Just Bug Out?
I just realized today that looking at me and my stuff from the outside, one could easily accuse me of becoming paranoid in my old age middle age.
For instance, ever since I moved to Florida back on September 12, 2001 (I was supposed to leave Atlanta on 9/11 but the dang Saudis got in my way), and continuing over to St. Simons Island, Georgia and now the past few years up here in Knoxtown at the Turbo Pup Compound I've spent more and more time and money on stuff that I don't need yesterday or even today, but that I might need in the event of an emergency next week or next month or next year...
...or the year after that.
Stuff like gallon jugs of drinking water sitting around in the bottom of hall closets.
Or the 1.5 KW electric generator that's still shrink wrapped in it's original cardboard box.
How about dozens of candles and matches and lighters and the two antique oil burning lanterns and wicks and fuel in the Dining room Sideboard cabinet?
And then there is the kerosine heater likewise sitting in it's original packaging unopened in the basement beside the generator.
Now it's come to my attention that not only do I need to worry about living past a Hurricane when residing on the Ocean or a snow/ice storm here in Knoxtown, but now with Obama and the Democrats' lax attitude toward the production of Nuclear weapons by North Korea and now Iran...
I'm still short of some other critical components in my ultimate dooms day inventory.
Things like extra charcoal for my grill to be stored in the basement for future use.
Or some additional canned non-perishable food stuffs--possibly some military style MRE's (meals ready to eat)--to cover a few weeks if not months,and now I want to build something to protect a few pieces of electronic equipment in the event of an Electro Magnetic Pulse (EMP) attack by some wild eyed towel headed morons.
I have an extra laptop PC and a AC/DC radio and some other stuff that would be valuable in the event of an infrastructure breakdown and I've learned that in order to keep a giant blast of electrical noise from frying everything that it is possible to build what is called a "Faraday Cage"--basically a metal screen enclosed storage box, area, or even an entire room...which is connected to a dedicated ground wire and grounding rod.
The idea is that through the laws of physics (which I understand but won't bore you with Gausian surface theory this morning) the system will collect the burst of energy from a lightening strike or nuclear EMP bomb and short it around the shielded area and into the ground in an effort to protect the delicate chips in modern electronic devices so they won't fry themselves.
So any way, now instead of spending time blogging further this morning, I'm going to go back to my research efforts and hopefully in the next couple of weeks I'll add this feature to my ever growing basement bunker complex.
Meanwhile, don't be a stranger. Just call before you stop by, and knock before you enter, because until after the November election my trigger finger is a little twitchy for some reason.
Regards Y'all...
I just realized today that looking at me and my stuff from the outside, one could easily accuse me of becoming paranoid in my
For instance, ever since I moved to Florida back on September 12, 2001 (I was supposed to leave Atlanta on 9/11 but the dang Saudis got in my way), and continuing over to St. Simons Island, Georgia and now the past few years up here in Knoxtown at the Turbo Pup Compound I've spent more and more time and money on stuff that I don't need yesterday or even today, but that I might need in the event of an emergency next week or next month or next year...
...or the year after that.
Stuff like gallon jugs of drinking water sitting around in the bottom of hall closets.
Or the 1.5 KW electric generator that's still shrink wrapped in it's original cardboard box.
How about dozens of candles and matches and lighters and the two antique oil burning lanterns and wicks and fuel in the Dining room Sideboard cabinet?
And then there is the kerosine heater likewise sitting in it's original packaging unopened in the basement beside the generator.
Now it's come to my attention that not only do I need to worry about living past a Hurricane when residing on the Ocean or a snow/ice storm here in Knoxtown, but now with Obama and the Democrats' lax attitude toward the production of Nuclear weapons by North Korea and now Iran...
I'm still short of some other critical components in my ultimate dooms day inventory.
Things like extra charcoal for my grill to be stored in the basement for future use.
Or some additional canned non-perishable food stuffs--possibly some military style MRE's (meals ready to eat)--to cover a few weeks if not months,and now I want to build something to protect a few pieces of electronic equipment in the event of an Electro Magnetic Pulse (EMP) attack by some wild eyed towel headed morons.
I have an extra laptop PC and a AC/DC radio and some other stuff that would be valuable in the event of an infrastructure breakdown and I've learned that in order to keep a giant blast of electrical noise from frying everything that it is possible to build what is called a "Faraday Cage"--basically a metal screen enclosed storage box, area, or even an entire room...which is connected to a dedicated ground wire and grounding rod.
The idea is that through the laws of physics (which I understand but won't bore you with Gausian surface theory this morning) the system will collect the burst of energy from a lightening strike or nuclear EMP bomb and short it around the shielded area and into the ground in an effort to protect the delicate chips in modern electronic devices so they won't fry themselves.
So any way, now instead of spending time blogging further this morning, I'm going to go back to my research efforts and hopefully in the next couple of weeks I'll add this feature to my ever growing basement bunker complex.
Meanwhile, don't be a stranger. Just call before you stop by, and knock before you enter, because until after the November election my trigger finger is a little twitchy for some reason.
Regards Y'all...
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Nothing To Say...
...So I'll Say (Write) Nothing...
(Stay tuned to this channel for a good rant shortly.)
(Stay tuned to this channel for a good rant shortly.)
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Retarded Television
If You Wonder Who's Voting...
I don't know, but does anyone but me lose their mind when they try to watch TV during the hours between about 4 AM and 7 AM?
Apparently the demographic is either pimple faced kids seeking acne cures, middle aged men with sexual "performance" issues, vain women looking to cover up their "skin imperfections" so they can catch a man buying the "performance" enhancing drugs (and hoping for an erection which lasts longer than four hours) else they are people who want to sit on the sofa watching videos about "cash flow" systems and buying real estate with no money down.
Then of course there are the people that want to lose 257 pounds, 3 ounces in eight weeks using some sort of exercise machine which hides conveniently under the bed or in the closet while eating some sort of food shipped to their door in little freeze dried packets which tastes like something prepared by a professional chef in a five star restaurant.
But I have to ask...what about ME?
Old slightly past middle aged guys who have survived our Acne years, given up on things like sex and making much money and not really caring about losing the weight gained while consuming pounds of butter and bacon fat?
All I can say is thank GOD for the Internet and YouTube and important videos like this one:
Gnuck...Gnuck...Gnuck...whoop whoop whoop...
(MORE...a half hour later)
Then there is stuff I still have like this on VHS Video Tape:
"Looks like this is the beginning of a beautiful relationship..."
I don't know, but does anyone but me lose their mind when they try to watch TV during the hours between about 4 AM and 7 AM?
Apparently the demographic is either pimple faced kids seeking acne cures, middle aged men with sexual "performance" issues, vain women looking to cover up their "skin imperfections" so they can catch a man buying the "performance" enhancing drugs (and hoping for an erection which lasts longer than four hours) else they are people who want to sit on the sofa watching videos about "cash flow" systems and buying real estate with no money down.
Then of course there are the people that want to lose 257 pounds, 3 ounces in eight weeks using some sort of exercise machine which hides conveniently under the bed or in the closet while eating some sort of food shipped to their door in little freeze dried packets which tastes like something prepared by a professional chef in a five star restaurant.
But I have to ask...what about ME?
Old slightly past middle aged guys who have survived our Acne years, given up on things like sex and making much money and not really caring about losing the weight gained while consuming pounds of butter and bacon fat?
All I can say is thank GOD for the Internet and YouTube and important videos like this one:
Gnuck...Gnuck...Gnuck...whoop whoop whoop...
(MORE...a half hour later)
Then there is stuff I still have like this on VHS Video Tape:
"Looks like this is the beginning of a beautiful relationship..."
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Home Repair Yields Cooking Revelation?
Here...Try This Recipe...
So when we moved into this old house in April 2008, while it was in pretty good shape for something made of bricks and wood which was only three years younger than I was, there were still a few nagging little details which reared their ugly heads every now and then...
...and over the past 2-1/2 years I've been playing "Whack A Mole" with them on an individual basis based on the priority and reality of the consequences should they be ignored.
Things that might fall on my head or electrocute me or cause me to drown were top priority, but as the days and months on the calendar have passed us by the list has gotten shorter and now we're down to silly details like replacing Kitchen Oven vent hoods and also most recently, the "Lazy Susan" or "Lazy Susie" or "Lazy Mildred" or even "Lazy Bob"---that turntable thing commonly found under the base cabinets in the corner of the kitchen.
So when we moved into this old house in April 2008, while it was in pretty good shape for something made of bricks and wood which was only three years younger than I was, there were still a few nagging little details which reared their ugly heads every now and then...
...and over the past 2-1/2 years I've been playing "Whack A Mole" with them on an individual basis based on the priority and reality of the consequences should they be ignored.
Things that might fall on my head or electrocute me or cause me to drown were top priority, but as the days and months on the calendar have passed us by the list has gotten shorter and now we're down to silly details like replacing Kitchen Oven vent hoods and also most recently, the "Lazy Susan" or "Lazy Susie" or "Lazy Mildred" or even "Lazy Bob"---that turntable thing commonly found under the base cabinets in the corner of the kitchen.
Apparently the old couple that owned our house before we moved in stored a used Datsun Pickup Truck under the counter or allowed their kids and/or grand kids to use the devise as an amusement park merry go round or something...
because the darned thing was cracked and broken several ways and as a result prone to flinging 24 ounce cans of tomato sauce out of the cabinet onto your bare feet or else losing things like raw potatoes back in the neither regions behind the round shelves only to rot and produce lovely odors better relegated to the basement or bathroom than the kitchen.
So any way, a couple of weeks ago I bought a new one on line and managed to cut the old mangled one out of the cabinet and cram the new one into it's place, but the top shelf seems to want to refuse to stay locked to the vertical shaft/pole so early this morning I found myself sitting in the kitchen floor disgorging all of the canned goods out of the cabinet so I could lift the shelf and take a monkey wrench and a sledge hammer and crush the bolt holding the shelf into it's final position.
I'm proud to report that as of this morning it's going to take either a stick of dynamite or a Muslim Suicide Bomber to remove that shelf from my kitchen.
But I digress...
while going through all of the crazy cans of stuff I'd forgotten I'd bought I was stuck with an idea for a late night snack--actually a soup concoction--which worked out pretty dang good if I do say so myself.
Here's the recipe for Virgil's "Creamy Mushroom Chicken Spinach Tarragon Mushroom Soup."
(OK...I have to work on the name a little, but you get the idea...)
Ingredients:
(2) tbsp Bacon Grease
(2) hands full of baby spinach
(1) 7 oz Can Sliced Button Mushrooms
(1) 12 oz Can Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup
(1) 5 oz Can premium chicken Breast (or diced chicken breast leftovers)
1/2 14 oz Can Chicken Stock
1/2 Cup white Wine
dash of sea salt
couple of dashes of white pepper
couple of sashes of black pepper
1/4 tsp of your favorite hot sauce
Putting it all together...
Dump your bacon grease into a two or three quart boiler and get it hot over medium heat.
Drain your canned mushroom slices and toss them in the hot bacon grease.
Give them two or three minutes to heat up, then throw in your baby spinach and cook until the spinach wilts.
Turn the heat down and reserve the mushroom/spinach mixture on the side in a bowl and spoon out your cream of mushroom soup into the boiler and add the chicken stock and kick the heat back up.
Open and drain your chicken breast pieces and pull the leaves off your Tarragon and dice them up real fine.
Add the Tarragon and salt/peppers to the mixture and keep stirring.
When things start steaming and bubbling a little, add back in your mushroom/spinach mix and dump in the white wine and the chicken chunks.
Take a big swig of white wine for yourself now if you want to.
Hey...take two swigs...I'ts your wine...
Simmer everything for about 15 or 20 more minutes, then grab yourself a napkin and bowl and spoon and EAT.
Regards Y'all
The Redneck Gourmet
(For those that don't read my terribly neglected cooking Blog--The Redneck Gourmet -- I will cross post this recipe and thus it is written in the style I use in/on that forum.)
Construction Progress
Diggin' Holes And Makin' Sawdust...
Fortunately for me and the American Healthcare system I'm the Architect/Engineer on this adventure, and as a result younger, stronger, more flexible and resilient men are making good progress on my Neighbor's sun room addition project.
Here's a look at the first 10 days (16 days on the calendar) of work.
A ditch full of re bar waiting on concrete:
Fortunately for me and the American Healthcare system I'm the Architect/Engineer on this adventure, and as a result younger, stronger, more flexible and resilient men are making good progress on my Neighbor's sun room addition project.
Here's a look at the first 10 days (16 days on the calendar) of work.
A ditch full of re bar waiting on concrete:
A Cement truck load slopping in the ditches:
Footers and back fill in place ready for the slabs:
Walls framed up, waiting on a roof:
Ridge beam in place and rafters set...
It will have a roof skin and shingles by the end of the day Wednesday...
...and it sure is easier to stand around taking pictures and pointing at drawings rather than running a saw and climbing scaffolding.
And of course I get some credit for the design.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Government Tax Break For The Dead?
Gee...Thanks Uncle Sam...
I haven't mentioned it here on the Blog before, but right now I'm arguing with the IRS over my 2008 tax return.
I've already submitted a revised return which at first they accepted along with a plan for me to pay off the additional taxes owed over the next few months in installments instead of in lump sum.
So far so good...
Then this past weekend I got ANOTHER package of information from them challenging my revised/amended return and rehashing my options including offering yet another payment plan, and this time the amount I owe is less than I said even though they screwed up my moving expense calculation.
Any way, I was wading through the IRS website trying to figure out whether to just accept their calculation or continue the argument--because based on their logic I owe even less if I press a few points--or just sign the agreement and mail a check when I found this little passage...
Get this...if you die in 2010 and your employer continues to pay you for the calendar year because of how your contract is structured...THE IRS GETS TO CONTINUE TO COLLECT SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE TAXES EVEN THOUGH YOU ARE D E A D...
Deceased employee's wages. If an employee dies during the year, you must report the accrued wages, vacation pay, and other compensation paid after the date of death. Wages that were constructively received by the employee while he or she was alive are reported on Form W-2 as any other regular wage payment, even if you may have to reissue the payment in the name of the estate or beneficiary.
If you made the payment after the employee's death but in the same year the employee died, you must withhold social security and Medicare taxes on the payment and report the payment on the employee's Form W-2 only as social security and Medicare wages to ensure proper social security and Medicare credit is received.
...snip...
If you made the payment after the year of death, do not report it on Form W-2, and do not withhold social security and Medicare taxes.
Isn't that total crap?
Unless you have little kids or a wife who can collect suvivor benefits when you die, the government still swoops in in every case and continues to steal money from dead people...money which they know that they will never have to pay back out because the person is DEAD...all in the name of "Fairness" and "income redistribution."
I guess it really is like they say...nothing is certain except for death AND taxes...
I haven't mentioned it here on the Blog before, but right now I'm arguing with the IRS over my 2008 tax return.
I've already submitted a revised return which at first they accepted along with a plan for me to pay off the additional taxes owed over the next few months in installments instead of in lump sum.
So far so good...
Then this past weekend I got ANOTHER package of information from them challenging my revised/amended return and rehashing my options including offering yet another payment plan, and this time the amount I owe is less than I said even though they screwed up my moving expense calculation.
Any way, I was wading through the IRS website trying to figure out whether to just accept their calculation or continue the argument--because based on their logic I owe even less if I press a few points--or just sign the agreement and mail a check when I found this little passage...
Get this...if you die in 2010 and your employer continues to pay you for the calendar year because of how your contract is structured...THE IRS GETS TO CONTINUE TO COLLECT SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE TAXES EVEN THOUGH YOU ARE D E A D...
Deceased employee's wages. If an employee dies during the year, you must report the accrued wages, vacation pay, and other compensation paid after the date of death. Wages that were constructively received by the employee while he or she was alive are reported on Form W-2 as any other regular wage payment, even if you may have to reissue the payment in the name of the estate or beneficiary.
If you made the payment after the employee's death but in the same year the employee died, you must withhold social security and Medicare taxes on the payment and report the payment on the employee's Form W-2 only as social security and Medicare wages to ensure proper social security and Medicare credit is received.
...snip...
If you made the payment after the year of death, do not report it on Form W-2, and do not withhold social security and Medicare taxes.
Isn't that total crap?
Unless you have little kids or a wife who can collect suvivor benefits when you die, the government still swoops in in every case and continues to steal money from dead people...money which they know that they will never have to pay back out because the person is DEAD...all in the name of "Fairness" and "income redistribution."
I guess it really is like they say...nothing is certain except for death AND taxes...
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Put This In Your Pipe...
And SMOKE It...
I have a copy of the Qur'an on the way to my house via Amazon for the purposes oflighting my Webber Kettle reading the words directly, but over the past five or so years I have personally read a good deal of the passages referenced in this video from pages on the Internet and find it to be a valid reference:
Doesn't that make you shudder in your stocking feet?
I believe that we need to extinguish the lives of many of these Bastards following this radical form of Islam, and anything else short of victory...unlike the pussyifcation of America found during the Korean and Vietnam War, will result in our ultimate demise.
For this reason I am completely happy that I never had any children (because men like me knew better than to take on the responsibility and then not fulfill the promise), but I worry about my Sister's young boy--my Nephew Reagan--and the other Children and Grandchildren of friends and relatives and an infinite number of other kids and grand-kids and young adults which are threatened by this ever expanding, ever growing threat.
I'm just happy I'm 51 rather than 21...
This is serious SHIT in my opinion, and you can call me a racist or a bigot or just a stupid old, mean old, ever greying ever balding moron or whatever, but understand this...
I know how to aim a gun and shoot it.
I can tell the difference between shit and shineola.
I don't give a damn what you or your mother or Congress or the Supreme Court thinks.
At some point my life is worth less than the value of the idiocy I can stop in the process of giving up the few years left over in the name of peace and justice and the American Way.
It's just that simple...
I have a copy of the Qur'an on the way to my house via Amazon for the purposes of
Doesn't that make you shudder in your stocking feet?
I believe that we need to extinguish the lives of many of these Bastards following this radical form of Islam, and anything else short of victory...unlike the pussyifcation of America found during the Korean and Vietnam War, will result in our ultimate demise.
For this reason I am completely happy that I never had any children (because men like me knew better than to take on the responsibility and then not fulfill the promise), but I worry about my Sister's young boy--my Nephew Reagan--and the other Children and Grandchildren of friends and relatives and an infinite number of other kids and grand-kids and young adults which are threatened by this ever expanding, ever growing threat.
I'm just happy I'm 51 rather than 21...
This is serious SHIT in my opinion, and you can call me a racist or a bigot or just a stupid old, mean old, ever greying ever balding moron or whatever, but understand this...
I know how to aim a gun and shoot it.
I can tell the difference between shit and shineola.
I don't give a damn what you or your mother or Congress or the Supreme Court thinks.
At some point my life is worth less than the value of the idiocy I can stop in the process of giving up the few years left over in the name of peace and justice and the American Way.
It's just that simple...
