Suffering From Weather Forecasting Withdrawal Syndrome...
My regular readers probably remember that seven weeks ago today the Turbo Pup Compound was bombarded with not one but two massive hail storms which came through within a couple of hours of each other. (We had another exciting afternoon today with severe storms all around us and a couple more inches of rain coming down.)
Besides beating most of the little "gravelly thingies" off of the shingles on my roof, the earlier hail also made mince meat out of my freshly planted garden and destroyed a bird feeder and finally...
IT BROKE THE ANEMOMETER ON MY WIRELESS BACK YARD WEATHER STATION.
Seriously, it broke two of the three little "wind cups" off of the body of the weather vane telling me the wind speed and direction. Since that day I've been blind to what the wind is doing unless I actually walk outside and stick a moistened finger into the air stream.
So any way, I went to the trouble doing the original installation to design and build a 20' tall mast for the weather station components including a relative humidity sensor, a digital thermometer, and a self clearing rain gauge module, and although the rest of the system still works I don't want to abandon the wind speed measurement capability because that singular function is probably the most interesting thing it tells me unless we get 4 inches of rain in 15 minutes some day.
For some weird reason the manufacturer sells all of the replacement components...EXCEPT the anemometer... so I guess that later this summer I'm going to be forced to buy another entire system from them to replace the Hail damaged component.
If I hold out and play my cards right I have a birthday coming up in September--Pat gave me the existing system as a present for Christmas a few years ago--and now I have my eye on a similar upgraded compatible system by the same manufacturer which will work in parallel with the existing components and will allow me to connect the incoming data stream to one of my spare laptop computers.
Before you know it I wouldn't be surprised if representatives of NASA and NOAA could be stopping by my house and Jim Cantori with the Weather Channel would come calling to get free copies of my local weather data base and interview me on "Storm Stories" some evening.
Until then, I have to go now and continue my shopping and weather metrics system design efforts...Y'all have a LOVELY day now...If you will...
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Seasonal Synapse Based Funk
Having A Hard Time Mentally These Days...
There's a crap load of stuff out there in my life that needs tending to right now, but circumstances are keeping me sequestered here in Eastern Tennessee for the moment while a good deal of the things needing doing are situated elsewhere on the planet.
For instance, my Mom's having minor surgery later today and I'm not able to make a trip to Lower Alabama to supervise and lend moral support, and there's other things which could probably benefit from my attention but the realities of cost and geographic location prevent me from doing anything but extending my good wishes long distance.
I hate to admit that I find it difficult bearing the responsibility of being the second oldest male on my Father's side of the Family Tree these days.
It's hard to just sit by and watch people doing stuff by themselves when my Father or Grandfather or Uncle would normally rush to the scene and take charge of the proceedings.
I guess that at least it doesn't reflect entirely negatively on me that I don't at least consider my situation, but my ability to respond in a positive manner over the past few years is a bit depressing.
I think I smell my pasta sauce burning, so I have to go now and feed my face.
Regards Y'all...
There's a crap load of stuff out there in my life that needs tending to right now, but circumstances are keeping me sequestered here in Eastern Tennessee for the moment while a good deal of the things needing doing are situated elsewhere on the planet.
For instance, my Mom's having minor surgery later today and I'm not able to make a trip to Lower Alabama to supervise and lend moral support, and there's other things which could probably benefit from my attention but the realities of cost and geographic location prevent me from doing anything but extending my good wishes long distance.
I hate to admit that I find it difficult bearing the responsibility of being the second oldest male on my Father's side of the Family Tree these days.
It's hard to just sit by and watch people doing stuff by themselves when my Father or Grandfather or Uncle would normally rush to the scene and take charge of the proceedings.
I guess that at least it doesn't reflect entirely negatively on me that I don't at least consider my situation, but my ability to respond in a positive manner over the past few years is a bit depressing.
I think I smell my pasta sauce burning, so I have to go now and feed my face.
Regards Y'all...
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
1000 Days
Get Ready If You Live On The Atlantic Or Gulf Coast...
So I'm sitting here this morning trying to finish up some technical crap with one hand and eyeball while watching my live streaming cable TV feed on my computer with my other eye--this time tuned to the NBC owned hysterical "Weather Channel"--and I noticed that they mentioned that it has been over 1000 days since we had a land falling Hurricane here in the US.
Pretty cool...Huh?
Almost three whole years without a hurricane on shore in the good old US of A.
Not unprecedented...but still...
And of course the sniveling, booger eating, tree hugging, Kumbaya singing, tye died Global Warming idiots absolutely hate this kind of weather pattern because it does not fit the template which they are trying to use to force our government to pass legislation taking more of our money and giving it to the United Nations and other ill conceived causes working against "climate change."
...and Further...if it wasn't for the current real estate bust...
...it would also be three years where people would have been flocking to the shores between Dolphin Island, Alabama and Apalachicola, Florida and on around through Cedar Key...down past Sannibell and Captiva and Port Charlotte and Boca Grande and Key West and then north toward the Outer banks of North Carolina buying houses and condos laying within a few hundred yards of the high tide line.
BUT DO YOU REALLY KNOW WHAT THAT STATISTIC PROBABLY MEANS?
I guarandamntee you that this season--sometime most likely out there in late July or August and most definitely in September--Mother Nature will likely deliver to the wild eyed "Owl Gore Man Made Global Warming Alarmists" some ample News fodder so they can stand around in front of TV cameras and microphones blubbering stuff like this...
"we was totally surprised that that there ocean jumped up and flooded out our trailer while the wind blew down our satellite dish and took the roof off of grandma's double wide next door..."
I say that the past three years are just normal years on the calendar, just like the years in the mid late 1990's with Hurricane Opal and the mid 2000's with Katrina were also normal years with "above average" tropical activity.
Hear me now and Understand me later if you must...
Heat energy will constantly and endlessly re-distribute itself in our atmosphere...whether it is local phenomena like Thunderstorms/Hail/tornadoes or Tropical Depressions/Storms/Hurricanes.
And if you want to stay away from all of that kind of crap...MOVE TO ALASKA AND RISK FREEZING TO DEATH.
Otherwise, shut the heck up and deal with the prospects.
And now if you will excuse me I have to go now and continue planning my Hurricane Tour 2011 beach trip...
Regards Y'all...
So I'm sitting here this morning trying to finish up some technical crap with one hand and eyeball while watching my live streaming cable TV feed on my computer with my other eye--this time tuned to the NBC owned hysterical "Weather Channel"--and I noticed that they mentioned that it has been over 1000 days since we had a land falling Hurricane here in the US.
Pretty cool...Huh?
Almost three whole years without a hurricane on shore in the good old US of A.
Not unprecedented...but still...
And of course the sniveling, booger eating, tree hugging, Kumbaya singing, tye died Global Warming idiots absolutely hate this kind of weather pattern because it does not fit the template which they are trying to use to force our government to pass legislation taking more of our money and giving it to the United Nations and other ill conceived causes working against "climate change."
...and Further...if it wasn't for the current real estate bust...
...it would also be three years where people would have been flocking to the shores between Dolphin Island, Alabama and Apalachicola, Florida and on around through Cedar Key...down past Sannibell and Captiva and Port Charlotte and Boca Grande and Key West and then north toward the Outer banks of North Carolina buying houses and condos laying within a few hundred yards of the high tide line.
BUT DO YOU REALLY KNOW WHAT THAT STATISTIC PROBABLY MEANS?
I guarandamntee you that this season--sometime most likely out there in late July or August and most definitely in September--Mother Nature will likely deliver to the wild eyed "Owl Gore Man Made Global Warming Alarmists" some ample News fodder so they can stand around in front of TV cameras and microphones blubbering stuff like this...
"we was totally surprised that that there ocean jumped up and flooded out our trailer while the wind blew down our satellite dish and took the roof off of grandma's double wide next door..."
I say that the past three years are just normal years on the calendar, just like the years in the mid late 1990's with Hurricane Opal and the mid 2000's with Katrina were also normal years with "above average" tropical activity.
Hear me now and Understand me later if you must...
Heat energy will constantly and endlessly re-distribute itself in our atmosphere...whether it is local phenomena like Thunderstorms/Hail/tornadoes or Tropical Depressions/Storms/Hurricanes.
And if you want to stay away from all of that kind of crap...MOVE TO ALASKA AND RISK FREEZING TO DEATH.
Otherwise, shut the heck up and deal with the prospects.
And now if you will excuse me I have to go now and continue planning my Hurricane Tour 2011 beach trip...
Regards Y'all...
Monday, June 13, 2011
"Pizza Eureka!"
Another "Small Step Giant Leap For Mankind" Made In My Humble Kitchen...
As I've written many times before here on this blog and over on my much neglected cooking blog, The Redneck Gourmet, I spend a good deal of time attempting to master the art of cooking Pizza in a home oven.
It's been slow progress over the past ten years.
First there were the issues of the design and consistency of the dough.
Then later I moved off of a metal Pizza Pan in favor of a Pizza stone--today owning two very well seasoned stones.
And then toppings and sauce and so on have been areas of interest through the ages of experimentation, and now with my efforts approaching something in the numbers...a guestimate of around 400 to 500 crusts later...the actual progress has slowed to a snails pace.
That said, that doesn't mean things are bad around here on Pizza night in my household, because the actual QUALITY of my home made Pizzas--dough/crust and sauce--I'd put up against almost any Pizzaria found anywhere in the country.
I guarandamntee you that 9 out of 10 of my Pizza efforts yield a Pizza Pie better than anything made by Pizza Hut and Dominoes and Pappa Johns and most of the local pizza houses in your area...
EXCEPT...
when it comes to really thin crust Pizza in general and when the restaurant kitchen is running a real wood fired pizza oven.
You see, by cooking a pizza in a real pizza oven they are able to attain temperatures between 700 and 800 degrees Fahrenheit, while in my home oven I'm only able to get up to between 500 and 550 degrees F, and that temperature limitation makes all of the difference in the world when it comes to getting the right "crispy crunch" on Pizza Crust.
So any way, I cooked a standard crust Pizza last Thursday Night, and as usual we had a little less than half of it left over.
Then Sunday night I was going to re-heat the left over which had been wrapped tightly in aluminum foil sitting in the fridge since, when I got a wild hair and decided to make a quick test Pizza with a rapid dough rise and attempt another thin crust experiment.
I normally let my dough proof for over two hours including a small batch pre-rise starter ( see my recipe here ), but on this effort I just tossed the yeast into some warm water, let it foam up, then mixed it all together with the salt and white pepper and the rest of the flour and stepped back from the process while "nature took its course."
In the mean time I was Googling around for some ideas on getting my Pizza stone pre-heated in the oven at 550 degrees F while being able to roll out the dough and put the pizza together on another stone or pan, then somehow sliding the finished pizza off onto the hot stone in the oven...without using a Pizza Peal. (I'm buying a wooden Pizza Peal--or paddle--as we speak.)
In the process I tripped over this couples' web site called "Cookography.com" where they told me something I had never thought of in cooking Pizza.
PARCHMENT PAPER.
I knew that bakers used parchment paper in spring form pans and on cookie sheets to keep things from sticking while cooking in the oven, but I never thought about the idea of using the stuff under a pizza crust before.
So any way, I finished up my pizza with a quick hour rise, tossed and wrestled the dough around and rolled it out real thin, then I built the pizza on a stone on top of a wide sheet of parchment paper cut to size while my other stone sat in the oven at 550 degrees F getting smoking hot.
Then with Pat's assistance I picked up the Pizza stone with the raw pizza on top and moved it over to the smoking hot stone sitting on the bottom rack of the oven and grabbed the edges of the parchment paper and the Pizza slid right off into place on the hot stone.
Then you know what we had only TEN MINUTES LATER?
The BEST DANG CRISPY THIN CRUST PIZZA that's ever come out of my kitchen.
I'm SERIOUS.
I'm tempted to cook Pizza every day for the next month...but I can't...
...because I ran out of yeast in that effort (I usually only buy three to six packs at a time to keep them fresh.)
So later tomorrow I'm heading back to the grocery store for more yeast and possibly some different flour.
Rumor has it that the King Arthur Blue Bread Flour like I'm using for my thick crust is inferior to plain King Arthur Red Multipurpose Flour for thin Pizza crust because of the differences in gluten content and the amount of moisture it will hold...but that detail is beyond the scope of this discussion and you need to catch up with me if you want to start arguing things like Gluten while making Pizza.
Regardless, I really think that I'm on to something here with the Parchment paper idea supporting a good thin crust pizza in a 550 degree F oven. Now I have to cook it another half dozen times in the name of science to prove my theory.
Feel free to stop by about 7 PM tomorrow night for a sample...and so much for losing weight this summer I guess, you know?
As I've written many times before here on this blog and over on my much neglected cooking blog, The Redneck Gourmet, I spend a good deal of time attempting to master the art of cooking Pizza in a home oven.
It's been slow progress over the past ten years.
First there were the issues of the design and consistency of the dough.
Then later I moved off of a metal Pizza Pan in favor of a Pizza stone--today owning two very well seasoned stones.
And then toppings and sauce and so on have been areas of interest through the ages of experimentation, and now with my efforts approaching something in the numbers...a guestimate of around 400 to 500 crusts later...the actual progress has slowed to a snails pace.
That said, that doesn't mean things are bad around here on Pizza night in my household, because the actual QUALITY of my home made Pizzas--dough/crust and sauce--I'd put up against almost any Pizzaria found anywhere in the country.
I guarandamntee you that 9 out of 10 of my Pizza efforts yield a Pizza Pie better than anything made by Pizza Hut and Dominoes and Pappa Johns and most of the local pizza houses in your area...
EXCEPT...
when it comes to really thin crust Pizza in general and when the restaurant kitchen is running a real wood fired pizza oven.
You see, by cooking a pizza in a real pizza oven they are able to attain temperatures between 700 and 800 degrees Fahrenheit, while in my home oven I'm only able to get up to between 500 and 550 degrees F, and that temperature limitation makes all of the difference in the world when it comes to getting the right "crispy crunch" on Pizza Crust.
So any way, I cooked a standard crust Pizza last Thursday Night, and as usual we had a little less than half of it left over.
Then Sunday night I was going to re-heat the left over which had been wrapped tightly in aluminum foil sitting in the fridge since, when I got a wild hair and decided to make a quick test Pizza with a rapid dough rise and attempt another thin crust experiment.
I normally let my dough proof for over two hours including a small batch pre-rise starter ( see my recipe here ), but on this effort I just tossed the yeast into some warm water, let it foam up, then mixed it all together with the salt and white pepper and the rest of the flour and stepped back from the process while "nature took its course."
In the mean time I was Googling around for some ideas on getting my Pizza stone pre-heated in the oven at 550 degrees F while being able to roll out the dough and put the pizza together on another stone or pan, then somehow sliding the finished pizza off onto the hot stone in the oven...without using a Pizza Peal. (I'm buying a wooden Pizza Peal--or paddle--as we speak.)
In the process I tripped over this couples' web site called "Cookography.com" where they told me something I had never thought of in cooking Pizza.
PARCHMENT PAPER.
I knew that bakers used parchment paper in spring form pans and on cookie sheets to keep things from sticking while cooking in the oven, but I never thought about the idea of using the stuff under a pizza crust before.
So any way, I finished up my pizza with a quick hour rise, tossed and wrestled the dough around and rolled it out real thin, then I built the pizza on a stone on top of a wide sheet of parchment paper cut to size while my other stone sat in the oven at 550 degrees F getting smoking hot.
Then with Pat's assistance I picked up the Pizza stone with the raw pizza on top and moved it over to the smoking hot stone sitting on the bottom rack of the oven and grabbed the edges of the parchment paper and the Pizza slid right off into place on the hot stone.
Then you know what we had only TEN MINUTES LATER?
The BEST DANG CRISPY THIN CRUST PIZZA that's ever come out of my kitchen.
I'm SERIOUS.
I'm tempted to cook Pizza every day for the next month...but I can't...
...because I ran out of yeast in that effort (I usually only buy three to six packs at a time to keep them fresh.)
So later tomorrow I'm heading back to the grocery store for more yeast and possibly some different flour.
Rumor has it that the King Arthur Blue Bread Flour like I'm using for my thick crust is inferior to plain King Arthur Red Multipurpose Flour for thin Pizza crust because of the differences in gluten content and the amount of moisture it will hold...but that detail is beyond the scope of this discussion and you need to catch up with me if you want to start arguing things like Gluten while making Pizza.
Regardless, I really think that I'm on to something here with the Parchment paper idea supporting a good thin crust pizza in a 550 degree F oven. Now I have to cook it another half dozen times in the name of science to prove my theory.
Feel free to stop by about 7 PM tomorrow night for a sample...and so much for losing weight this summer I guess, you know?
The Wussification Of America--Part Deaux
They've Even Screwed Up The Soapbox Derby Races?
Have I ever mentioned that way back in the summer of 1968 I gained my first and only experience as a winning race car driver?
That's true.
That year I won 3rd place in the local Soapbox Derby Races conducted by our Cub Scout troop down in Ozark, Alabama.
Two of my idols at that time were Richard Petty who had won the 1967 "Grand National" (later called the Winston Cup and now called the Sprint Cup) and Mario Andrette who won the Indianapolis 500 race the following year.
And in between wanting to be a brain surgeon, a fry cook, and arocket scientist astronaut, with the Soapbox Derby it was a good deal easier to design and build a race car powered by something free--GRAVITY--and our town had such an event annually.
All you had to do was pay your entry fee which included the two "regulation" round steel axles and four "official approved" spoked rubber tires, and EVERYTHING ELSE WAS UP TO YOU (AND YOUR DAD.)
So we paid our fee and dragged the tires and axles home.
Then Dad got out his ruler and pencil and we measured my butt and my head and my legs and my arms and the design for a custom car took shape on paper.
Then after a trip to the local hardware store/lumber yard (there was no Home Depot or even Ace hardware back then in Lower Alabama) we came home with a couple of sheets of plywood, some 2x4's and screws and nails and commandeered the garage.
Our new 1968 Chevy Nomad Station Wagon was relegated to the driveway while we made sawdust and epoxy resin fumes inside, and a couple of weeks later we rolled out our "Richard Petty Blue" colored Race Car.
It had real "STP Oil Treatment" decals and my custom stenciled number (I think that it was #2) on the tail fin. (Yes my car had a tail fin in addition to a real hand laid fiberglass hood and nose cone.)
The details are a little fuzzy since all of this happened 43 years ago now, but on a Saturday morning we loaded my car and my other racing stuff (tools and "3 in 1 oil" and powdered graphite "lubricant") and headed over to the entry street of my school--the "recently constructed Harry N. Mixon Elementary."
There were twenty or twenty five other entrants that year, and after much "heeing and hawing" and final fine tuning of the racing machines and other mandatory "pomp and circumstance" the racing began...in two car heats based on a random drawing of positions, and when it was all said and done...
four or five races later I was the driver in the third place car.
The guy that beat me...my neighbor little George Dennis who was a year younger and 25 pounds lighter, won first place so I can't complain.
I have to admit that I took more pride in the effort, accomplishments, and achievement associated with that event--THE SOAPBOX DERBY--for YEARS afterwards than I have in many...MANY...many more profitable things I've done later in life.
Fast forward today...
YOU KNOW WHAT THEY'VE DONE?
The freaking snivelling, booger eating, tie died, patchouli stinking politically correct Liberals have totally screwed up the Soapbox Derby just like NASCAR has converted their races into generic events featuring cars which all look alike except under the hood and in regard to their paint colors.
First back in the 1980's they demanded that the girls get to race.
FINE.
If they can win bring them on.
Look at the Indy 500 and NASCAR today...and look at the success of women and "minorities" given an equal playing field and the realities of actually having to hold on to the steering wheel going 200 MPH for three or four hours.
THEY CAN'T DO IT IN SPITE OF OUR SOCIETY'S BEST EFFORTS TO ALLOW THEM TO WIN!
And now apparently this politically correct "societal engineering experiment" has been extended to the Soapbox Derby.
I was asleep at the Helm and not paying attention, but I am incensed at the prospects...
Now apparently they have decided that it is unfair that I had an aptitude at age 8 to scratch build model airplanes which fly and had a Army Test Pilot Father that could help me design and build a car to fit my body that could be competitive.
Nooo0000...'taint fair because so many of today's "chirrun" in today's world don't have fathers at home and their mother's and their mothers' "significant others" aren't injuneers...
"WE GOT TO LEVEL THE PLAYING FIELD...dammit"
So you know what the "All American Soapbox Derby" demands today?
You can't get out your pencil.
You can't get out your tape measure.
You can't get out your paper and calculator.
NoooooOOOOOOOO Sireeee.
You can't design and build your own car with hand stenciled letters and tail fins and custom hand laid fiberglass hoods and nose cones.
YOU HAVE TO SPEND MONEY AND BUY A STANDARD...
OFFICIAL SOAPBOX DERBY CAR K I T.
To the tune of between $500 and $650 delivered.
You can't even paint the basic kit...you have to buy it pre colored...other children might feel inferior if you show up with a custom "Richard Petty Blue" paint job with air brushed and pin stripped flames.
And even on the fancier kit there are a crap load of rules and regulations.
And in the instruction they say you can build the basic kit in 4 to 6 hours.
The fancy kit?
A little more time but still...we spent a couple of WEEKs designing and building our car's (there was actually a second car the next year that only placed fifth--out of the trophy standings)
Sorry Ladies and Gentlemen, but I think that they've organized and legislated the original concepts and intentions out of this process just like all the Liberal "do-gooders" do with everything else they get their stinking hands on the past quarter/half century.
What happened to the ideas of originality and innovation and competition?
It's not about people's FEELINGS...PARENTS OR Child's.
It's about the realities of competition and winning, in my considered Redneck opinion.
No wonder so many of today's kids not only can't read and write and do basic math...
...but they also don't understand how to really be creative and make something better that is worth getting paid to construct.
Just showing up at work is only a quarter of the process...you have to actually PRODUCE SOMETHING which is worth more to your company than they pay you in order to justfy keeping you employed.
So many people...especially UNION morons and Government Employees...don't understand that fundamental concept.
I swear Ladies and Gentlemen...we get exactly what we ask for these days when we ask for it.
We're currently raising by and large a generation of mindless, limp wristed, pansy assed government educated IDIOTS unable to think and fend for themselves because of things like this...letting the rules cause shear luck to determine the outcome of what should be a technical endeavor.
This is exactly why as of this summer with the final Shuttle launch the US will be unable to launch a Human Being into Space...and it's just a crying freaking shame.
I'm sorry, but I have to go now before my head explodes...
Have I ever mentioned that way back in the summer of 1968 I gained my first and only experience as a winning race car driver?
That's true.
That year I won 3rd place in the local Soapbox Derby Races conducted by our Cub Scout troop down in Ozark, Alabama.
Two of my idols at that time were Richard Petty who had won the 1967 "Grand National" (later called the Winston Cup and now called the Sprint Cup) and Mario Andrette who won the Indianapolis 500 race the following year.
And in between wanting to be a brain surgeon, a fry cook, and a
All you had to do was pay your entry fee which included the two "regulation" round steel axles and four "official approved" spoked rubber tires, and EVERYTHING ELSE WAS UP TO YOU (AND YOUR DAD.)
So we paid our fee and dragged the tires and axles home.
Then Dad got out his ruler and pencil and we measured my butt and my head and my legs and my arms and the design for a custom car took shape on paper.
Then after a trip to the local hardware store/lumber yard (there was no Home Depot or even Ace hardware back then in Lower Alabama) we came home with a couple of sheets of plywood, some 2x4's and screws and nails and commandeered the garage.
Our new 1968 Chevy Nomad Station Wagon was relegated to the driveway while we made sawdust and epoxy resin fumes inside, and a couple of weeks later we rolled out our "Richard Petty Blue" colored Race Car.
It had real "STP Oil Treatment" decals and my custom stenciled number (I think that it was #2) on the tail fin. (Yes my car had a tail fin in addition to a real hand laid fiberglass hood and nose cone.)
The details are a little fuzzy since all of this happened 43 years ago now, but on a Saturday morning we loaded my car and my other racing stuff (tools and "3 in 1 oil" and powdered graphite "lubricant") and headed over to the entry street of my school--the "recently constructed Harry N. Mixon Elementary."
There were twenty or twenty five other entrants that year, and after much "heeing and hawing" and final fine tuning of the racing machines and other mandatory "pomp and circumstance" the racing began...in two car heats based on a random drawing of positions, and when it was all said and done...
four or five races later I was the driver in the third place car.
The guy that beat me...my neighbor little George Dennis who was a year younger and 25 pounds lighter, won first place so I can't complain.
I have to admit that I took more pride in the effort, accomplishments, and achievement associated with that event--THE SOAPBOX DERBY--for YEARS afterwards than I have in many...MANY...many more profitable things I've done later in life.
Fast forward today...
YOU KNOW WHAT THEY'VE DONE?
The freaking snivelling, booger eating, tie died, patchouli stinking politically correct Liberals have totally screwed up the Soapbox Derby just like NASCAR has converted their races into generic events featuring cars which all look alike except under the hood and in regard to their paint colors.
First back in the 1980's they demanded that the girls get to race.
FINE.
If they can win bring them on.
Look at the Indy 500 and NASCAR today...and look at the success of women and "minorities" given an equal playing field and the realities of actually having to hold on to the steering wheel going 200 MPH for three or four hours.
THEY CAN'T DO IT IN SPITE OF OUR SOCIETY'S BEST EFFORTS TO ALLOW THEM TO WIN!
And now apparently this politically correct "societal engineering experiment" has been extended to the Soapbox Derby.
I was asleep at the Helm and not paying attention, but I am incensed at the prospects...
Now apparently they have decided that it is unfair that I had an aptitude at age 8 to scratch build model airplanes which fly and had a Army Test Pilot Father that could help me design and build a car to fit my body that could be competitive.
Nooo0000...'taint fair because so many of today's "chirrun" in today's world don't have fathers at home and their mother's and their mothers' "significant others" aren't injuneers...
"WE GOT TO LEVEL THE PLAYING FIELD...dammit"
So you know what the "All American Soapbox Derby" demands today?
You can't get out your pencil.
You can't get out your tape measure.
You can't get out your paper and calculator.
NoooooOOOOOOOO Sireeee.
You can't design and build your own car with hand stenciled letters and tail fins and custom hand laid fiberglass hoods and nose cones.
YOU HAVE TO SPEND MONEY AND BUY A STANDARD...
OFFICIAL SOAPBOX DERBY CAR K I T.
To the tune of between $500 and $650 delivered.
You can't even paint the basic kit...you have to buy it pre colored...other children might feel inferior if you show up with a custom "Richard Petty Blue" paint job with air brushed and pin stripped flames.
And even on the fancier kit there are a crap load of rules and regulations.
And in the instruction they say you can build the basic kit in 4 to 6 hours.
The fancy kit?
A little more time but still...we spent a couple of WEEKs designing and building our car's (there was actually a second car the next year that only placed fifth--out of the trophy standings)
Sorry Ladies and Gentlemen, but I think that they've organized and legislated the original concepts and intentions out of this process just like all the Liberal "do-gooders" do with everything else they get their stinking hands on the past quarter/half century.
What happened to the ideas of originality and innovation and competition?
It's not about people's FEELINGS...PARENTS OR Child's.
It's about the realities of competition and winning, in my considered Redneck opinion.
No wonder so many of today's kids not only can't read and write and do basic math...
...but they also don't understand how to really be creative and make something better that is worth getting paid to construct.
Just showing up at work is only a quarter of the process...you have to actually PRODUCE SOMETHING which is worth more to your company than they pay you in order to justfy keeping you employed.
So many people...especially UNION morons and Government Employees...don't understand that fundamental concept.
I swear Ladies and Gentlemen...we get exactly what we ask for these days when we ask for it.
We're currently raising by and large a generation of mindless, limp wristed, pansy assed government educated IDIOTS unable to think and fend for themselves because of things like this...letting the rules cause shear luck to determine the outcome of what should be a technical endeavor.
This is exactly why as of this summer with the final Shuttle launch the US will be unable to launch a Human Being into Space...and it's just a crying freaking shame.
I'm sorry, but I have to go now before my head explodes...
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Just Wait Until The Gouverm't Runs Your Doctor's Office
"Mr. Rogers...Follow Me..."
Check out this latest crap that the latest so called "professional" TSA agents at an airport are responsible for..."
A Detroit father said agents with the Transportation Security Administration singled out his special-needs son for a pat-down while the family was headed to Disney World, MyFoxDetroit.com reported, an incident that the TSA admitted was a “case of bad judgment.”
David Mandy said agents at Detroit Metro Airport took his son Drew, 29, and asked him about the padding underneath his pants, which turned out to be adult diapers. Drew, who is severely mentally disabled, had trouble understanding the agents’ orders because his family said he has the mental capacity of a 2-year-old.\
When the father tried to intervene and explain Drew’s disability, he said the two agents said, “Please, sir, we know what we’re doing.”
The agents confiscated a six-inch plastic hammer, something Drew had carried with him for 20 years for comfort. Agents called it a security threat, his father said, adding that they tapped the wall with it and said, “See, it’s hard. It could be used as a weapon.”
I swear I'm at risk of getting myself locked up at an airport before it's all over with if they keep going like this...
Is it just me?
Check out this latest crap that the latest so called "professional" TSA agents at an airport are responsible for..."
A Detroit father said agents with the Transportation Security Administration singled out his special-needs son for a pat-down while the family was headed to Disney World, MyFoxDetroit.com reported, an incident that the TSA admitted was a “case of bad judgment.”
David Mandy said agents at Detroit Metro Airport took his son Drew, 29, and asked him about the padding underneath his pants, which turned out to be adult diapers. Drew, who is severely mentally disabled, had trouble understanding the agents’ orders because his family said he has the mental capacity of a 2-year-old.\
When the father tried to intervene and explain Drew’s disability, he said the two agents said, “Please, sir, we know what we’re doing.”
The agents confiscated a six-inch plastic hammer, something Drew had carried with him for 20 years for comfort. Agents called it a security threat, his father said, adding that they tapped the wall with it and said, “See, it’s hard. It could be used as a weapon.”
I swear I'm at risk of getting myself locked up at an airport before it's all over with if they keep going like this...
Is it just me?
The "Wussification" Of America
Excuse Me While I Stick My Finger In A Light Socket...
I swear that we can't legislate away Darwin's theory of "Survival of the Fittest"...
But our 'Gumment' Schrools keep on trying any way...
Check out this story where a couple of high school brothers were setting record time runs around the track when the idiots what be in charge stopped the race with one lap left because their "lightening detectors went off...
Talk about being stopped in your tracks ...
Joe Rosa, one of the top high school distance runners in the country, appeared to be on his way to breaking the New Jersey state record in the 3,200-meter run with a time worthy of being on the all-time national list when he was literally forced off the track by meet officials with one lap to go due to weather concerns.
Andrew Mills/The Star-Ledger
Meet officials force Joe Rosa off the track due to weather concerns. Rosa had one lap left of what appeared to be a record-breaking run in the 3,200.
Officials with the New Jersey Interscholastic State Athletic Association halted the eight-lap race as Rosa was preparing for his final lap, because lightning had been detected in the area. The meet was being held in Old Bridge, N.J.
NJSIAA officials made it clear: Rules dictate all events are halted and the competitors and fans must immediately leave the area if lightning is detected.
They would have had to pry mybeer Coke out of my hand and arrested me twenty years ago to get me to leave the facility with one lap left in a race.
Today...maybe not so much...
...because I'm too old and tired of arguing with morons to give much of a damn any more...
...but still...
I swear that we can't legislate away Darwin's theory of "Survival of the Fittest"...
But our 'Gumment' Schrools keep on trying any way...
Check out this story where a couple of high school brothers were setting record time runs around the track when the idiots what be in charge stopped the race with one lap left because their "lightening detectors went off...
Talk about being stopped in your tracks ...
Joe Rosa, one of the top high school distance runners in the country, appeared to be on his way to breaking the New Jersey state record in the 3,200-meter run with a time worthy of being on the all-time national list when he was literally forced off the track by meet officials with one lap to go due to weather concerns.
Andrew Mills/The Star-Ledger
Meet officials force Joe Rosa off the track due to weather concerns. Rosa had one lap left of what appeared to be a record-breaking run in the 3,200.
Officials with the New Jersey Interscholastic State Athletic Association halted the eight-lap race as Rosa was preparing for his final lap, because lightning had been detected in the area. The meet was being held in Old Bridge, N.J.
NJSIAA officials made it clear: Rules dictate all events are halted and the competitors and fans must immediately leave the area if lightning is detected.
They would have had to pry my
Today...maybe not so much...
...because I'm too old and tired of arguing with morons to give much of a damn any more...
...but still...
Thursday, June 09, 2011
Not Much Going On Around Here
...At Least Not Worth Talking/Writing About...
I spent another three hours wrestling with homeowners insurance related issues yesterday--trying to get decent pricing coming even close to matching the ridiculous low ball number which the State Farm "insurance adjuster" has thrown at me over a month ago.
It's been all I can do to restrain myself from grabbing hold of the little sucker and doing some "adjusting" of my own on his head and arms.
I'm really tired of wasting my time on such a simple project as this--getting a hail storm damaged roof replaced.
I guess that the main result which has come out of this irritating convoluted process is a vivid reminder of how inane and inept sales people are that are forced to deal with the "public" on a day in day out basis.
I've spent tens of millions of dollars personally/professionally through the years doing complicated industrial design and construction projects and I'm here to tell you that 99% of the idiots which have shown up at my door or that I've talked to on the telephone about replacing a simple roof would be escorted out of my office or kicked off of my job site the second they opened their mouths to utter a broken incorrect sentence if they were trying to sell products/services in the industrial/commercial market.
Not to insult my regular and "drive-by" readers because I know that if you are here longer than five seconds each day that you are by and large of a intelligent conservative bent...
But still...in a "chicken and egg" kind of question...I have to ask this.
I don't know if it's that the people in the consumer sales profession just start out feckless and stupid to begin with...
...or if it's a matter of dealing with the public all day every day--a group (the public) in this country many of which are becoming dumber and dumber on an ongoing basis--which causes them (thesalesmen sales persons) to be and act that way (stupid).
"Stupid is as stupid does" to quote Forrest Gump...but is "Stupid also contagious?"
Any way, I'm pretty much annoyed as heck at the entire process and ready to bring it all to a conclusion shortly. To that end, I finally found a company yesterday and if they can do what they say and get the insurance company to agree with their price, they have the job.
They're the same people that put our next door neighbor's roof on over two weeks ago without any heartburn for Danny.
In other news, I couldn't care less about the Weiner's weiner photo story any more. I've seen the photos over on gawker.com and my philosophy of "if you've seen one prick you've basically seen them all" still applies.
The little bastard should just resign and slither on back home if his wife will let him and let the country and the world and the media get on with worrying about something that really matters in the big picture (no pun intended.)
It's still hotter than a blast furnace and dryer than the Sahara Desert around here in Eastern Tennessee. We're having to water the plants and the garden every day and now the front lawn is starting to dry up and needs to see a sprinkler out on it shortly if we don't get some rain.
Even the Turbo Pup has been sitting inside instead of lounging out on her spot on the deck after about 10 AM each day. You have to wear flip flops because even the pressure treated wood will burn the bottoms of your feet.
I could use about a week on St. Simons Island--where it's ten degrees cooler each day recently--right now to recharge my spirits, but that's pretty much out of the question right now due to funding considerations.
That said, I guess I'll go take a nap for a few hours so I can get up early and plant another load of Tomato and Pepper plants before the thermometer hits 80 degrees.
I trust that you will have a LOVELY day, and regards Y'all...
I spent another three hours wrestling with homeowners insurance related issues yesterday--trying to get decent pricing coming even close to matching the ridiculous low ball number which the State Farm "insurance adjuster" has thrown at me over a month ago.
It's been all I can do to restrain myself from grabbing hold of the little sucker and doing some "adjusting" of my own on his head and arms.
I'm really tired of wasting my time on such a simple project as this--getting a hail storm damaged roof replaced.
I guess that the main result which has come out of this irritating convoluted process is a vivid reminder of how inane and inept sales people are that are forced to deal with the "public" on a day in day out basis.
I've spent tens of millions of dollars personally/professionally through the years doing complicated industrial design and construction projects and I'm here to tell you that 99% of the idiots which have shown up at my door or that I've talked to on the telephone about replacing a simple roof would be escorted out of my office or kicked off of my job site the second they opened their mouths to utter a broken incorrect sentence if they were trying to sell products/services in the industrial/commercial market.
Not to insult my regular and "drive-by" readers because I know that if you are here longer than five seconds each day that you are by and large of a intelligent conservative bent...
But still...in a "chicken and egg" kind of question...I have to ask this.
I don't know if it's that the people in the consumer sales profession just start out feckless and stupid to begin with...
...or if it's a matter of dealing with the public all day every day--a group (the public) in this country many of which are becoming dumber and dumber on an ongoing basis--which causes them (the
"Stupid is as stupid does" to quote Forrest Gump...but is "Stupid also contagious?"
Any way, I'm pretty much annoyed as heck at the entire process and ready to bring it all to a conclusion shortly. To that end, I finally found a company yesterday and if they can do what they say and get the insurance company to agree with their price, they have the job.
They're the same people that put our next door neighbor's roof on over two weeks ago without any heartburn for Danny.
In other news, I couldn't care less about the Weiner's weiner photo story any more. I've seen the photos over on gawker.com and my philosophy of "if you've seen one prick you've basically seen them all" still applies.
The little bastard should just resign and slither on back home if his wife will let him and let the country and the world and the media get on with worrying about something that really matters in the big picture (no pun intended.)
It's still hotter than a blast furnace and dryer than the Sahara Desert around here in Eastern Tennessee. We're having to water the plants and the garden every day and now the front lawn is starting to dry up and needs to see a sprinkler out on it shortly if we don't get some rain.
Even the Turbo Pup has been sitting inside instead of lounging out on her spot on the deck after about 10 AM each day. You have to wear flip flops because even the pressure treated wood will burn the bottoms of your feet.
I could use about a week on St. Simons Island--where it's ten degrees cooler each day recently--right now to recharge my spirits, but that's pretty much out of the question right now due to funding considerations.
That said, I guess I'll go take a nap for a few hours so I can get up early and plant another load of Tomato and Pepper plants before the thermometer hits 80 degrees.
I trust that you will have a LOVELY day, and regards Y'all...
Wednesday, June 08, 2011
...And In Local News...
So I see where the University of By-God Tennessee allowed their so-called "Athletic Director"...some idiot named Mike Hamilton to resign yesterday.
Big Mike gets almost $1,400,000 just to go away after presiding over a string of miscues and miss-steps and hiring and firing of Coaches and recruiting of various and sundry gangster Negro's and White Boys which have made me laugh my ass off at the collective "Student Athletes" and the "Athlitic Programs" here in Knoxtown.
The good news is that I guess that you can't refer to me as a "Tennessee Athletic Supporter" or a "Jock Strap Sniffer In General" or any other term or phraseology generally directed in the direction of people that give a flying shit about sports these days.
At this point in my life, I admit that I really Really REALLY just don't give a damn.
After living through almost 35 years as a Georgia Tech Fan,
and almost 40 years as a Fan of the Braves after Ted Turner bought Channel 17 in Atlanta and put them on Cable TBS...
and living and dieing with Leeman Bennet's Atlanta Falcons featuring Steve Bartkowski and Alfred Jenkins in the mid/late 1970's...
This morning I can't tell you where the Atlanta Braves are in the standings right now.
I laugh my ass off at the fumbling of the current day Falcons franchise with Dog Fighting Quarterbacks and early post season exits during playoff games they should win...
I can't tell you who is where in the NBA playoffs...a sport that starts during the end of one baseball season and doesn't end interminably until the start of the following baseball season...
and the world cup and soccer and polo and Lacrosse and golf and...
AHHHHH...
you can have it all as far as I'm concerned...I just don't have enough of a Damn to give anymore for inane stuff like that in this day in time.
Yet here in Knoxtown in Eastern Tennessee there are more Morons running around living and dieing on a daily basis worrying about "THE VOLS" and calling into Radio Talk Shows talking about "THE VOLS" and spending craploads of time and money worrying about reading about "THE VOLS" in the local newspaper...
when instead they should be worrying about our Country and our Economy and the wild eyed towel headed Islomofascist Jihadists that want to blow us all up.
And then there is this little prick Anthony Weiner who as of quitting time yesterday is still allowed to wander around the halls of the House of Representatives.
Seriously people...
Do we really want little shit heads like this pompous, egotistical liar with a bad case of "little man syndrome" working for us in Washington DC?
Even if you are dumb enough to live in NY City?
(Taking a big breath here boss...)
OK...as you can tell I'm in a quite pissy mood this evening, so I believe that I'll just go now and say "au revoir" Y'all
Monday, June 06, 2011
The Turbo Pup Sends Greetings From Her Pool...
"Come On In...The Water's Great"
That's one fine little dog I got there...don't you agree?
That's one fine little dog I got there...don't you agree?
Sunday, June 05, 2011
My Butt Is So Huge I Break Beds and Chairs
King Kong And I Should Hang Out Together...
So I wrote a really nice posting about the passing of James Arness on Friday. Then for some reason due some combination of Blogger software screw ups and Internet crap the whole thing disappeared before I could post it all, and I was too lazy to try to re-write it.
Then Saturday I managed--low...I ASPIRED-- TO JUST sit around doing virtually nothing all day if you don't count fiddling around on the computer doing some CAD work and working on some PLC software modifications.
The Turbo Pup and Pat and I did manage to wander out in the back yard and pick up a few hours of sunburn on the deck and in the pool.
So any way--back to my posting title--I have these three giant fake leather Office Depot/Staples office chairs sitting around the property, and apparently my giant 250 pound ASS has destroyed all three of them because they spend all of their time slowly sinking down to the lowest height setting and threatening to tip over and spill me and my cocktail into the floor at any given moment.
And these stupid plastic/Plexiglas "chair mats" they sell you are disintegrating in a awful fast manner under the chairs as they collapse under the weight of my blubber.
While I'm at it, Pat was asking why my side of our fancy expensive pillow top "KING SIZED" mattress was all lumpy and bumpy and screwed up, and my answer was?
MY GIANT HEAVY ASS broke IT , DAMMIT!
It totally sucks when just existing in the world wears people and things out at the rate I apparently erode my surroundings.
Is it just me?
So I wrote a really nice posting about the passing of James Arness on Friday. Then for some reason due some combination of Blogger software screw ups and Internet crap the whole thing disappeared before I could post it all, and I was too lazy to try to re-write it.
Then Saturday I managed--low...I ASPIRED-- TO JUST sit around doing virtually nothing all day if you don't count fiddling around on the computer doing some CAD work and working on some PLC software modifications.
The Turbo Pup and Pat and I did manage to wander out in the back yard and pick up a few hours of sunburn on the deck and in the pool.
So any way--back to my posting title--I have these three giant fake leather Office Depot/Staples office chairs sitting around the property, and apparently my giant 250 pound ASS has destroyed all three of them because they spend all of their time slowly sinking down to the lowest height setting and threatening to tip over and spill me and my cocktail into the floor at any given moment.
And these stupid plastic/Plexiglas "chair mats" they sell you are disintegrating in a awful fast manner under the chairs as they collapse under the weight of my blubber.
While I'm at it, Pat was asking why my side of our fancy expensive pillow top "KING SIZED" mattress was all lumpy and bumpy and screwed up, and my answer was?
MY GIANT HEAVY ASS broke IT , DAMMIT!
It totally sucks when just existing in the world wears people and things out at the rate I apparently erode my surroundings.
Is it just me?
Friday, June 03, 2011
Oh I Wish I Were An Oscar Meyer Weiner a NY Congressman
OK...NOT Really...
I don't know about you, but I'm really tired of having to pay for the $1,000 shoes and $250 ties worn by this littlecocksucker "Congressman" A.K.A. Anthony Weiner:
In spite of being 6'3" tall, wearing size 13 shoes, and spending most of my life carrying around over 225 pounds on my frame, I still haven't used up as much oxygen and caused as much heartburn for the people around me as assholes like this little angry bastard has caused spending five less years than I have on the planet.
This little shit head really thinks that he is better than you and I, and he believes that his association with "Teflon Bill" Clinton via his recent marriage to sHrillary's valet is going to keep him from paying the price for sending photos of his semi engorged penis to everyone on Twitter.
Let's face it, we all know little idiots like this in one shape form or fashion and for the most part can stay far away from them, but I still enjoy watching him squirm in the public spotlight he's cultivated his entire miserable life.
Since he has a "D" behind his name he'll probably survive this current scandal to text another coed another day.
And thats the way it is...June 3rd, 2011...
I don't know about you, but I'm really tired of having to pay for the $1,000 shoes and $250 ties worn by this little
In spite of being 6'3" tall, wearing size 13 shoes, and spending most of my life carrying around over 225 pounds on my frame, I still haven't used up as much oxygen and caused as much heartburn for the people around me as assholes like this little angry bastard has caused spending five less years than I have on the planet.
This little shit head really thinks that he is better than you and I, and he believes that his association with "Teflon Bill" Clinton via his recent marriage to sHrillary's valet is going to keep him from paying the price for sending photos of his semi engorged penis to everyone on Twitter.
Let's face it, we all know little idiots like this in one shape form or fashion and for the most part can stay far away from them, but I still enjoy watching him squirm in the public spotlight he's cultivated his entire miserable life.
Since he has a "D" behind his name he'll probably survive this current scandal to text another coed another day.
And thats the way it is...June 3rd, 2011...
Thursday, June 02, 2011
BurrrrppppPPPP...
All I Can Currently Deliver Is Guttural Body Sounds...
It's freaking hotter than Hades over here in Eastern Tennessee this week.
Seriously...
If my brain could, it would slide down out of my head, past my heart and lungs, further down below my large and small intestines, and hang down there below my "manly parts" originally occupying the area between my legs somewhere south of my knees right now.
But it can't (and I apologize for the crass mental image I just delivered, but still...things are as things are...)
So ritght nwow mye synnbapses areee allle oaverloadeded dew to tempraature exhaustation and thrust I halfe 2 stop righting wright now...
Reguardssss Youallleee...
It's freaking hotter than Hades over here in Eastern Tennessee this week.
Seriously...
If my brain could, it would slide down out of my head, past my heart and lungs, further down below my large and small intestines, and hang down there below my "manly parts" originally occupying the area between my legs somewhere south of my knees right now.
But it can't (and I apologize for the crass mental image I just delivered, but still...things are as things are...)
So ritght nwow mye synnbapses areee allle oaverloadeded dew to tempraature exhaustation and thrust I halfe 2 stop righting wright now...
Reguardssss Youallleee...
Wednesday, June 01, 2011
"Pork" (Government Inefficencies) Killed The USA Space Program
YOUR Wallet Is Next If You Don't Pay Attention...
So I'm sitting here this morning watching the Space Shuttle Endeavor's final landing down in Florida.
I tried my best to schedule to make it down for the launch of this mission with my old Buddy Tripp last month, but one thing lead to another and he went down for the launch and I sat here picking my nose and toes doing the stuff I normally do on a day in and day out basis.
Being not only a "Baby Boomer" Boy vintage 1959, but also being a by default "Space Race Child" and wanna-be astronaut about a thousand years ago, I can't help but get a little misty eyed over the ending of this next to last Space Shuttle Mission officially known as STS-134.
(mouse over and click to enlarge the infarred image...captured off of the NASA HDTV feed on my computer)
As I watched NASA TV tonight during the landing process their call of the landing in both Eastern Standard Time and Central Standard Time reminded me of the Whoreish Politicalization of President Kennedy's famous proclamation that we get to the moon before 1970.
You seen, when the idiot in the Book Repository blew our President's head off, the VP Johnson assumed the reins and the keys to the country's budget process and couldn't stand that the basically unrepresented state of Florida would get all of the money spent on the program because they wanted to kill sea turtles launching rockets out over the Atlantic Ocean since Werner Von Braun escaped from Germany after WWII.
So the young Texan/President Johnson used his political power to help spread the proceeds from America's "Space Race" into his home state's direction by putting "Mission Control" about a 1000 miles away over in Houston, Texas instead of building another building at Cape Canaveral or Cape Kennedy on land already owned on the Florida coast...something you could barely GIVE away in the early 1960's.
And meanwhile over in my home state of Alabama, our Senate/Congressional team--Sparkman, Allen, and Dickenson--couldn't stand being left out and so they did the the same thing by setting up part of the Space Programs up in Huntsville, Alabama.
Problem is, as we've learned over the past near 50 years, there was a shit load of bureaucratic inefficiency and duplication and out right insurrection and competition between the factions created between 1961 and 1969, and partially as a DIRECT RESULT of this political pandering PORK BARREL bullshit we find ourselves as of July 2011 unable to launch a man into space within the boundaries of the By-God United States of 'Merica.
And that's just a F**king crying shame...in my considered Redneck Opinion.
Is it just me?
So I'm sitting here this morning watching the Space Shuttle Endeavor's final landing down in Florida.
I tried my best to schedule to make it down for the launch of this mission with my old Buddy Tripp last month, but one thing lead to another and he went down for the launch and I sat here picking my nose and toes doing the stuff I normally do on a day in and day out basis.
Being not only a "Baby Boomer" Boy vintage 1959, but also being a by default "Space Race Child" and wanna-be astronaut about a thousand years ago, I can't help but get a little misty eyed over the ending of this next to last Space Shuttle Mission officially known as STS-134.
(mouse over and click to enlarge the infarred image...captured off of the NASA HDTV feed on my computer)
As I watched NASA TV tonight during the landing process their call of the landing in both Eastern Standard Time and Central Standard Time reminded me of the Whoreish Politicalization of President Kennedy's famous proclamation that we get to the moon before 1970.
You seen, when the idiot in the Book Repository blew our President's head off, the VP Johnson assumed the reins and the keys to the country's budget process and couldn't stand that the basically unrepresented state of Florida would get all of the money spent on the program because they wanted to kill sea turtles launching rockets out over the Atlantic Ocean since Werner Von Braun escaped from Germany after WWII.
So the young Texan/President Johnson used his political power to help spread the proceeds from America's "Space Race" into his home state's direction by putting "Mission Control" about a 1000 miles away over in Houston, Texas instead of building another building at Cape Canaveral or Cape Kennedy on land already owned on the Florida coast...something you could barely GIVE away in the early 1960's.
And meanwhile over in my home state of Alabama, our Senate/Congressional team--Sparkman, Allen, and Dickenson--couldn't stand being left out and so they did the the same thing by setting up part of the Space Programs up in Huntsville, Alabama.
Problem is, as we've learned over the past near 50 years, there was a shit load of bureaucratic inefficiency and duplication and out right insurrection and competition between the factions created between 1961 and 1969, and partially as a DIRECT RESULT of this political pandering PORK BARREL bullshit we find ourselves as of July 2011 unable to launch a man into space within the boundaries of the By-God United States of 'Merica.
And that's just a F**king crying shame...in my considered Redneck Opinion.
Is it just me?
When Life Gives You Lemons Jellyfish
Make Lemonade Peanut Butter & Jelly(fish) Sandwiches...
OhHHHH...where to start writing this evening???
OK...
I know...
I had a pretty productive day, when it was all said and done I guess.
I got all of the ceiling electrical wiring finished in the "Wee Pub" by about 2 PM, so now I have two separate dimmer light circuits--one over the bar area and another in the seating/dart area--which are all hooked up ready for the ceiling skin to be installed.
On the computer/computing front, the old HP laptop is still belching and farting a little but most of the problems are Internet search engine related..AutoCAD and my other technical programs all work fine.
It was blistering hot here today, with the backyard weather station indicating about 93 degrees F at 4 PM before we had a little pop-up rain shower that cooled things off a little. The temperature was enough of an excuse to keep me from doing anything but peeking outside until it was time to run out at quitting time to do some errands and catch a couple of cocktails at happy hour.
Then left over Pizza and Grilled Boston Butt were served for dinner to clean out the Fridge.
I actually had time to do a little professional writing (don't get excited...it was a PLC Controller owners' manual) and now this evening I'm all mellow and calm and managed to wander around the Internet looking for silly stuff to write about.
To that end, my regular readers know I like to pick on a number of seasonal news stories that the Lamestream Media writers keep in their lockers or under their seat cushions (which can also be used for flotation devices) and that they trot out almost every year--on que--depending on the month and date on the calendar.
This year so far we've had "Record Winter Weather" (in spite of Owl Gore's Global Warming), then "Killer Tornadoes 'Targeting' Population Centers", and now that summer is upon us???
Get ready...
Not Hurricanes...
You Ready?
Not Shark Attacks...
Really Ready?
Not Skin Cancer from going to the beach and tanning booths...
Really, really, Really REALLY Ready?
OK, this year we we need to stay home or run back to our ocean front Condos because we already have Jellyfish Hordes Crash(ing) Florida Beach Parties.
I almost spit my wine onto the computer screen and peed my pants when I saw the headline. Here's a sample of what we all need to be "afeared of" this beach season:
Ah, summer: the lazy, hazy time when Americans adjourn to beaches in droves to soak up the sun--and this year, at least, to get stung by jellyfish.
More than 800 people at beaches along Florida's Atlantic coast were stung this weekend by the swarm of purple-colored sea creatures, which washed up on shore en masse, thanks to consistent east winds, according to Eisen Wicher, a Brevard County Ocean Rescue official.
CNN interviewed one local family, the Smiths, who said they'd driven for three quarters of an hour to get to Cocoa Beach, but left after five minutes when their daughter was stung.
The stings cause itching, burning, and rashes, similar to a bee sting, but aren't usually serious, unless the victim is allergic. Lifeguards have a vinegar solution on hand to neutralize the stinging cells.
Still, two people were taken to the hospital after suffering from respiratory problems, Witcher said.
Thousands more, understandably spooked by the jellyfish, stayed out of the water.
OoooooKaaaayyyyyyYYYYYY...
It's not just that they're citing the fact that when you go to the beach that you run the risk of encountering various forms of "sea life"...noooooOOOO...
this year it's "HOARDS" of Jellyfish "Crashing" Beach Parties.
That's right, Ladies and Gentlemen, if you read the headline, we are lead to believe that the Jellyfish are avoiding unpopulated and low density areas of the beach in favor of swarming the locals of "Beach Parties."
(I personally am waiting for a story about Africanized Killer Bees somehow cross breeding with Jellyfish, thereby creating giant organized swarms of intelligent pathological killer Jellyfish which attack in mass once someone inadvertently comes to their attention.)
No, seriously folks...this is such a non-story it makes me laugh at the lengths these so-called "professional" journalists will go to find something to write about.
You see, I've spent more than a few days/hours of my life participating in the sport of offshore fishing. Primarily off of Florida's Panhandle Gulf Coast.
You think that you've seen Jellyfish laying around on the beach before?
I've gone fishing on half day trips where we stayed within a few miles of shore where the Jellyfish were so thick--and I mean Jellyfish eighteen inches to two feet in diameter--that we could troll for hours and all you saw was a sea of Jellyfish all around the boat.
The Jellyfish were so thick you had to pay attention because they would catch on the fishing line and make your fishing rod tip bounce around just like you had a strike by a 20 pound King Mackerel.
And these Jellyfish were SWIMMING with their tentacles and bodies...trying to fight the current to stay OFFSHORE since they live in the water...not dieing on the beach at a beach party.
I didn't hear any little Jellyfish conversations saying "Dude...let's paddle on in and catch a monster curl wave and then run out on the beach and pick up some human Babes...
...then we'll show them ourpricks testicles tentacles"
cough...hiccup...eek...akkk..oh...nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooOOOOOO
UPDATE: 2:00 AM
Sorry, but my Zen-Like state was interrupted by a stupid Comcast "Internet Service Outage" starting about midnight and just now ending at 2:00 AM.
I've since been twirling around in the basement because I couldn't access some other stuff in needed to do the Owner's Manual project.
I'm going to go now before I REALLY write something I'll regret.
Regards Y'all...
OhHHHH...where to start writing this evening???
OK...
I know...
I had a pretty productive day, when it was all said and done I guess.
I got all of the ceiling electrical wiring finished in the "Wee Pub" by about 2 PM, so now I have two separate dimmer light circuits--one over the bar area and another in the seating/dart area--which are all hooked up ready for the ceiling skin to be installed.
On the computer/computing front, the old HP laptop is still belching and farting a little but most of the problems are Internet search engine related..AutoCAD and my other technical programs all work fine.
It was blistering hot here today, with the backyard weather station indicating about 93 degrees F at 4 PM before we had a little pop-up rain shower that cooled things off a little. The temperature was enough of an excuse to keep me from doing anything but peeking outside until it was time to run out at quitting time to do some errands and catch a couple of cocktails at happy hour.
Then left over Pizza and Grilled Boston Butt were served for dinner to clean out the Fridge.
I actually had time to do a little professional writing (don't get excited...it was a PLC Controller owners' manual) and now this evening I'm all mellow and calm and managed to wander around the Internet looking for silly stuff to write about.
To that end, my regular readers know I like to pick on a number of seasonal news stories that the Lamestream Media writers keep in their lockers or under their seat cushions (which can also be used for flotation devices) and that they trot out almost every year--on que--depending on the month and date on the calendar.
This year so far we've had "Record Winter Weather" (in spite of Owl Gore's Global Warming), then "Killer Tornadoes 'Targeting' Population Centers", and now that summer is upon us???
Get ready...
Not Hurricanes...
You Ready?
Not Shark Attacks...
Really Ready?
Not Skin Cancer from going to the beach and tanning booths...
Really, really, Really REALLY Ready?
OK, this year we we need to stay home or run back to our ocean front Condos because we already have Jellyfish Hordes Crash(ing) Florida Beach Parties.
I almost spit my wine onto the computer screen and peed my pants when I saw the headline. Here's a sample of what we all need to be "afeared of" this beach season:
Ah, summer: the lazy, hazy time when Americans adjourn to beaches in droves to soak up the sun--and this year, at least, to get stung by jellyfish.
More than 800 people at beaches along Florida's Atlantic coast were stung this weekend by the swarm of purple-colored sea creatures, which washed up on shore en masse, thanks to consistent east winds, according to Eisen Wicher, a Brevard County Ocean Rescue official.
CNN interviewed one local family, the Smiths, who said they'd driven for three quarters of an hour to get to Cocoa Beach, but left after five minutes when their daughter was stung.
The stings cause itching, burning, and rashes, similar to a bee sting, but aren't usually serious, unless the victim is allergic. Lifeguards have a vinegar solution on hand to neutralize the stinging cells.
Still, two people were taken to the hospital after suffering from respiratory problems, Witcher said.
Thousands more, understandably spooked by the jellyfish, stayed out of the water.
OoooooKaaaayyyyyyYYYYYY...
It's not just that they're citing the fact that when you go to the beach that you run the risk of encountering various forms of "sea life"...noooooOOOO...
this year it's "HOARDS" of Jellyfish "Crashing" Beach Parties.
That's right, Ladies and Gentlemen, if you read the headline, we are lead to believe that the Jellyfish are avoiding unpopulated and low density areas of the beach in favor of swarming the locals of "Beach Parties."
(I personally am waiting for a story about Africanized Killer Bees somehow cross breeding with Jellyfish, thereby creating giant organized swarms of intelligent pathological killer Jellyfish which attack in mass once someone inadvertently comes to their attention.)
No, seriously folks...this is such a non-story it makes me laugh at the lengths these so-called "professional" journalists will go to find something to write about.
You see, I've spent more than a few days/hours of my life participating in the sport of offshore fishing. Primarily off of Florida's Panhandle Gulf Coast.
You think that you've seen Jellyfish laying around on the beach before?
I've gone fishing on half day trips where we stayed within a few miles of shore where the Jellyfish were so thick--and I mean Jellyfish eighteen inches to two feet in diameter--that we could troll for hours and all you saw was a sea of Jellyfish all around the boat.
The Jellyfish were so thick you had to pay attention because they would catch on the fishing line and make your fishing rod tip bounce around just like you had a strike by a 20 pound King Mackerel.
And these Jellyfish were SWIMMING with their tentacles and bodies...trying to fight the current to stay OFFSHORE since they live in the water...not dieing on the beach at a beach party.
I didn't hear any little Jellyfish conversations saying "Dude...let's paddle on in and catch a monster curl wave and then run out on the beach and pick up some human Babes...
...then we'll show them our
cough...hiccup...eek...akkk..oh...nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooOOOOOO
UPDATE: 2:00 AM
Sorry, but my Zen-Like state was interrupted by a stupid Comcast "Internet Service Outage" starting about midnight and just now ending at 2:00 AM.
I've since been twirling around in the basement because I couldn't access some other stuff in needed to do the Owner's Manual project.
I'm going to go now before I REALLY write something I'll regret.
Regards Y'all...
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Windows XP Recovery Scam Feckless Under My Wrath
(Only) Three Hours Later...
Well Ladies and Gentlemen, the good news this morning is to my surprise only three hours after my earlier posting, things here on the old HP laptop aren't back to 100%...but close to 95%...
And I guess that the Jury is still out...
But...
In this latest "Computer Exorcism Exercise, I managed to make a couple of executive decisions (the quality and substance of which is something I'm not Internationally known for in the past), and instead of downloading some stupid free "anti-virus/spyware" software or electing to run screaming down to the local computer repair store populated with "experts" 30 years younger than my ever greying, ever balding head...
I simply booted the whimpering computer up in Windows "Protected Mode" and then used the real "Windows Recovery" program to reset everything back to the way it was last Friday before all of this current BS started.
Then I dumped Windows Internet Explorer 7 off the hard drive, ran a back up of my data files (including recovering my latest ParaChem PLC software Rusty), and right now things seem to have been improved a great deal although there are still some strange quirks that need to be worked out.
For instance, most of my data files had been converted to "hidden files" so I had to handle that situation, and my Internet Explorer favorites all disappeared but I had a good back up in Mozilla Firefox and I also exported the favorites from the Server PC and moved them down here to the Basement International Headquarters of Plastics Engineering Technologies (or BIHOPET for short.)
So any way, by and large a successful evening I guess.
I still want to go out and find the idiots responsible for crap like I've just gone through and either draw and quarter them or keel haul them after beating them to the verge of death with a "Cat 'o Nine Tails"
Is it just me?
Well Ladies and Gentlemen, the good news this morning is to my surprise only three hours after my earlier posting, things here on the old HP laptop aren't back to 100%...but close to 95%...
And I guess that the Jury is still out...
But...
In this latest "Computer Exorcism Exercise, I managed to make a couple of executive decisions (the quality and substance of which is something I'm not Internationally known for in the past), and instead of downloading some stupid free "anti-virus/spyware" software or electing to run screaming down to the local computer repair store populated with "experts" 30 years younger than my ever greying, ever balding head...
I simply booted the whimpering computer up in Windows "Protected Mode" and then used the real "Windows Recovery" program to reset everything back to the way it was last Friday before all of this current BS started.
Then I dumped Windows Internet Explorer 7 off the hard drive, ran a back up of my data files (including recovering my latest ParaChem PLC software Rusty), and right now things seem to have been improved a great deal although there are still some strange quirks that need to be worked out.
For instance, most of my data files had been converted to "hidden files" so I had to handle that situation, and my Internet Explorer favorites all disappeared but I had a good back up in Mozilla Firefox and I also exported the favorites from the Server PC and moved them down here to the Basement International Headquarters of Plastics Engineering Technologies (or BIHOPET for short.)
So any way, by and large a successful evening I guess.
I still want to go out and find the idiots responsible for crap like I've just gone through and either draw and quarter them or keel haul them after beating them to the verge of death with a "Cat 'o Nine Tails"
Is it just me?
Monday, May 30, 2011
OK...Holiday's OVER...Back To The Real World
Please Don't Throw Me In Dat Briar Patch...
This week could be fairlytroublesome interesting.
I thought that I already knew what to expect when the Memorial Day Holiday started last Friday, but as is usual around here things have changed a little bit due to unforeseen circumstances--computer related.
My poor little old HP Laptop managed to catch the latest Trojan Bullshit Computer Crap called Windows XP Recovery Scam .
It's the same old spam scam where something jumps on your computer off of an infected web site and proceeds to change things in your Windows registers so that all you see is a fake screen telling you that your computer hard drive is about to crash and offering to scan the drive and repair the problem.
Problem is...the Spam program is the PROBLEM.
And of course after it gets through scanning, even if it finds nothing it still tries to get you to give it a credit card number to pay for selling you a program to "FIX" the situation.
I never let it get past the first few seconds of it's presentation, but I made the mistake of turning the machine off with a hard stop press of the power button, and then in the process of rebooting the INFECTION just wrapped it's tentacles further around my operating system.
Now when you boot up in even "Secure Mode" it only lets you get so far before popping back up with the same BS warning of non-existent problems and an offer to fix things...FOR A PRICE.
So now instead of doing productive work on some new software modifications for a PLC and working on basement wiring, I expect to spend the next 24 hours screwing around trying to act as "Computer Exorcist" removing this evil spirit.
Like I said before, I think that the government should pass a law making it legal to hunt down and maim and/or KILL the idiots out there in the Cyber World that think it's funny or profitable to break into my house through wires and damage my property.
I have to go now before my head explodes.
This week could be fairly
I thought that I already knew what to expect when the Memorial Day Holiday started last Friday, but as is usual around here things have changed a little bit due to unforeseen circumstances--computer related.
My poor little old HP Laptop managed to catch the latest Trojan Bullshit Computer Crap called Windows XP Recovery Scam .
It's the same old spam scam where something jumps on your computer off of an infected web site and proceeds to change things in your Windows registers so that all you see is a fake screen telling you that your computer hard drive is about to crash and offering to scan the drive and repair the problem.
Problem is...the Spam program is the PROBLEM.
And of course after it gets through scanning, even if it finds nothing it still tries to get you to give it a credit card number to pay for selling you a program to "FIX" the situation.
I never let it get past the first few seconds of it's presentation, but I made the mistake of turning the machine off with a hard stop press of the power button, and then in the process of rebooting the INFECTION just wrapped it's tentacles further around my operating system.
Now when you boot up in even "Secure Mode" it only lets you get so far before popping back up with the same BS warning of non-existent problems and an offer to fix things...FOR A PRICE.
So now instead of doing productive work on some new software modifications for a PLC and working on basement wiring, I expect to spend the next 24 hours screwing around trying to act as "Computer Exorcist" removing this evil spirit.
Like I said before, I think that the government should pass a law making it legal to hunt down and maim and/or KILL the idiots out there in the Cyber World that think it's funny or profitable to break into my house through wires and damage my property.
I have to go now before my head explodes.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Missy The Turbo Pup Rides Floats Again
You Can Take The Dog From The Beach...But You Can't Take The Beach From The Dog...
My regular readers probably remember that our little miniature long Haired Dachshund "Missy Sippy Queen" (her AKC pedigree registered name) A.K.A. "Missy The Turbo Pup" was born in Southern Mississippi and spent most of the first year and one half of her life living with us on an Island on the Georgia Coast.
As a result, let's just say we have a little girl that is very comfortable at the pool and on the patio at the Sea Palms Country Club restaurant and of course she commands the beach with ease given the opportunity to visit.
Unfortunately she only gets to the beach two or three times a year now since we moved to Knoxtown, but she's had an above ground backyard pool each of the past three seasons large enough to accommodate her pool accessories and two or three invited adult guests on occasion.
This season being no exception to the rules, this morning I found it my duty to get an early start working on the tasks required in the official re-opening the Turbo Pup Back Yard Pool And Beach Complex (or TPBY PABC for short) for the 2011 season.
Of course not one BUT TWO trips to Home Depot were in order because in addition to needing a few extra fifty pound bags of play sand to level the pool area and clean up the winter damage to the Beach area, after we got home from the first trip I ended up not being able to find my "air nozzle" to use with my air compressor to blow up the inflatable ring running around the top of the little 30" deep above ground pool we saved from last season...so I had to climb back in the car sweating and filthy and go BACK to HD.
Once we got the pool cleaned up and back into position beside the Boardwalk, when we started filling it up with water and it's shape started rounding out and rising back up off the ground, Missy suddenly realized what all of the hoopla was about and went over and started crying and barking wanting to get in the 4 inches of water standing there.
We humored her and let her wade around for a while while it continued to fill, and then about three hours later when it was nearly full she again climbed in and floated around on her float on and off for a couple of hours while I started cooking her favorite dinner...PIZZA!
After dinner now she's been reclining on our bed dozing and watching Dale Earnhardt Jr. run out of gas 1000 feet from the finish line in the Charlotte NASCAR race.
Tomorrow I have to finish up some details and get my Monster Hybrid Pool Filter (or MOHY POFIS for short) cleaned up and re-connected to the connections on the Pool Sidewalls. Last season its new 1/2 HP centrifugal pump and dual canisters made out of two old crappy filters they sell with these little above ground pools did a good job and I hope to get at least another season out of the beast.
That said, I guess it's time to do a little reading and get my check list ready for the daily visit back to Home Depot tomorrrow.
Y'all have a LOVELY balance of the Memorial Day Holiday...If you will...
My regular readers probably remember that our little miniature long Haired Dachshund "Missy Sippy Queen" (her AKC pedigree registered name) A.K.A. "Missy The Turbo Pup" was born in Southern Mississippi and spent most of the first year and one half of her life living with us on an Island on the Georgia Coast.
As a result, let's just say we have a little girl that is very comfortable at the pool and on the patio at the Sea Palms Country Club restaurant and of course she commands the beach with ease given the opportunity to visit.
Unfortunately she only gets to the beach two or three times a year now since we moved to Knoxtown, but she's had an above ground backyard pool each of the past three seasons large enough to accommodate her pool accessories and two or three invited adult guests on occasion.
This season being no exception to the rules, this morning I found it my duty to get an early start working on the tasks required in the official re-opening the Turbo Pup Back Yard Pool And Beach Complex (or TPBY PABC for short) for the 2011 season.
Of course not one BUT TWO trips to Home Depot were in order because in addition to needing a few extra fifty pound bags of play sand to level the pool area and clean up the winter damage to the Beach area, after we got home from the first trip I ended up not being able to find my "air nozzle" to use with my air compressor to blow up the inflatable ring running around the top of the little 30" deep above ground pool we saved from last season...so I had to climb back in the car sweating and filthy and go BACK to HD.
Once we got the pool cleaned up and back into position beside the Boardwalk, when we started filling it up with water and it's shape started rounding out and rising back up off the ground, Missy suddenly realized what all of the hoopla was about and went over and started crying and barking wanting to get in the 4 inches of water standing there.
We humored her and let her wade around for a while while it continued to fill, and then about three hours later when it was nearly full she again climbed in and floated around on her float on and off for a couple of hours while I started cooking her favorite dinner...PIZZA!
After dinner now she's been reclining on our bed dozing and watching Dale Earnhardt Jr. run out of gas 1000 feet from the finish line in the Charlotte NASCAR race.
Tomorrow I have to finish up some details and get my Monster Hybrid Pool Filter (or MOHY POFIS for short) cleaned up and re-connected to the connections on the Pool Sidewalls. Last season its new 1/2 HP centrifugal pump and dual canisters made out of two old crappy filters they sell with these little above ground pools did a good job and I hope to get at least another season out of the beast.
That said, I guess it's time to do a little reading and get my check list ready for the daily visit back to Home Depot tomorrrow.
Y'all have a LOVELY balance of the Memorial Day Holiday...If you will...
Saturday, May 28, 2011
"Memorial Day?"
Everyone Keeps Getting It Confused With "Veterans' Day" I Think
Well, it turns out that I ended up missing not one...but two Family events in two different states on Saturday.
I'm not going to go into the gory details other than to say I had a couple of pretty good reasons for each absence...
...and I regret to admit that the silence gained by being allowed to just sit around here at the Turbo Pup Compound on a "holiday weekend" when everyone else is running up and down the highways and interstates or sitting in airports and bus terminals was a welcome relief.
I did manage to spend about three hours stumbling around my basement shop finally getting two new 20 Amp AC circuits installed which I started last winter. So now my shop and the adjacent "Wee Turbo Pup Pub" area of the basement have some the only three wire grounded electrical service in the building (the Kitchen Range and HVAC system being the other two as far as I can determine.)
Now later this morning plans are to finish up some recessed lighting details in the "Wee Turbo Pup Pub" area, then get the Turbo Pup Pool reinstalled in the back yard and filled with water for the season.
I'm not EVEN going to begin to try to comment on the news right now although there is some stupid stuff like the coverage of Child Murder Trials down in Florida and things endlessly repeated on FoxNEWS and CNN that make my eyeballs roll uncontrollably back into my ever greying, ever balding skull.
That said, I think I'll go now and take a nap for a while.
Y'all have a LOVELY Sunday and balance of the Memorial Day Weekend if you will (and drive/fly safely while you're at it...)
Well, it turns out that I ended up missing not one...but two Family events in two different states on Saturday.
I'm not going to go into the gory details other than to say I had a couple of pretty good reasons for each absence...
...and I regret to admit that the silence gained by being allowed to just sit around here at the Turbo Pup Compound on a "holiday weekend" when everyone else is running up and down the highways and interstates or sitting in airports and bus terminals was a welcome relief.
I did manage to spend about three hours stumbling around my basement shop finally getting two new 20 Amp AC circuits installed which I started last winter. So now my shop and the adjacent "Wee Turbo Pup Pub" area of the basement have some the only three wire grounded electrical service in the building (the Kitchen Range and HVAC system being the other two as far as I can determine.)
Now later this morning plans are to finish up some recessed lighting details in the "Wee Turbo Pup Pub" area, then get the Turbo Pup Pool reinstalled in the back yard and filled with water for the season.
I'm not EVEN going to begin to try to comment on the news right now although there is some stupid stuff like the coverage of Child Murder Trials down in Florida and things endlessly repeated on FoxNEWS and CNN that make my eyeballs roll uncontrollably back into my ever greying, ever balding skull.
That said, I think I'll go now and take a nap for a while.
Y'all have a LOVELY Sunday and balance of the Memorial Day Weekend if you will (and drive/fly safely while you're at it...)
Friday, May 27, 2011
Strange Visitors In The 'Hood
Odie and "Terror The Terrier" Claim Another Conquest...
I mentioned in the past week my ongoing battle with a couple of little dogs which live diagonally behind us here at the Turbo Pup Compound on the Banks of the Mighty Tennessee River.
The good news is that my next door neighbor heard about the loss of my "yard shoe" and asked the owner of the little pack of Mongrels about it and he had indeed found a giant size 13 "Zapatos" (shoe in Spanish) and it was returned.
Then late on Wednesday the same neighbor reported that a "baby Opossum" had been chased up a tree in her back yard by Odie and Terror.
Here's what I found when I wandered over to take a look...
Not only is that not a "Baby Opossum", but that is a fine example of a giant 20 plus pound "Albino" 'possum.
I've seen another Albino a couple of blocks away in the last year which had a much whiter coat that this fellow (he was a male and should be proud of the equipment he has dangling there in the tree with him...)
but still...
He stayed up there in the top of the tree baking in the sun until sometime after dark and at sunrise yesterday morning he was gone on off doing whatever it is that Opossums do all day.
Just when I think I'm going to lose my mind something like this comes along to distract me and make me laugh.
Good thing...You know?
I mentioned in the past week my ongoing battle with a couple of little dogs which live diagonally behind us here at the Turbo Pup Compound on the Banks of the Mighty Tennessee River.
The good news is that my next door neighbor heard about the loss of my "yard shoe" and asked the owner of the little pack of Mongrels about it and he had indeed found a giant size 13 "Zapatos" (shoe in Spanish) and it was returned.
Then late on Wednesday the same neighbor reported that a "baby Opossum" had been chased up a tree in her back yard by Odie and Terror.
Here's what I found when I wandered over to take a look...
Not only is that not a "Baby Opossum", but that is a fine example of a giant 20 plus pound "Albino" 'possum.
I've seen another Albino a couple of blocks away in the last year which had a much whiter coat that this fellow (he was a male and should be proud of the equipment he has dangling there in the tree with him...)
but still...
He stayed up there in the top of the tree baking in the sun until sometime after dark and at sunrise yesterday morning he was gone on off doing whatever it is that Opossums do all day.
Just when I think I'm going to lose my mind something like this comes along to distract me and make me laugh.
Good thing...You know?
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Another Day With Without Pseudo-Professional Dumbasses
Taking Feckless Insanity And Elevating It To A Virtue...
I'm sorry to report that I spent most of the day yesterday waiting on "Roofers" to appear at my front door
The first one was supposed to show up at 10 AM based on the conversation I had with him on Tuesday.
This idiot had actually already stood on my doorstep last weekend while I explained that I most definitely wanted an estimate and I would be buying a roof as soon as I could settle with my "Insurance Company."
This conversation apparently wasn't good enough to cause this moron to get off of his ass, take out a measuring tape and a pencil, and work up a price for a roof.
For some reason, after handing me a glossy brochure and a business card and learning the details of the project, the guy's pen must have run out of ink or he didn't have a blank sheet of paper or something else happened because after telling him what I wanted
...I didn't get a quotation.
And then after calling the number on the glossy brochure/business card and making an appointment for 10 AM yesterday he still couldn't pry his stupid ass off of the bar stool or out of the bed/off the sofa long enough to follow up on the opportunity.
I'm not really asking for much...the project is really pretty simple...but thus far over the past THREE WEEKS I've only managed to get two written quotations to replace 28 square (2800 square feet) of three tab asphalt shingles.
Here...take a peek at my specifications:
I'm sorry to report that I spent most of the day yesterday waiting on "Roofers" to appear at my front door
The first one was supposed to show up at 10 AM based on the conversation I had with him on Tuesday.
This idiot had actually already stood on my doorstep last weekend while I explained that I most definitely wanted an estimate and I would be buying a roof as soon as I could settle with my "Insurance Company."
This conversation apparently wasn't good enough to cause this moron to get off of his ass, take out a measuring tape and a pencil, and work up a price for a roof.
For some reason, after handing me a glossy brochure and a business card and learning the details of the project, the guy's pen must have run out of ink or he didn't have a blank sheet of paper or something else happened because after telling him what I wanted
...I didn't get a quotation.
And then after calling the number on the glossy brochure/business card and making an appointment for 10 AM yesterday he still couldn't pry his stupid ass off of the bar stool or out of the bed/off the sofa long enough to follow up on the opportunity.
I'm not really asking for much...the project is really pretty simple...but thus far over the past THREE WEEKS I've only managed to get two written quotations to replace 28 square (2800 square feet) of three tab asphalt shingles.
Here...take a peek at my specifications:
- Tear off existing shingles and roofing felt and place in 10 cubic yard dumpster.
- Repair any rotten plywood decking on corners.
- Install new 30 pound roofing felt.
- Install 20-25 year three tab shingles.
- Clean up job site and get the &^%$ off my property after giving me an invoice and getting your check.
Then yesterday afternoon while Pat and the Turbo Pup and I were wandering around picking up some stuff at the CVS Pharmacy, another rocket scientist claiming to be in the roofing business decided to stop by un-announced and leave his business card and a note saying "no one was at home."
This poor simpleton had discussed my project with me on the telephone on Tuesday, and I told him to call before he stopped by if he could, but if he wanted to look at the job and we weren't home he had my permission to climb on the roof and simply leave his quotation on the table on my front porch.
Again I went over the specifications with him on the phone prior to his arrival...remember these details?
- Tear off existing shingles and roofing felt and place in 10 cubic yard dumpster.
- Repair any rotten plywood decking on corners.
- Install new 30 pound roofing felt.
- Install 20-25 year three tab shingles.
- Clean up job site and get the &^%$ off my property after giving me an invoice and getting your check.
I swear to God I'm incredulous at the feckless ineptitude of the people out there claiming to be in the construction business...specifically most recently...ROOFERS.
Further, I think that the fact that I actually know what I want done and I have a pretty good idea how to do it and how much it should cost is hurting my effort to get rational quotes.
Apparently if I was just some ignorant dumbass everyone would give me a price, but since I'm an intelligent arrogant ASSHOLE with an attitude no one wants to venture on to my property with a nail gun and a butt crack.
If you know anyone that can actually show up and put a roof on a building for a reasonable price on a pre-determined schedule...feel free to give me a call.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Stupid News For The Un-Informed
Twisters (Tornadoes) Don't "Target" Population Centers
I've spent at least half of the past couple of days yelling at the idiots on the Television who are apparently reading from the same script written by Owl Gore and the Global Warming Zombies freaking out about what should be considered to be NORMAL spring weather in the Midwest.
While it is a horrible fact that the statistical odds are that over a million year period that every single square inch of our planet will probably see a natural disaster...earthquake or flash flood or wildfire or hurricane...
...It is also a well known fact that the United States experiences Tornadoes at a rate MORE THAN FOUR TIMES that of Europe or any other country/land mass in the world.
Almost EVERY YEAR...
Not just, as the idiots on the TV news would have you believe...
...not just THIS YEAR.
It's like this, Ladies and Gentlemen...
I grew up in lower Alabama living with both Hurricanes and Tornadoes, and FEMA was a figment of Jimmuh "Smile When You Say That" Carter's imagination and Owl Gore's Greenie Weenie Zombies were still sucking their thumbs and toes in their playpens.
I've been through three Hurricanes and a half dozen tropical storms, and I've been at ground ZERO in two Tornadoes where the sky turned green and the rain came in horizontal.
And I don't look forward to it but if I live another 25 years I'll probably see at least another couple of Hurricanes and tornadoes in the process.
BUT...
All of this current media hysteria just makes my eyes roll back into my skull and drool to slide out of the corner of my mouth.
Face the facts...with live on a planet spinning around the sun through the solar system at breakneck speed under the forces of gravity and operating under the vaguely understood principals of a science we call physics.
And our little slice of "atmosphere" within the bottom twenty miles of the surface of the planet contains the oxygen we need to live and breath...but it also contains water vapor and energy in the form of temperature gradients--thereby producing a dynamic "heat engine" effect where the hot areas and the cold areas try to get together and average everything out in the end.
Thus when you get a bunch of cold dry air running up against a bunch of warm moist air...KABOOM...
A local TORNADO!
And on a regional basis IN THE SUMMER...HURRICANE everybody jump in your car and evacuate!!!
It's just that simple, and religion and political and education and socio-economic/race/gender issues be damned...it will grab your trailer or your car or your house or as a minimum YOUR ASS and grind you up and tie you in a knot if you happen to be unlucky enough to be in the storm's path.
Weather doesn't care what political party association the President or the Congress has at any given moment.
Weather also doesn't give a crap if you regularly attend church or you donate to the March of Dimes and the United Way and build houses with Habitat for Humanity.
GOT IT?
OK...That will be all...for now...
I've spent at least half of the past couple of days yelling at the idiots on the Television who are apparently reading from the same script written by Owl Gore and the Global Warming Zombies freaking out about what should be considered to be NORMAL spring weather in the Midwest.
While it is a horrible fact that the statistical odds are that over a million year period that every single square inch of our planet will probably see a natural disaster...earthquake or flash flood or wildfire or hurricane...
...It is also a well known fact that the United States experiences Tornadoes at a rate MORE THAN FOUR TIMES that of Europe or any other country/land mass in the world.
Almost EVERY YEAR...
Not just, as the idiots on the TV news would have you believe...
...not just THIS YEAR.
It's like this, Ladies and Gentlemen...
I grew up in lower Alabama living with both Hurricanes and Tornadoes, and FEMA was a figment of Jimmuh "Smile When You Say That" Carter's imagination and Owl Gore's Greenie Weenie Zombies were still sucking their thumbs and toes in their playpens.
I've been through three Hurricanes and a half dozen tropical storms, and I've been at ground ZERO in two Tornadoes where the sky turned green and the rain came in horizontal.
And I don't look forward to it but if I live another 25 years I'll probably see at least another couple of Hurricanes and tornadoes in the process.
BUT...
All of this current media hysteria just makes my eyes roll back into my skull and drool to slide out of the corner of my mouth.
Face the facts...with live on a planet spinning around the sun through the solar system at breakneck speed under the forces of gravity and operating under the vaguely understood principals of a science we call physics.
And our little slice of "atmosphere" within the bottom twenty miles of the surface of the planet contains the oxygen we need to live and breath...but it also contains water vapor and energy in the form of temperature gradients--thereby producing a dynamic "heat engine" effect where the hot areas and the cold areas try to get together and average everything out in the end.
Thus when you get a bunch of cold dry air running up against a bunch of warm moist air...KABOOM...
A local TORNADO!
And on a regional basis IN THE SUMMER...HURRICANE everybody jump in your car and evacuate!!!
It's just that simple, and religion and political and education and socio-economic/race/gender issues be damned...it will grab your trailer or your car or your house or as a minimum YOUR ASS and grind you up and tie you in a knot if you happen to be unlucky enough to be in the storm's path.
Weather doesn't care what political party association the President or the Congress has at any given moment.
Weather also doesn't give a crap if you regularly attend church or you donate to the March of Dimes and the United Way and build houses with Habitat for Humanity.
GOT IT?
OK...That will be all...for now...
I Have A Crappy Attitude
Excuse Me While I Shut The %$#@ Up...
I'm having one of "Those" days...
Bye Y'all...
I'm having one of "Those" days...
Bye Y'all...
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
This Is A Test Of The Emergency Broadcast System
This Is Only A Test...
I'm afraid that I have to admit that my neural synapses are almost completely overloaded these days.
It just might take a month or so to get over living through the past two weeks of my life.
After spending a semi-unplanned ten days out of town in another state--mental and physical--followed by having a house full of pseudo relatives ( i.e. Pat's family ) in town for half a week, I think that I've realized what a quiet existence I generally enjoy as a middle aged childless curmudgeon.
Let's face facts...Ladies and Gentlemen...
Having Kids wandering around the property warps reality in ways beyond my ability to comprehend, and spending time with more than one other adult human inside my official "building of residence" taxes my patience and tilts my world off of it's axis in an alarming fashion possibly requiring counseling and medical attention...
Right now I feel like I'm sort of some kind of mutant cross between Dustin Hoffman's character "Rainman"
with a nice mix of Christopher Lloyd's character "Reverend Jim"...
I'd say I'm a little more Reverend Jim/Latka right now in as much as I'm harmless to anyone other than myself...
But still...
I have to attempt to get a grip on the details of several different projects while at the same time trying to head out of town toward either a funeral in Ohio or the originally planned Memorial Day Festivities in Lower Alabama this weekend.
Nothing seems to be easy these days...justifying the cost and time to head north versus the cost and time to head south.
Maybe I should just stay home for the next couple of weeks and save money rather than risk insulting anyone in the process.
I'm entertaining suggestions if anyone has any insight into a solution to my delimma...
I'm afraid that I have to admit that my neural synapses are almost completely overloaded these days.
It just might take a month or so to get over living through the past two weeks of my life.
After spending a semi-unplanned ten days out of town in another state--mental and physical--followed by having a house full of pseudo relatives ( i.e. Pat's family ) in town for half a week, I think that I've realized what a quiet existence I generally enjoy as a middle aged childless curmudgeon.
Let's face facts...Ladies and Gentlemen...
Having Kids wandering around the property warps reality in ways beyond my ability to comprehend, and spending time with more than one other adult human inside my official "building of residence" taxes my patience and tilts my world off of it's axis in an alarming fashion possibly requiring counseling and medical attention...
Right now I feel like I'm sort of some kind of mutant cross between Dustin Hoffman's character "Rainman"
with a nice mix of Christopher Lloyd's character "Reverend Jim"...
and possibly Andy Kaufman's "Lakta" from the TV show "Taxi" thrown in for good measure.
I'd say I'm a little more Reverend Jim/Latka right now in as much as I'm harmless to anyone other than myself...
But still...
I have to attempt to get a grip on the details of several different projects while at the same time trying to head out of town toward either a funeral in Ohio or the originally planned Memorial Day Festivities in Lower Alabama this weekend.
Nothing seems to be easy these days...justifying the cost and time to head north versus the cost and time to head south.
Maybe I should just stay home for the next couple of weeks and save money rather than risk insulting anyone in the process.
I'm entertaining suggestions if anyone has any insight into a solution to my delimma...
Monday, May 23, 2011
Idiots In The Roofing Business
How Do I Hate Thee? Let me Count The Ways...
It's pretty much common knowledge that I've been in the "Industrial Injuneering and Construction Business" on and off for a good part of the past 30 years.
I've also on a much more limited basis been in the residential renovation and construction business for about that same amount of time.
All of the above said, it blows my mind this afternoon that with the current employment situation and economic conditions there is such a large proportion of idiots--many if not most of which probably didn't even manage to graduate from HIGH SCHOOL--which can't manage to answer their own telephone number published on business cards on in the Yellow Pages or on Internet Web Pages...
and in some cases to respond back to me with an intelligent quotation after taking the time to drive up to my house and knock on my front door asking to fix my roof.
Seriously, Ladies and Gentlemen, in the THREE AND ONE HALF WEEKS since my roof and yard was pounded with a golf ball sized hail storm, I've only managed to get two written proposals in hand while at the same time talking in person with six or eight different inarticulate, dis-organized morons representing themselves on the telephone and/or on my front stoop as "professional roofers" or representatives of companies involved in the aforementioned "roofing business."
The "feeding frenzy" surrounding this latest natural disaster is a textbook study in human nature.
These idiots want me to sign a contract...
RIGHT NOW.
...with basically no written proposal in hand...
...and because they can see by the look on my face and the light burning in my eyes that I am not an IDIOT and that I will proceed to "tear them a new asshole" at least proverbially if not literally they don't want to deal with me when they can simply wander on down the street and take advantage of some of our old widow ladies or some absentee owner with a bottomless checkbook.
I offer a sincere "Sorry" to all of you asshats posing as "roofing contractors", but not now or tomorrow or next week or next month will I deal with such a stupid group of (un)professional idiot opportunists.
I believe that I'll just wait for the dust to settle and take my chances on getting someone that actually knows what they are doing rather dealing with those of you out there just responding to the smell ofblood CASH in the water.
You know?
It's pretty much common knowledge that I've been in the "Industrial Injuneering and Construction Business" on and off for a good part of the past 30 years.
I've also on a much more limited basis been in the residential renovation and construction business for about that same amount of time.
All of the above said, it blows my mind this afternoon that with the current employment situation and economic conditions there is such a large proportion of idiots--many if not most of which probably didn't even manage to graduate from HIGH SCHOOL--which can't manage to answer their own telephone number published on business cards on in the Yellow Pages or on Internet Web Pages...
and in some cases to respond back to me with an intelligent quotation after taking the time to drive up to my house and knock on my front door asking to fix my roof.
Seriously, Ladies and Gentlemen, in the THREE AND ONE HALF WEEKS since my roof and yard was pounded with a golf ball sized hail storm, I've only managed to get two written proposals in hand while at the same time talking in person with six or eight different inarticulate, dis-organized morons representing themselves on the telephone and/or on my front stoop as "professional roofers" or representatives of companies involved in the aforementioned "roofing business."
The "feeding frenzy" surrounding this latest natural disaster is a textbook study in human nature.
These idiots want me to sign a contract...
RIGHT NOW.
...with basically no written proposal in hand...
...and because they can see by the look on my face and the light burning in my eyes that I am not an IDIOT and that I will proceed to "tear them a new asshole" at least proverbially if not literally they don't want to deal with me when they can simply wander on down the street and take advantage of some of our old widow ladies or some absentee owner with a bottomless checkbook.
I offer a sincere "Sorry" to all of you asshats posing as "roofing contractors", but not now or tomorrow or next week or next month will I deal with such a stupid group of (un)professional idiot opportunists.
I believe that I'll just wait for the dust to settle and take my chances on getting someone that actually knows what they are doing rather dealing with those of you out there just responding to the smell of
You know?
Getting Old Sucks
But I Guess It's Better Than The Alternative...
Pat and the Turbo Pup and the Niece/Nephew/Child returned late yesterday from an over night trip to visit her Daughter's family in south Atlanta.
Me?
I volunteered to stay home and anchor things here at the Turbo Pup Compound solo for a change.
I spent the weekend walking around without shoes and a shirt...sometimes clad only in underwear...basically doing nothing all day if you don't count sitting on the deck in the sun working crossword puzzles and the few hours spent staking up tomato plants.
Oh...and I did manage to get all of my tools put away and the shop cleaned up and re-organized in anticipation of doing some clean-up work on three PLC programs I have running in the field right now.
So now after a quiet weekend spent "home alone", this morning finds me trying to make plans to attend yet another elderly relatives burial services...this time in southern Ohio.
It's one of those impossible trips where "you can't get there from here" unless you drive cross country and I can't spend three days out of the week in the process because I'm already so far behind in my work from being out of town most of the past two weeks.
Ideally it would be a "fly up in the morning" kind of trip where I meet my Cousins and ride with them to the Rogers family cemetery up on top of a hill out in the middle of nowhere in southern Ohio...then have them drop me back off at the Columbus Ohio airport so I can fly back home later that day.
I guess it's time now to head to the basement and start wrestling with electronic crap again.
Wish me luck, if you will Y'all...
Pat and the Turbo Pup and the Niece/Nephew/Child returned late yesterday from an over night trip to visit her Daughter's family in south Atlanta.
Me?
I volunteered to stay home and anchor things here at the Turbo Pup Compound solo for a change.
I spent the weekend walking around without shoes and a shirt...sometimes clad only in underwear...basically doing nothing all day if you don't count sitting on the deck in the sun working crossword puzzles and the few hours spent staking up tomato plants.
Oh...and I did manage to get all of my tools put away and the shop cleaned up and re-organized in anticipation of doing some clean-up work on three PLC programs I have running in the field right now.
So now after a quiet weekend spent "home alone", this morning finds me trying to make plans to attend yet another elderly relatives burial services...this time in southern Ohio.
It's one of those impossible trips where "you can't get there from here" unless you drive cross country and I can't spend three days out of the week in the process because I'm already so far behind in my work from being out of town most of the past two weeks.
Ideally it would be a "fly up in the morning" kind of trip where I meet my Cousins and ride with them to the Rogers family cemetery up on top of a hill
I guess it's time now to head to the basement and start wrestling with electronic crap again.
Wish me luck, if you will Y'all...
Sunday, May 22, 2011
The Dog Ate My Homework Stole My Shoe
One Annoying Little Bastard He Is...
We live in a pretty cool old neighborhood.
Basically it's the same sort of neighborhood I grew up in since it was built about the same time in the early 1960's. The only real difference is that it is in eastern Tennessee instead of Lower Alabama.
Today most of the houses are occupied by older widow ladies whose husbands have already gone on to Glory, with the balance of the houses filled with second and at most third owners.
The sad thing is that what was once a giant vacant property between our street and the Pike has been filled in over the past twenty years with professional offices and townhouses, and there's a string of duplexes and quads which anchor the streets at each end of our street and they've apparently seen their better days because they're becoming more and more a bit of an eyesore because the freaking Mexicans have moved in.
Don't get me wrong here Ladies and Gentlemen...
In spite of my past ranting, the Libertarian in me says that a property owner has the right to rent his property to anyone he wishes to that pays the price he asks...I just wish the said property owner would also police his property and make his tenants not treat the exterior and lawns like a junkyard.
Closer to home, we have a delightful Mexican family next door who are the HOME OWNERS.
What an amazing difference ownership makes when it comes to the appearance and standard of care regardless of the native nationality of the owners.
Then two houses down in the other direction there is something going on in the form of a rental/lease deal and if you count the number of cars in the yard there are eight adults living in a three bedroom 1-1/2 bath house.
Apparently one of the "Hispanic" men there fancies himself an auto mechanic so you can almost guarantee that the hood is up (or off of) at least one of the cars night and day most of the time.
And one or more of the women is either running a daycare center for the other area immigrants (legal and illegal) else there is a giant band of midget Mexicans living in the crawlspace (because there's not room for them in the main house.)
Behind that house on the next street over is also a band of Mexicans or Central Americans and word has it that they own that property, and other than having a half dozen vehicles parked in the driveway and on the street out front they are pretty good neighbors, EXCEPT...
they have these two little shit yapper dogs--a little Chihuahua named "Odie" and this other wire hairedterror terrier mutt of as yet unknown name. Let's just call him "Terror the Terrier" and leave it at that I guess.
So any way, they can't weigh thirty pounds in total, but these little bastards are the scourge of the neighborhood.
If a leaf falls off of a tree at night...
...they bark endlessly.
If you walk outside in the evening to get something out of your car or smoke a cigar...
...they bark endlessly.
And the most annoying thing is that the owners let the little pack of mongrels out of their pen occasionally to run around and rape and pillage and reek havoc in and on the adjoining properties.
Odie comes over and lifts his leg and pees on everything in sight when he can.
And Pat caught "Terror the Terrier" trying to drag one of my "yard shoes" off the carport a couple of weeks ago.
She yelled at him and he dropped it.
Then after being out of town for ten days and leaving my yard shoes sitting alone outside unguarded, yesterday when I went out to stake and tie up my tomato plants...GUESS WHAT?
Yep...I only had one old dirty tennis shoe sitting there by the porch swing.
So now I'm forced to wear my "back up" yard shoes...the really stinky nasty ones I usually reserve for doing stuff in the mud and things like running the weed eater.
Dang it, I don't care if a bus load of Mexicans move into the neighborhood because the flood gates have already opened, but I just wish that they could miraculously overcome their "cultural issues" because in the end...my problem is not racial...but more of a clash of a cultural nature which is very difficult to overcome I'm afraid.
Is it just ME?
We live in a pretty cool old neighborhood.
Basically it's the same sort of neighborhood I grew up in since it was built about the same time in the early 1960's. The only real difference is that it is in eastern Tennessee instead of Lower Alabama.
Today most of the houses are occupied by older widow ladies whose husbands have already gone on to Glory, with the balance of the houses filled with second and at most third owners.
The sad thing is that what was once a giant vacant property between our street and the Pike has been filled in over the past twenty years with professional offices and townhouses, and there's a string of duplexes and quads which anchor the streets at each end of our street and they've apparently seen their better days because they're becoming more and more a bit of an eyesore because the freaking Mexicans have moved in.
Don't get me wrong here Ladies and Gentlemen...
In spite of my past ranting, the Libertarian in me says that a property owner has the right to rent his property to anyone he wishes to that pays the price he asks...I just wish the said property owner would also police his property and make his tenants not treat the exterior and lawns like a junkyard.
Closer to home, we have a delightful Mexican family next door who are the HOME OWNERS.
What an amazing difference ownership makes when it comes to the appearance and standard of care regardless of the native nationality of the owners.
Then two houses down in the other direction there is something going on in the form of a rental/lease deal and if you count the number of cars in the yard there are eight adults living in a three bedroom 1-1/2 bath house.
Apparently one of the "Hispanic" men there fancies himself an auto mechanic so you can almost guarantee that the hood is up (or off of) at least one of the cars night and day most of the time.
And one or more of the women is either running a daycare center for the other area immigrants (legal and illegal) else there is a giant band of midget Mexicans living in the crawlspace (because there's not room for them in the main house.)
Behind that house on the next street over is also a band of Mexicans or Central Americans and word has it that they own that property, and other than having a half dozen vehicles parked in the driveway and on the street out front they are pretty good neighbors, EXCEPT...
they have these two little shit yapper dogs--a little Chihuahua named "Odie" and this other wire haired
So any way, they can't weigh thirty pounds in total, but these little bastards are the scourge of the neighborhood.
If a leaf falls off of a tree at night...
...they bark endlessly.
If you walk outside in the evening to get something out of your car or smoke a cigar...
...they bark endlessly.
And the most annoying thing is that the owners let the little pack of mongrels out of their pen occasionally to run around and rape and pillage and reek havoc in and on the adjoining properties.
Odie comes over and lifts his leg and pees on everything in sight when he can.
And Pat caught "Terror the Terrier" trying to drag one of my "yard shoes" off the carport a couple of weeks ago.
She yelled at him and he dropped it.
Then after being out of town for ten days and leaving my yard shoes sitting alone outside unguarded, yesterday when I went out to stake and tie up my tomato plants...GUESS WHAT?
Yep...I only had one old dirty tennis shoe sitting there by the porch swing.
So now I'm forced to wear my "back up" yard shoes...the really stinky nasty ones I usually reserve for doing stuff in the mud and things like running the weed eater.
Dang it, I don't care if a bus load of Mexicans move into the neighborhood because the flood gates have already opened, but I just wish that they could miraculously overcome their "cultural issues" because in the end...my problem is not racial...but more of a clash of a cultural nature which is very difficult to overcome I'm afraid.
Is it just ME?
Saturday, May 21, 2011
"It's The End Of The World As We Know It"
And I Feel Fine...
Sorry about the recent light blogging, Ladies and Gentlemen, but after returning home late Wednesday night and getting the luggage put away we've since had a house full of visitors beginning Thursday afternoon.
Between chasing/being chased by a little 2-1/2 year old red head girl and cooking for/entertaining the Adults in the party, I'm losing my mind trying to catch up from being out of town for ten days.
The stupid IRS is driving me crazy sending me forms and asking me questions since I had the audacity to start another corporation, with them rewarding me with a demand for more money or to fill out another form I've already filled out and mailed about once a month.
The funny thing is that I haven't actually made any real money yet, but if it is up to the IRS apparently I won't be making any Cash in the near future either because apparently the IRS expects me to work full time telling them why I'm not making any money by owning a company.
I'm thinking that maybe I can start a company with a business plan involving spending 50 hours a week filling out state and federal government tax forms for fun and profit.
Wait...I think someone has already thought of that...
Isn't it called being a Tax Lawyer or a CPA?
In other news, I've decided to just check off all of the things I have on my "To-Do List" and throw it away because there is some wild eyed Idiot named Harold Camping and a bunch of his followers running around out there saying that the world is supposed to end sometime later today.
Wait...I just checked and it is currently 4:55 PM in Tokyo and other than still trying to recover from the earthquake and Tsunami a couple of months ago things are still pretty much just peachy in Japan.
Not a single appearance of "Godzilla" or "Mothra" or any of the other cataclysmic creatures found in the cheesy horror films coming out of the island nation. Things like this fellow...
Of course this is my favorite Godzilla...shown in a 1980 vintage performance by the rock group "Blue Oyster Cult":
So any way, I've got to go now and screw around with some more things like expense reports and shuffle some other papers around my desk top, and I trust that everyone will have a LOVELY balance of the weekend in the mean time.
Regards Y'all...
Sorry about the recent light blogging, Ladies and Gentlemen, but after returning home late Wednesday night and getting the luggage put away we've since had a house full of visitors beginning Thursday afternoon.
Between chasing/being chased by a little 2-1/2 year old red head girl and cooking for/entertaining the Adults in the party, I'm losing my mind trying to catch up from being out of town for ten days.
The stupid IRS is driving me crazy sending me forms and asking me questions since I had the audacity to start another corporation, with them rewarding me with a demand for more money or to fill out another form I've already filled out and mailed about once a month.
The funny thing is that I haven't actually made any real money yet, but if it is up to the IRS apparently I won't be making any Cash in the near future either because apparently the IRS expects me to work full time telling them why I'm not making any money by owning a company.
I'm thinking that maybe I can start a company with a business plan involving spending 50 hours a week filling out state and federal government tax forms for fun and profit.
Wait...I think someone has already thought of that...
Isn't it called being a Tax Lawyer or a CPA?
In other news, I've decided to just check off all of the things I have on my "To-Do List" and throw it away because there is some wild eyed Idiot named Harold Camping and a bunch of his followers running around out there saying that the world is supposed to end sometime later today.
Wait...I just checked and it is currently 4:55 PM in Tokyo and other than still trying to recover from the earthquake and Tsunami a couple of months ago things are still pretty much just peachy in Japan.
Not a single appearance of "Godzilla" or "Mothra" or any of the other cataclysmic creatures found in the cheesy horror films coming out of the island nation. Things like this fellow...
Of course this is my favorite Godzilla...shown in a 1980 vintage performance by the rock group "Blue Oyster Cult":
So any way, I've got to go now and screw around with some more things like expense reports and shuffle some other papers around my desk top, and I trust that everyone will have a LOVELY balance of the weekend in the mean time.
Regards Y'all...
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
It's Alive--Part 3.1415
Success At Last....
About 11 AM this morning I had reason for celebration on the job site.
One single silly little conversion error in one of the levels I was measuring was basically filtering down through the program causing almost all of the problems I was experiencing since last Friday afternoon.
The simple inclusion of an extra algebraic calculation in one line of the ladder program and everything started working like it was supposed to work.
Now all I have to do is go in Wednesday, do a final QA/QC check, and conduct an hour training class for a half dozen operators and supervisors.
Then assuming that the above all goes as planned we're back across the Appalachians to the Turbo Pup compound on the banks of the Mighty Tennessee River by bedtime.
I'm ready to sort through the mail and sleep in my own bed for a change.
Regards Y'all...
About 11 AM this morning I had reason for celebration on the job site.
One single silly little conversion error in one of the levels I was measuring was basically filtering down through the program causing almost all of the problems I was experiencing since last Friday afternoon.
The simple inclusion of an extra algebraic calculation in one line of the ladder program and everything started working like it was supposed to work.
Now all I have to do is go in Wednesday, do a final QA/QC check, and conduct an hour training class for a half dozen operators and supervisors.
Then assuming that the above all goes as planned we're back across the Appalachians to the Turbo Pup compound on the banks of the Mighty Tennessee River by bedtime.
I'm ready to sort through the mail and sleep in my own bed for a change.
Regards Y'all...
Final Day On The Job Site?
I'll Know By Noon Today...
I'm back on the site this morning at 7 AM hoping my programmer's latest efforts solve a couple of bugs we're having in the Alarm logic on the PLC panel.
Since most everything else is working as expected, we'll make a few tweaks and then run it through a couple of cycles and hopefully get out of town this afternoon.
We Me luck...Y'all...
I'm back on the site this morning at 7 AM hoping my programmer's latest efforts solve a couple of bugs we're having in the Alarm logic on the PLC panel.
Since most everything else is working as expected, we'll make a few tweaks and then run it through a couple of cycles and hopefully get out of town this afternoon.
We Me luck...Y'all...
Monday, May 16, 2011
Back To Work
Time To Finish This Thing Up...
I've been livin' and eatin' and sleepin' industrial instrumentation communication standards this weekend.
I know everyone will be jealous and want to kiss the fingers on my mouse hand and have their picture taken with me...
But I'm too busy to socialize right now, so you will have to excuse me from my blogging duties while I attend to more "pressing" matters.
Regards Y'all...
I've been livin' and eatin' and sleepin' industrial instrumentation communication standards this weekend.
I know everyone will be jealous and want to kiss the fingers on my mouse hand and have their picture taken with me...
But I'm too busy to socialize right now, so you will have to excuse me from my blogging duties while I attend to more "pressing" matters.
Regards Y'all...
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Sunday Music
Oldies But Goodies...
I'm just goofing around this morning reading some things and listening to some weird stuff I've found.
First there's a band called "The Marmalade":
And now "The Hollies":
Finally Michael Murphy's "Wildfire"...
THEN
AND NOW
Me and the Turbo Pup are gonna take a nap now.
Regards Y'all...
I'm just goofing around this morning reading some things and listening to some weird stuff I've found.
First there's a band called "The Marmalade":
And now "The Hollies":
Finally Michael Murphy's "Wildfire"...
THEN
AND NOW
Me and the Turbo Pup are gonna take a nap now.
Regards Y'all...
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Industrial Vendor Induced Insanity ( I V I squared )
The Hungarians And The French Don't Like Americans Me?
So this morning finds me sitting in front of the old HP Laptop Computer worrying about a bunch of crap which I've managed to get all wired together and mounted on and in and around things hanging on walls and pipes and tanks here in an "Industrial Facility" in South Carolina.
I hate to admit that after the past week's experiences doing this "PLC Control System Start-Up" I'm starting to feel a little loopy and desperate, so if you look out your window into your yard this morning and you live anywhere near Simpsonville, South Carolina you might find me standing on a step ladder hooking wires up to your bug zapper or bird feeder or gas grill trying to get a signal...ANY SIGNAL...I can understand with my Equipment.
OK...
Maybe not...
But I digress...
It turns out that nearly half of the stuff I'm trying to use was "made and assembled" by "Yours Truly" here in the By-God good old United States of 'Merica at the Turbo Pup Compound on the banks of the Mighty Tennessee River...
And the other half?
Interestingly enough...
...the other half of that half was made in Hungary.
But then just recently I just found out that another quarter of my monstrosity was actually produced in FRANCE and sold to me by another 'Merican company I've been dealing with for a couple of years now.
Don't get me wrong here, Ladies and Gentlemen, because in spite of past rants and ramblings on this blog, I don't really give a a crap where you live and work--country, county, city, or state--as long as the product you sell me performs as advertised and you provide me with what is generally known in the engineering/construction business parlance as "cut sheets" or "documentation"
The average citizen not torturing themselves practicing the profession I lovingly call "Injuneering" would ask for an "Owners Manual."
Most likely written in English if you live in Alabama or Georgia or South Carolina or Tennessee.
(...and not translated into English from Swalhili by a multi-lingual third grader...UNDER DURESS...)
Problem for me is-best intentions aside--the Hungarians and French are forced because of their position on the GLOBE to operate on a schedule either 5 or 6 hours ahead of the "Eastern Time Zone" within which I reside and am currently conducting thisdebacle site installation exercise this past week.
Thus if I don't ask any questions I may have about the aforementioned foreign produced products...each day...by 10 or 11 AM EST...
There's a pretty darn good chance that I won't hear anything in the way of an answer (intelligible or unintelligible as the case may be) until the next morning/day.
And since YESTERDAY was FRIDAY THE 13TH???
I find myself sitting here this morning asking a couple of what will probably turn out to be some really stupid questions...
...which will probably warrant equally STUPID answers...
But now I'm DELAYED UNTIL MONDAY MORNING.
Dammit...
Fortunately Pat and Missy the Turbo Pup and I are safely sequestered here at my old college roommate's Condo (A.K.A. the "Prince Hotel") for the balance of the weekend while I recover from a week spent standing 5 to 7 hours each day in the noise and heat of a chemical plant.
And I'm sure that you'll excuse the light posting of late and my continuing mental malaise as I forge forward at a rate half of the speed oflight SMELL.
And until then...
Regards Y'all...
So this morning finds me sitting in front of the old HP Laptop Computer worrying about a bunch of crap which I've managed to get all wired together and mounted on and in and around things hanging on walls and pipes and tanks here in an "Industrial Facility" in South Carolina.
I hate to admit that after the past week's experiences doing this "PLC Control System Start-Up" I'm starting to feel a little loopy and desperate, so if you look out your window into your yard this morning and you live anywhere near Simpsonville, South Carolina you might find me standing on a step ladder hooking wires up to your bug zapper or bird feeder or gas grill trying to get a signal...ANY SIGNAL...I can understand with my Equipment.
OK...
Maybe not...
But I digress...
It turns out that nearly half of the stuff I'm trying to use was "made and assembled" by "Yours Truly" here in the By-God good old United States of 'Merica at the Turbo Pup Compound on the banks of the Mighty Tennessee River...
And the other half?
Interestingly enough...
...the other half of that half was made in Hungary.
But then just recently I just found out that another quarter of my monstrosity was actually produced in FRANCE and sold to me by another 'Merican company I've been dealing with for a couple of years now.
Don't get me wrong here, Ladies and Gentlemen, because in spite of past rants and ramblings on this blog, I don't really give a a crap where you live and work--country, county, city, or state--as long as the product you sell me performs as advertised and you provide me with what is generally known in the engineering/construction business parlance as "cut sheets" or "documentation"
The average citizen not torturing themselves practicing the profession I lovingly call "Injuneering" would ask for an "Owners Manual."
Most likely written in English if you live in Alabama or Georgia or South Carolina or Tennessee.
(...and not translated into English from Swalhili by a multi-lingual third grader...UNDER DURESS...)
Problem for me is-best intentions aside--the Hungarians and French are forced because of their position on the GLOBE to operate on a schedule either 5 or 6 hours ahead of the "Eastern Time Zone" within which I reside and am currently conducting this
Thus if I don't ask any questions I may have about the aforementioned foreign produced products...each day...by 10 or 11 AM EST...
There's a pretty darn good chance that I won't hear anything in the way of an answer (intelligible or unintelligible as the case may be) until the next morning/day.
And since YESTERDAY was FRIDAY THE 13TH???
I find myself sitting here this morning asking a couple of what will probably turn out to be some really stupid questions...
...which will probably warrant equally STUPID answers...
But now I'm DELAYED UNTIL MONDAY MORNING.
Dammit...
Fortunately Pat and Missy the Turbo Pup and I are safely sequestered here at my old college roommate's Condo (A.K.A. the "Prince Hotel") for the balance of the weekend while I recover from a week spent standing 5 to 7 hours each day in the noise and heat of a chemical plant.
And I'm sure that you'll excuse the light posting of late and my continuing mental malaise as I forge forward at a rate half of the speed of
And until then...
Regards Y'all...
More Insanity At The Airport
This Just In...
(Apparently in today's economy and job market some people have WaaaaaaaAAAAAAYYYYY too much time on their hands...)
(Apparently in today's economy and job market some people have WaaaaaaaAAAAAAYYYYY too much time on their hands...)
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
I'm Melting.....
Either Freezing Or Frying In My Field The Field
Just in case you haven't been paying attention, during the majority of my professional career I've been pretty much what I call an "Office Boy."
By that simple reference I mean that the majority of my injuneering work has been historically conducted in the air conditioned comfort of an office.
At first my office was located in buildings owned by other people (what I call employers.) Then during much of the past 21 years I wandered around in facilities which I owned personally (A.K.A. "my house" or most recently "my basement.")
But then at times on again and off again over the period of my professional achievement and unachievement I've randomly spent days if not weeks at a time performing work in the field on my customer's property delivering and installing the things I've designed and sometimes built and making the aforementioned things perform as promised and specified.
This week would be one of "THOSE" field/jobsite weeks, and let me tell you Ladies and Gentlemen...
I AM AN EXPERT AT PICKING OBSCENELY EXTREME WEATHER CONDITIONS WITHIN WHICH TO CONDUCT MY EXERCISES IN FIELD ENGINEERING AND CONSTRUCTION.
Seriously...I have to explain here that most of the time over the course of my near 30 year career I would stay in my office for most of 11 months out of each of those years, and yet then the remaining four weeks spread out over the 12 months in any given year I found myself either standing in the rain and snow while the thermometer hovers near 20 degrees F....
else preforming my work like I've been doing this week literally soaked to the skin from head to toe in sweat...in the 90 degree heat...and 90% humidity...surrounded by and large by people 20 years my junior who cavort around like it's just another day in the park at a picnic.
I've sweated so much in the past two days that I've melted the Altoids Mints I left in my front jeans pocket into solid cake-like blobs stuck to the pocket lining.
I've sweated so much that I'm considering buying stock in Gold Bond Powder and possibly Anti Monkeybutt Powder while I'm at it just so I can walk and sit down at the end of the day.
OK...I know...TMI (too much information...Mom) there but still...
Tomorrow is another day.
And I still have a few nagging details to finish up and then I have to conduct a little training class for the first and second shift system operators which will be using my Touch Screen PLC system to do their work.
Then if I'm successful we'll load up little Missy the Turbo Pup's lockers and sea chests back into the old Chrysler 300 (along with my plastic trash bag full of stinking sweaty clothes) and trundle back across through Asheville and the Appalachians to Knoxtown to the Turbo Pup Compound.
I'm hitting the job site at 7 AM this morning...Wish me luck...if you will...
Just in case you haven't been paying attention, during the majority of my professional career I've been pretty much what I call an "Office Boy."
By that simple reference I mean that the majority of my injuneering work has been historically conducted in the air conditioned comfort of an office.
At first my office was located in buildings owned by other people (what I call employers.) Then during much of the past 21 years I wandered around in facilities which I owned personally (A.K.A. "my house" or most recently "my basement.")
But then at times on again and off again over the period of my professional achievement and unachievement I've randomly spent days if not weeks at a time performing work in the field on my customer's property delivering and installing the things I've designed and sometimes built and making the aforementioned things perform as promised and specified.
This week would be one of "THOSE" field/jobsite weeks, and let me tell you Ladies and Gentlemen...
I AM AN EXPERT AT PICKING OBSCENELY EXTREME WEATHER CONDITIONS WITHIN WHICH TO CONDUCT MY EXERCISES IN FIELD ENGINEERING AND CONSTRUCTION.
Seriously...I have to explain here that most of the time over the course of my near 30 year career I would stay in my office for most of 11 months out of each of those years, and yet then the remaining four weeks spread out over the 12 months in any given year I found myself either standing in the rain and snow while the thermometer hovers near 20 degrees F....
else preforming my work like I've been doing this week literally soaked to the skin from head to toe in sweat...in the 90 degree heat...and 90% humidity...surrounded by and large by people 20 years my junior who cavort around like it's just another day in the park at a picnic.
I've sweated so much in the past two days that I've melted the Altoids Mints I left in my front jeans pocket into solid cake-like blobs stuck to the pocket lining.
I've sweated so much that I'm considering buying stock in Gold Bond Powder and possibly Anti Monkeybutt Powder while I'm at it just so I can walk and sit down at the end of the day.
OK...I know...TMI (too much information...Mom) there but still...
Tomorrow is another day.
And I still have a few nagging details to finish up and then I have to conduct a little training class for the first and second shift system operators which will be using my Touch Screen PLC system to do their work.
Then if I'm successful we'll load up little Missy the Turbo Pup's lockers and sea chests back into the old Chrysler 300 (along with my plastic trash bag full of stinking sweaty clothes) and trundle back across through Asheville and the Appalachians to Knoxtown to the Turbo Pup Compound.
I'm hitting the job site at 7 AM this morning...Wish me luck...if you will...
Ho Hum
Like Watching Paint Dry...
Well, I've been here in "the upstate" area of South Carolina for going on three days now, and in the process I've managed to get a couple of hours of productive work done so far.
The good news is my panel looks good and is mounted and wired into my end of the field sensor and control wiring.
The bad news is that even though my customer has been screaming for two weeks saying that they were "basically done" with the installation of the balance of the field wiring and piping...
when I left the job site at 4:30 PM yesterday there was three electricians standing on top of and around the four giant tanks still connecting wires to things I had delivered on Monday morning.
Any way, I look really good so far in regard to my work and progress, and hopefully when I go over to the site this afternoon we'll finally be able to turn on the electrical power and make my masterpiece actually do something close to what it was designed to do.
Blogging has been suffering because of some behind the scene work I've been doing on this and another project when I'm not standing in the sun sweating on the job site.
Well, I've been here in "the upstate" area of South Carolina for going on three days now, and in the process I've managed to get a couple of hours of productive work done so far.
The good news is my panel looks good and is mounted and wired into my end of the field sensor and control wiring.
The bad news is that even though my customer has been screaming for two weeks saying that they were "basically done" with the installation of the balance of the field wiring and piping...
when I left the job site at 4:30 PM yesterday there was three electricians standing on top of and around the four giant tanks still connecting wires to things I had delivered on Monday morning.
Any way, I look really good so far in regard to my work and progress, and hopefully when I go over to the site this afternoon we'll finally be able to turn on the electrical power and make my masterpiece actually do something close to what it was designed to do.
Blogging has been suffering because of some behind the scene work I've been doing on this and another project when I'm not standing in the sun sweating on the job site.
Monday, May 09, 2011
Palmetto State Blogging--Part Deaux
Commentary From The "Up-State"...
Yesterday was a pretty good day...
...as travel days can go.
A leisurely departure about 1 PM.
A short drive on I-40 across the mountains through Asheville to an early dinner...
...followed by another less than hour long driving segment over to Greenville.
Then we sat around and blabbed about basically nothing until midnight.
Now today if I can get my head aligned with the magnetic field in this area and get a little work done...
I'll be back here on the Internet to say something relevent possibly.
Until then...Regards Y'all...
Yesterday was a pretty good day...
...as travel days can go.
A leisurely departure about 1 PM.
A short drive on I-40 across the mountains through Asheville to an early dinner...
...followed by another less than hour long driving segment over to Greenville.
Then we sat around and blabbed about basically nothing until midnight.
Now today if I can get my head aligned with the magnetic field in this area and get a little work done...
I'll be back here on the Internet to say something relevent possibly.
Until then...Regards Y'all...
Sunday, May 08, 2011
We're Goin' On The Road?
The Turbo Pup RoadShow Rides Again...
S U R P R I S E...
Did anyone but me know that our Puppy is heading out of town again today?
The good news is that we get to go with her.
She suspects something is up but she's not quite sure yet because I waited until after she went to bed to start dragging out the suitcases and stuff.
After finishing up some details in the documentation and the preliminary version of the owner's manual, I have a date with my customer at the job site over in Simpsonville, South Carolina first thing on Monday morning to begin installing and starting up my latest custom PLC control panel.
Here...take a peek...
There are 17 input channels and 21 output channels driving everything from warning lights to valves which open and close while holding back ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY THOUSAND GALLONS of waste water.
It's attached to five of these red things (non-contact ultrasonic level sensors), and two of those blue football looking things (float switches) which are supposed to tell it what is going on where.
It also has a whole bunch of other stuff connected to it about which I won't bore you with the details of, but still....
S U R P R I S E...
Did anyone but me know that our Puppy is heading out of town again today?
The good news is that we get to go with her.
She suspects something is up but she's not quite sure yet because I waited until after she went to bed to start dragging out the suitcases and stuff.
After finishing up some details in the documentation and the preliminary version of the owner's manual, I have a date with my customer at the job site over in Simpsonville, South Carolina first thing on Monday morning to begin installing and starting up my latest custom PLC control panel.
Here...take a peek...
There are 17 input channels and 21 output channels driving everything from warning lights to valves which open and close while holding back ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY THOUSAND GALLONS of waste water.
It's attached to five of these red things (non-contact ultrasonic level sensors), and two of those blue football looking things (float switches) which are supposed to tell it what is going on where.
This is the most complex system I've designed and built to date, and unlike my other systems intended to look at things like plastic bottles moving past my sensors really fast, this one works at a snail's pace but if it screws up there is likely to be a story on "Action News at 5 PM" with the Sheriff and Paramedics and pictures of them dragging me off in a straight-jacket kicking and screaming.
So any wayyyy...We're going to make a leisurely stroll across the Appalachian Mountains and the Eastern Continental Divide through Asheville and Hendersonville this afternoon, stopping for a late lunch/dinner at Sidestreeet Pizza in Tryon, North Carolina before landing for the evening at my old Georgia Tech Bud Rusty's "Prince Hotel" palace in the Greenville/Greer/Spartanburg Metropolitian area.
Then I suspect that hilarity will ensue as I try to explain to my customer how to make this thing work as expected.
Wish me luck...If you will...
