I’m Back On The Stage Again

Building Things To Tear Down


Sorry about the light posting this weekend, but I’m distracted.

I guess that I haven’t mentioned that I’ve been back in the set design business again this month--this time doing the scenery for another rendition of Charles Dicken’s “A Christmas Carol.”

They’ll have their first performance on December 5th, so I’ve got to get cracking Monday afternoon manhandling a few thousand pounds of plywood, foam, and 2x4’s into something that resembles Scrooge’s bedroom, office and Tiny Tim’s dining room.

I find that the best thing about working for Heather and the GIAHA people over at Brunswick’s Ritz theater is the level of professionalism they put into every show. Even though most of the actors are true amateurs, they always include several professional actors in each performance and the stage crew and lighting/sound people are really on the ball.

This year my friend Bryan Thompson, Mayor of the City of Brunswick, is playing the role of Scrooge, and little Sara (ten years old going on thirty) is the Ghost of Christmas Past. I guess that my biggest challenge this year is to figure out how to make Sara appear to rise ominously out of Scrooge’s bed in her entrance scene without causing her to fall over and crack her cute little skull on the furniture.

Really, I just LOVE doing special effects…

I’ve worked my butt off over the past three seasons, for free, pouring my soul into theater sets that rarely had casts which appreciated and deserved the quality I put into my efforts on their behalf, but the gang at the Ritz always takes good advantage of the fruits of my creative work and each year I’m challenged to raise the bar yet again. This year will be no exception.

I guess that it’s time to get back to the drawing board now… photos to follow shortly…

.

Too Busy To Complain About The World

I’m Silent For A Change


Do you want something to worry about? Forget MY personal opinion on these subjects, today’s assignment involves YOU doing some reading (in places other than the pages of the NY Times and the rest of the lamestream media) on these subjects:

1. It took less than two weeks for the new Democratic congress to start melting down while at the same time showing the American voters what a liberal moonbat Nancy Pelosi really is.

The defeat of her buddy and endorsed candidate, John Murtha, by Steny Hoyer for the position of House Majority leader is just the beginning of what I hope is a series of defeats for a woman that I consider to be the second most dangerous set of walking female glands on the planet behind Hillary Clinton. (And, by the way, why does Steny Hoyer sound like the name of a member of “Our Gang” on the old TV show The Little Rascals.)

2. Did OJ really do it? Apparently he’s telling everyone how he would have done it, IF he did it on a show on the Fox Entertainment Network (not FOX news) later this month.

3. Will somebody tell me what mechanism allows tornados to zoom in on trailer parks 99% of the time? Seven more people were killed by a tornado in North Carolina trailer park yesterday. It can’t be a magnetic phenomena, because other than the sub-frame, trailers are made from wood and aluminum. I think that every town should build their own tornado decoy consisting of a group of unoccupied trailers to draw the next storm’s wrath.

4. Why will grown men complain about waiting 30 minutes to vote for President of the United States, then go out to stand in line on the sidewalk for three days to buy a Sony Playstation III?

5. Can anyone tell me why I have to buy a camera to get a new cell phone? Seriously, I already have a really nice Cannon G3 digital camera, and all I want now is two cell phones to replace our 4-year old Nokia Phones that are slowly dying as pieces fall off and the displays crack from wear.

I’ve had a cell phone since 1990, and this purchase represents only my fifth phone in the intervening years--each supposedly smaller, lighter, and better. I say that each successive phone sucks worse than the one before. I long for my old big, bulky, 3 watt Nokia phone that mounted on a pedestal in my Suburban so I could talk to God in the middle of the wilderness rather than these crappy 0.6 watt phones that cause me to end almost every conversation with the words…

”If you can hear me…I’ll call back in a minute…”

Here...Try This

A Quick Pasta Dinner--Vodka Tomato Cream Sauce


I'm still working my tail off trying to catch up with my obligations for the upcoming Canadian Technical Seminars, while at the same time being sick and tired of eating every meal out in a restaurant (I know, I know…boo hoo hoo.)

Here is what I did to solve my dilemma for last evening's dinner for two (double the amounts for four meals) :

Heat a large, heavy skillet and add:

2 tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1/4 stick of butter

Sautee:

1/4 medium onion, diced fine

Once the onion is cooked clear, add 1/2 of a 14.5 oz can of pureed tomatoes and a 1/4 cup of beef stock (or chicken stock) to the skillet.

Simmer over medium heat for about ten minutes.

Meanwhile, heat a pot of water to boiling, add a teaspoon of salt and a splash of olive oil, and cook yourself a batch of Penne Pasta (or any other small tubular pasta) and cook until it's "al dente" (that's French for the Redneck term "Done")

When your pasta is almost ready, sprinkle 1/2 teaspoon of cayenne pepper flakes into your sauce and pour about a ¼ cup of vodka and a ¼ cup of half & half into the mix, then turn up the heat a little and stir, stir stir.

Keep stirring…

Pour your pasta through a colander to drain well, then toss it into the skillet with your sauce and stir everything up real nice.

Dump your pasta and sauce out into two big preheated bowls on chargers, grate some good Parmigiano Reggiano or Parmigiano Localetti Cheese on top, grab yourself a fork and napkin, and EAT.

Now feel free to entertain yourself, because I'm busy...

I'm Back In Town

My Mind's Willing...But My Body Needs More Sleep


I was up for 24 straight hours ending about 3:00 AM when I finally let myself doze off after losing a spreadsheet I had been working on for about 3 hours (without saving any intermediate results--I know...I know...so beat me for my stupidity...)

Now I've got to try to recreate my previous results by combing through several dozen E-mails for contact info for our Canadian Seminars next week.

Blogging is just going to have to wait this morning...

Airport Blogging

Backward Thinking


Elapsed Travel time: Stardate 8 hours, 54 minutes EST

OK, so try to picture Pat and I sitting in the little airport restaurant/bar in White Plains, NY, drinking tiny $8 Jack & Cokes and $3 club sodas.

Add to that image me being just a little perturbed because after arriving at the airport 2-½ hours before our flight and stumbling through the obligatory disrobing and pawing in the TSA security area, we realized that there were only two gates and NO RESTAURANT OR BAR in the departure lounge area.

It took about two seconds for us to decide to risk running the security gauntlet again with my new explosive laden support hose New Balance tennis shoes in order to go upstairs and sit in comfort in the restaurant while we killed another hour and one half or so.

No big deal, but then when I tried to log onto the airport’s wireless network I learned that like Atlanta they wanted $6.95 worth of my credit card for 24 hours of access.

Like someone is going to hang out here all day for the great food and mixed drinks with flat Coke products. Of course there is the discount $3.95 rate for all the tight wads in their captive audience.

$3.95 gets you…

get ready…

FIFTEEN WHOLE MINUTES OF INTERNET EXTACY.

Yeah, riiiight…

I went ahead and sprang for the $6.95 deal, which was a good thing because it took me 15 minutes to get Yahoo and a couple of other windows to load because instead of 802.1g they must be using 401.05a or something invented back in the stone ages.

The network is veeeerrrrrrryyyyy S L O W.

Regardless, it looks like we’ll make it home on schedule, and my business partner gave my spirits a boost by letting me know that both seminars in Canada are a go on the 24th in Calgary and the 30th in Ft. McMurray. Even better, I don’t have to make the trip. If I go to Canada and I’m not skiing I want to go in July, not November.

I’m ready to sit on my sofa and vegetate, see y’all then…

Vacation Post Mortem

Happy To Be Heading Back Home


Well, it’s about 3 AM and I’m wide awake, even though the alarm on my cell phone was set for six. We have about an 18 hour travel day ahead of us as we backtrack on three ferry rides across eastern Long Island and Long Island Sound to Connecticut, turn south west to the White Plains airport, then on to Atlanta and Brunswick by air.

We expect to be back at home on our little island by about 10:45 tonight. I get a little tired just thinking about the process. At least the driving portion is on the front end rather than the back end of the sojourn.

I hate to admit it, but I have to be one of the poorest people within 100 miles of where I sit right now, particularly if you exclude the children under the age of 18 and most of the cats and dogs in the area.

Good God but this part of the world is well off. As far as I can determine there isn’t a house priced at less than $1,000,000 anywhere on Long Island unless it’s burned down or had the foundation washed away by a flood tide.

Yesterday we drove down to East Hampton and wandered around their shopping district during a late afternoon break in the rain. Tiffany and Gucci had little stores right on Main Street, and there were some amazing antique shops containing end tables and little bookshelves priced in the thousands of dollars price range.

I wondered if they would take an out of town check…boing boing boing…

I have to say that our review of the Bed & Breakfast Inn’s we chose is somewhat mixed.

The Roger Sherman Inn was basically a really good Restaurant with 30 rooms located upstairs and in the Carriage House. We ended up in a rather small room where I banged my knees and elbows into the furnishings and narrow door frames practically every time I turned around. The staff was competent and friendly, but seemed to be more focused on the restaurant business rather than filling my ice bucket and interacting with the room guests.

The Sunrise Guest House here in Montauk has only four rooms for rent, and we got the only two room suit with a fireplace. The room was excellent, but the proprietor was a bit aloof and unprofessional and I suspect could be considered bit off-putting to deal with for older patrons or those wanting a “hoity-toity” atmosphere. Being the laid back beach bum that I am, he and I got along just fine, BUT…

He had this weird rule about no food or drink in the guestrooms at Sunrise, although he didn‘t enforce it on our stay. I guess that I should have known that something was up when there was no cups or an ice bucket in our suit.

We broke that rule and stomped all over the pieces for a half day before we noticed the sign on the wall in the kitchen area as I ran up and down the stairs asking for ice to go with our vodka, club soda, and cranberry libations.

I have to ask this question:

Who the hell runs an Inn that doesn’t sell alcohol or provide beverages other than at breakfast and attempts to not allow the guests to drink their own beverages in a room that costs $195 per night in high season?

Answer: William does.

Any way, now I’m going to roust Pat up out of bed early and try to eliminate some of the drama from the return trip by getting an early start, and we might be able to visit our friend Bucky (Dartmouth Class of 1942) on the way back through the area.

See Y’all in Georgia soon...

.

Planes, Trains Ferries, And (Rented) Automobiles

Three Boats Later…


I find the geography to be weird as hell up here on the north tip of Long Island--but in a GOOD way.

For those of you that haven’t been to Montauk, it’s like you took a beach from the outer banks of North Carolina and plopped it down in the middle of Asheville, NC.

Seriously, you can drive away to the north from forty foot sand dunes and in five minutes you’re in rolling hills covered with slightly stunted versions of typical new England hardwoods that have already lost their leaves.

After watching Pat freak out while we loaded our rented SUV onto a giant auto ferry at New London about noon yesterday, we arrived at Orient Point Long Island about an hour and a half later having saved at LEAST a half day drive down through NY City and back up north.

I was planning on driving down the north fork and back up the south fork of the island, but when we stopped for lunch at Claudio's in Greenport I found the North and South Shelter Island Ferry’s that cut yet another 1-½ hours off the trip out to Montauk.

By the way, I have this innate ability to stumble over places like Claudio's by accident, and while is isn’t always a cheep experience the opportunity to visit such landmarks is well worth the extra cost (a hamburger and fries was $11.) The restaurant had been there on the dock, owned by the same family, since 1870--thereby making it the oldest single family run restaurant in the entire United States.

After lunch, Pat wasn’t exactly thrilled that I had added two additional short boat trips to our itinerary, but the Shelter Island runs were across very flat water and we got to stay in the SUV while under way instead of wandering around a passenger lounge, so she was no worse for the wear when the saga was over with.

I’m still kicking my own butt for having left my digital camera in the trunk in Brunswick because I’m running around with a stupid throw-away camera that makes the flash go off every time the lighting isn’t 1,000,000 lumens.

I just got in from wandering out to make sunrise photos from the beach in front of our B&B and all I probably got was overexposed images of sand with blurry clouds and a yellow blob for the sun.

I guess that I’m going to have to super glue my Cannon G3 to the Tripod so that I can’t forget one or the other next time--it’s all of nothing from here on out.

It looks like the weather might be giving us a break for a while today so we’re going to run around doing some shopping and the tourist thing, then we have to rise early tomorrow morning and reverse our saga’s direction in order to make a 4:30 flight out of White Planes.

Wish us luck…

A CORRECTION

I just checked the NOAA website, and the break in the clouds at sunrise was actually the "calm before the storm." There's a mini-nor'easter blowing this way from the south west, I just hope it blasts on through so we can get out of here early tomorrow morning...of course, if Delta doesn't fly, it wouldn't be a total loss to be stuck in White Plains NY for an extra night.

Changing My State (Of Mind)

Another Travel Day


Dang it, but I managed to screw around and I didn’t get a reservation on the auto Ferry until yesterday afternoon, and by the time I figured out that the hourly trips were filling up my choices were limited to some time before 1 PM else after 7 PM.

I got us on the 1 PM trip. Who knew that it would be so busy on Sunday?

As a result, it looks like we won’t be going to Rhode Island tomorrow because I don’t want to leave at 6 AM and with the front and associated rain moving in I think that an expedient trip up I-95 is the best option, after visiting some friends on the Long Island Sound over in Norwalk, CT.

All in all it’s been a great vacation so far, with lots of great food and plenty of time to visit with our former neighbor Bucky (Dartmouth Class of ’42) and his family.

I’m still basically ignorant about anything going on in the news except Ed Bradley and Jack Palance died in the past few days and the Wicked Witch of the West Nancy Pelosi is still assumed to be the leading candidate for Speaker of The House next January.

I’ve got to go throw up now…

Everything’s Perfect Here

Everything...Except For ME


Good God this place is beautiful.

The houses, the trees, even most of the people. No one is even FAT up here…it must be a law or something.

While we were walking around in the quaint little downtown shopping district yesterday, school let out and we were suddenly inundated with teens and pre-teens and if I were a 16 year old boy I would feel like I looked like this:





…while most of the girls looked like this:

Seriously, we live in a marvelous place on St. Simons Island, but IF I didn’t love the south and the coast so much, and IF I didn’t hate the cold so much, I would seriously consider relocating to the Fairfield County, Connecticut area.

The only problem would be that we would probably have to live in a homeless shelter or something, because things in this area are a bit ’spensive. I was doing some checking on the internet and the median per capita income is over $80,000 per year!

Just Damn.

Even the maids must be pulling down mid-five-figure incomes to afford an efficiency apartment on the edge of town…and speaking of apartments and condos--I haven’t seen any.

Even the most modest housing in the area consists of three or four thousand square feet of 150 year old boards and shingles, surrounded by a Revolutionary War era stone wall. Many of these “cottages” are actually “second homes” for people who live down in NY City.

There’s no Wal Mart, no Home Depot, no hotel/motels, and just a couple of Bed and Breakfast Inns in the area. It makes for an interesting population dynamic when compared to places like our little island which prostitute themselves for hoards of the almighty tourist dollars.

I’m not saying that they’re rude or anything because everyone has actually been very gracious, but this part of Connecticut isn’t going anywhere but up, even if another tourist never sets foot in the county in their second 270 years of existence as a settlement.

As some of my readers know, I have a few culinary hobbies including fine wine and cheeses. I walked into a wine shop yesterday and almost had a heart attack looking at their Port Wine selections. In Georgia you might find two or three vintages of Fonseca and Taylor Fladgate Porto in any given shop.

Not so in New Canaan.

Instead I found one bottle of 1963 (at nearly $500), in addition to bottles and bottles of 1970, 1985, and a number of vintages in the 1990’s and early 2000’s. Probably $7,500 worth of Port in one store on two shelves. The only things missing were bottles of the famous 1966 and 1977 vintages, else one could have stocked a complete cellar of excellent Port Wines in a single stop.

Next there was cheese. This one little private grocer that we visited had an infinite selection of fine hand crafted domestic organic sheep’s and goat’s milk cheeses, in addition to many fine imported European products that we never see in Georgia, even in our snobby Harris Teeter that serves the wealthy denizens of nearby Sea Island. One ten pound wheel of wax coated ambrosia was priced at nearly $150.

Now that’s some big cheese…

Thus far I’ve managed to enjoy our visit without uttering words like “shazam” and “Ggawwww Leeeee”, but I did get a bit excited in the wine shop--enough so that the manager came over and calmed me down by offering to box up and ship his entire inventory down to Georgia via FedEX.

I had to explain that I was afraid I was a few thousand short of funding THAT endeavor right now, but I'd keep his offer in mind in the future.

More Redneck adventures & commentary to follow...

News Withdrawal

And A Little Travel Fatigue...


If a substantial portion of the world blew up yesterday, I wouldn’t have known until the past hour or so because I haven’t been near a TV that carried FOX News since about 5 AM yesterday morning. Right now I’m having to settle for CNN--I’ll tell you why in a minute.

After three hours on regional jets and a couple hours in the Atlanta airport, we drove into New Canaan, CT about 2 PM and checked into our historic Bed & Breakfast, The Roger Sherman Inn in time to collapse for a few minutes and take our shoes off.

The Inn is nice and quaint and bigger than I expected, and it’s right down the street from our old friend Bucky’s abode and just a minute from downtown so we’ll get to spend our time socializing rather commuting.

Now back to my lack of news…The only gripe I have with our room is that someone has deprogrammed FOX News out of the cable programming on our TV, even though it listed on our in room TV directory. I guess that it was the handiwork of some sniveling liberal one of the lovely previous guests that was afraid of FOX’s programming or something.

Any way…having lived on our little island for three Fall seasons now, it’s really nice to see some trees with colored leaves, even though things are way past peak now and many trees are bare. At home things are basically green year round since the Live Oaks don’t ever lose their leaves at one time and almost everything else is things like pines and other evergreens.

I wanted to take out my tripod and make some pictures several times today, but the tripod doesn’t take very good pictures without important things my DIGITAL CAMERA, which is currently spending it’s vacation in our trunk at the Brunswick airport parking lot.

Sometimes I’m such a BONEHEAD…

MORE...

I fumbled around with the TV remote, did a little reprogramming, and I have the following announcement:

I CAN NOW VIEW FOX NEWS!!!

(I also resisted blocking the Clinton News Network CNN in a moment of weakness)

An Alabama Redneck In King Arthur’s A Connecticut Court

Look Out New England…Here I Come…Yeeeeeeeee Haaaaaaaaaaa


Well, we’re getting on an airplane a little after 6 AM tomorrow, heading for part of the country that I have thus far avoided gracing with my presence.

It’s not all a bad thing, however, because the trip helps me knock another couple of states off of the map in my plan to visit all 50 before I physically leave the planet.

After this trip, I’ll be able to mark Connecticut and Rhode Island off of my “not visited list”, leaving the total at an even dozen of sovereign states that I haven’t wandered into yet and tortured the residents with my southern accent, attitude, and stories of gun ownership.

Although it would have been an advantage to have visited a little earlier in the season while the leaves were still on the trees, at least the weather is predicted to be relatively mild--with highs near 60 and lows in the mid 40’s.

After spending a few days visiting our friend and former neighbor Bucky (Dartmouth Class of 1942), we‘ll be moving out of our Bed & Breakfast and taking an auto ferry across Long Island Sound to Montauk, New York for a couple of days of sightseeing and eating New England seafood. I hope to come home with some interesting photographs of lighthouses and the coastal scenes found there on the northern most tip of Long Island.

Thinking things through, I guess that I’ll have to restrain myself over the weekend while watching TV, with Georgia Tech playing North Carolina in Chapel Hill and the NASCAR race on Sunday out in Phoenix.

If you have relatives in that part of the country, you might want to phone ahead and warn them that I’m coming through…

Republicans Make Trip To The Woodshed

I Hope You Get Your Money's Worth...


I voted for the Libertarian candidate in a few state offices today. I would have probably touched the screen for more candidates with the "L" behind their name if there had been any.

It seems that people that would normally push the "R" button went for the "D" button with a similar sentiment.

Now, with the US House of representatives clearly in the Democrat's hands and the Senate teetering by one or two seats from being a tie, I look forward to the next two years being an even greater stalemate than we've witnessed over the past six years of the Bush Presidency.

All of you folks up there in Ohio and Pennsylvania should pat yourselves on the back because it would appear that the election was swinging largely on your opinions of how things should be done.

Look for the "tit for tat" mentality to continue, only with the Republicans playing partisan politics, and important issues like border security/immigration reform and Social Security taking a back seat to endless debate over redeployment of our troops and investigations and rumors of impeachment of the president taking the front page.

I hope the lamestream mainstream media is happy...they certainaly got their money's worth for their efforts...

IT’S TIME TO GO VOTE

Then Go Home And Stop Complaining...


And if you stay home today, you get EXACTLY what you deserve--no say in our political process.

I predict, in spite of the media hysteria to the contrary, that the Republicans will hold both the House and the Senate. In fact, I think that they might even INCREASE their margins.

Fortunately, just like football, polls mean absolutely nothing--we have to play the game to see the outcome...

MORE

This just came in to my E-mail from the John sKerry website:

This is our chance to take the power to lead America out of the Bush Republicans' hands. Winning means raising the minimum wage. Winning means moving towards health care for all, starting with every child in America. Winning means forcing an end to the disastrous war in Iraq, and getting our heroes home.

Winning means firing the incompetents, stopping the corruption, and making America stop being the world's leading denier of global climate change.

OK John,, let's take this thing point by point.

Point A--Raising the minimum wage will do nothing but hurt young people's chances of getting their FIRST job since employers will hire fewer people and demand more for their government mandated money.

As I've said many times before, if you're trying to raise a family of four working a minimum wage job you've also probably been smoking crack else you dropped out of/slept through high school and there's nothing that the government can do other than extort money out of employers to ease your pain--but the pain won't go away entirely because you are obviously STUPID.

Point B--Health care for children...hummm, let's see here.

I don't know a single instance where the parent of a sick child in Glynn County Georgia can't take their child to a free clinic or a doctor's office/emergency room in the area and receive treatment for their chirrun', on demand...UNLESS said parent is some crack head idiot that is so stupid as to be still working a minimum wage job in their thirties (see point A above.)

Point C-- Mr. sKerry, Hero's wouldn't be Hero's if they spent their time sitting on the sofa in Brunswick, Georgia. If we listen to you and John Murtha, Iraq will implode and terrorists will be over here mowing my grass within six months while they plot how to blow up me and my condo building.

Of course John skerry doesn't have to worry about terrorism because he parks in a secure garage in DC and has Secret Service personnel looking up his ass 24/7 while sleeping in his Chateau in France, his Lodge in Colorado, and his Georgetown mansion.

Point D--John, John, John...Regarding Global Warming, there is no such thing, DAMMIT...at least as far as there being any PROOF that the current slight upward trend is man made. What happened to the "Killer Hurricane" season all of the pundits and media was predicting for this summer?

And by the way Mr. sKerry, why is China and most of the third world exempted from the Kyoto Treaty and it's business killing limits on emissions? Why should President Bush be forced to sign a treaty that President Clinton also refused to sign when he was running the show here?

Yeah...I though so...

I bought A New Gun

The Squirrels Are Nervous


A couple of summers ago, when we first put our bird feeders out, we elected to use Safflower seed rather that a wild bird mix--thereby limiting the species of birds we attracted but also trying to not attract squirrels to our second story balcony.

It sounded good IN THEORY, and I'm happy to report that the scheme worked, until about six weeks ago.

Since that time, we've had an literal aerial circus of squirrels, leaping off of the roof and from adjacent trees; climbing the tabby walls, and apparently flying in from orbiting squirrel satellites to land on the patio and on the two feeders, thereby wrecking havoc on an almost hourly basis during daylight.

After chasing the little bastards around a dozen times a day and throwing ice cubes at them for a few weeks, on Saturday I went to Wall Mart and purchased some firepower.

A crappy little $28 crossman pellet/BB rifle (dang it, but the really good guns with a scope and 1000 fps muzzle velocity are over $100 now.)

I don't intend to kill anything, but using BB's and about two or three pumps, over the past day I've reduced the squirrel incursions by at LEAST 75%. I've managed to sting two or three in the butt as they retreated to the adjacent trees, so now their tactics involve running out of sight as soon as I open the sliding glass door.

There was a time in my life when I wouldn't settle for a BB and a few pumps of the handle, but would use a pellet and about ten lethal pumps.

I guess I'm getting mellow in my middle age...

Beating A Dead Horse

Can They Find Someone That Actually Gives A Damn?


I’ve been aware of this story for a while, but didn’t comment because I figured that it would end up being a tempest in a teapot.

I guess I was wrong, because the partisan ass that calls himself the Palm Beach County Elections Supervisor refuses to communicate with Ann Coulter and her attorney except in writing, and is now going to try to prosecute her for election fraud:

WEST PALM BEACH -- Conservative columnist Ann Coulter has refused to cooperate in an investigation about whether she voted in the wrong precinct, so the case will likely be turned over to state prosecutors, Palm Beach County's elections chief said Wednesday.

Elections Supervisor Arthur Anderson said his office has been looking into the matter for nearly nine months, and he would turn over the case to the state attorney's office by Friday…

Anderson's office received a complaint in February that Coulter allegedly voted in the wrong precinct during a Feb. 7 Palm Beach town council election. Since then, Anderson said he has made repeated attempts to resolve the matter with Coulter and her attorney but has been rebuffed.

Anderson said an initial letter was sent to Coulter on March 27 requesting that she clarify her address for the voting records ``or face the possibility of her voter registration being rescinded.''…

In July, Anderson said, he received a letter from Coulter's attorney, Marcos Daniel Jimenez D'Clouet. The letter said the attorney would only discuss the matter in person or by telephone because he complained Anderson had given details to the media. Anderson said the matter had to be discussed in writing.

Let’s think about this for a minute, shall we?

If this were anyone but Ann Coulter or Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity, it would already be a total non-issue.

After all, judges in almost every state and most of the Democratic party absolutely refuse to pass laws requiring your residency and identity to be positively verified when you present yourself at a polling place.

The fact that someone actually recognized Ann Coulter because of her celebrity and accused her of trying to commit voter fraud in of all things--A TOWN COUNCIL ELECTION--makes the story patently absurd.

I’m impressed that someone as busy as Ann took the time to be one of the 19.5% of the electorate that actually turns out for those type of local elections, so let the lady vote for Christ‘s sake--it‘s not like they‘re saying she drove from precinct to precinct and voted twenty seven times or something.

These idiots are actually implying that Ann Coulter knowingly and fraudulently went to an election place and presented herself to vote without actually having resided in that part of West Palm Beach.

I say that it has to be a paperwork error or something, because the people that staff the polling places down here in Georgia verify my name and address every time I walk in the door, and since I live on the border between two precincts there is always a discussion about my residency because apparently there was some problem in years past that they are still correcting.

By the way, you could swing a dead cat and fire a cannon down through the building and not hit anybody on off season local elections like we had here last summer for local sales tax referendums and such, so I hardly see what the bru-ha-ha is about other than it being some partisan, politically motivated vendetta against Ann’s outspoken position and an attempt to embarrass her publicly.

At one time I thought that I would like to live in West Palm Beach eventually, but the more I hear about it the more I think that it would be better that I stay away lest I end up strangling some liberal and spending my golden years in the lock-up.

Saddam's Getting A Little Taller

And A Little Deader...


I turned on FOX News about 4:30 this morning and they were reporting that a guilty verdict had be returned against Saddam and two of his cohorts, and the sentence was DEATH BY HANGING.

I wish that I could be there myself to witness the event. I would also like to round up a couple thousand little baggy pants wearing hip-hop punks here in in the US and make them come along to witness what should happen to you when you are found guilty of killing people.

The US mode of operation where we convict murderers in a jury trial, then allow them to fester in prison at taxpayer expense for twenty or thirty years while their lawyers further waste the taxpayers time and money filing endless appeals and the do-gooders argue about what form of execution is "humane" is a total exercise in stupidity, in my opinion.

I'd like the little thugs and animals wandering our streets terrorizing law abiding, God fearing citizens to be forced to witness Saddam drop off the gallows and shudder, jerk, shake, and soil his pants as his eyes bug out of his stupid head. I think an image like that might just change the future of our society.

I hope they really hang the bastard, and soon...

My Gun...My God...By God (and Constitution)

We're Now The Official Redneck's Dream State


As of the next election, everybody in the state of Georgia will have a Constitutional right to Hunt and Fish, at least if the voting goes the way that it's expected.

You see, while Georgia still remains a largely rural state, over half of the state's 9 plus million population lives in the metropolitian Atlanta area.

The new Constitutional Amendment is designed to head off a potential challenge to gun ownership rights and the anti-hunting bias that is becoming more and more evident over the past few years.

The source of these political undercurrents is the tens of thousands of carpetbaggers dang Yankee transplants our lovely northern neighbors that relocate here to Georgia each year, along with several generations of indigenous urban residents born and raised in Atlanta--far far away from the rural south in which I grew to know and love in my own youth.

Then there's the PETA folks (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) that are trying to tell us that hooking a 5 pound bass is cruel and unusual treatment, even if you release it unharmed back into your Grandpa's Pond rather than stuffing and mounting it on a plaque on the wall over your fireplace.

To me it's really sad how far our society has fallen in the process of so-called "progress", and how divergent our culture is growing as the "nanny state" mentality overtakes more and more people.

Having grown up hunting on a 360 acre family farm in Alabama and continuing to be allowed to fish on the five acre pond without a license, I just don't understand the idea of the government and a bunch of people that know nothing about it trying to tell me what I can and can not do on my own property, as long as I follow the long standing laws regarding game seasons and species limits.

After I go vote on Tuesday, I think I'll come home and clean my guns to celebrate...

If You've Waited Until Now...

Please Just Stay Home


Recently I’ve spent my time sitting here making faces at the TV most of the day because the news has pretty much been reduced to sounding like the newsletter from a pre-school or kindergarten.

"He hit me...she called me a name...they won't let me play with them..."

The Dems have elected to sequester all of their loudmouths the usual suspects the politicians that represent the true face of their party that aren’t up for (de)election--you know…Pelosi, Kennedy, and now Kerry after he stepped in a big pile of stinky stuff earlier in the week. They’re probably duct taped together in a warehouse on the lower east side watching the screech master Howard Dean practice his post election commentary.

On second thought, all they had to do was sail Kennedy out on his yacht with a few hundred cases of Scotch and some Hooters girls and if we’re lucky the SOB will decide to resign his Senate seat and spend his winter years filming Girls Gone Dead Wild videos. Kerry is at his podiatrist trying to get his foot removed from his mouth, and they handed San Francisco hippy chick Pelosi a half dozen new razors and told her to shave her legs and armpits--that should be good for at least a couple weeks of effort. (I’m a cruel, insensitive SOB…aren’t I?)

Meanwhile, in an effort to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, the Republicans have sat on their hands while the perverts in their midst were outed by the major media outlets and they whimpered and murmured about things not being fair.

Dang I wish the Libertarians would get off of their collective butts and field a few viable candidates in anything other than low level local elections.

Here in Georgia we basically have to sit by and watch if the House changes party hands because our incumbent Republicans have a lock for staying in office. Likewise, the state elections for Governor and state representatives are all yawners.

The most exciting thing here in Glynn county is deciding which incompetent imbecile will replace the incompetent imbecile in the offices of county commissioner and on the School Board.

Regardless, I can name the names of the candidates and I’ve followed the events leading up to the election, and in spite of having unlimited absentee ballots available and “early voting” this week, I’m waiting until next week to go cast my ballot because it just feels weird to me to vote in any other manner.

It's sort of like watching church services on TV rather than getting out of your Pjs, putting on a suit, and walking in the front door of the sanctuary on Sunday Morning.

Any way…as my title says, if you’ve waited until this week to figure out who is who and what is going on, I suspect that you have no clue about who to intellegently vote for--particularly in the national elections. I think that it’s better that you just stay home and watch “Oprah” and “Dancing with the Stars” rather than stumbling into a polling place and punching your “chads” based on the D or R symbol behind the candidate’s name.

But then again, just like having the right to vote, everyone has the God given, constitutionally guaranteed right to be STUPID, so who am I to say anything to anybody about their political decisions and the insanity of our current voting process?

Let’s Teach The Iraqis To Build Automobiles

Instead Of Blowing Them Up...


I'm sorry ladies and gentlemen, but I have to admit that I am SO TIRED of the politicalized rhetoric and discussion about a “timetable and plan” for pulling out of Iraq…and for that matter, ultimately leaving the ENTIRE Middle East to glare and stare at Israel and plot their next jihad attack here in the US.

Forget more military troops, I say that we send a bunch of Georgia Tech engineers over there with our slide rules and T-squares, ship over a few hundred thousand Japanese and Korean assembly robots, and toss in a few German ex-Mercedes and ex-BMW guys for good measure; and let them teach all of the dang towel heads lovely, yet angry, Muslims in Iraq to build mechanical camels automobiles.

Think about this idea with me for a minute…

I’ll wait…

Got it yet?

Think a little harder…

IF Islam is REALLY a peaceful religion, and IF the Muslims REALLY aren’t dead set (excuse the pun) on killing the rest of the world’s population that they can’t convert, then IF we set them up with auto design and manufacturing capability like Dr. Edward Deming did for the Japanese after WWII, then maybe Hammas , the PLO, and the rest of the Muslim world will follow suit like the Germans and South Koreans.

Praise Allah.

With the natives busy building thousands of their "Shia Kia", I believe that we could safely allow our troops to stand down and retreat to a few well positioned bases in Iran, Iraq, and all the "stan" countries just like we still maintain bases within the sovereign countries of Germany and Japan almost 62 years after the cessation of hostilities.

Do you suppose that then most of the Democrats and many of the liberal anti-war peacenicks could figure out how to remain silent 52 years after the creation of the “demilitarized zone” surrounding the 38th parallel, while still allowing tens if not hundreds of thousands of uneducated idiots (per John sKerry) young Military men and women to reside in country on South Korean bases without making it an election issue every two years?

You do understand what we ended up getting out of those deals by leaving troops in countries we had just defeated? (OK, in the case of communist North Korea, at least nearby?)

How about things like PEACE and and an overall lack of domestic hostilities like the current political bickering about the troop deployments in Iraq which we endure today.

Using the WWII/Korean War standards, Kerry and Murtha aren't constantly talking about closing Ramstein Air Base in Germany, Yakota Air Base in Japan, and “redeploying” the men and aircraft to England or Guam, so shouldn't Iraq‘s current short duration of deployment become a mute point?

Finally (“Buy American” slogans aside), almost everyone I know has had a BMW, Mercedes, Honda, Nissan, Toyota, Lexus, Infinity, or even a lowly Kia (which happens to build some great cars that are great values) sitting in their driveway at one time or another.

Face it...Americans love foreign cars.

Just imagine, if they implemented my plans, the Arabs would be too busy producing and shipping autos with full gas tanks to the rest of the civilized world to have time to spend issuing threats and edicts, chopping off heads, and blowing up IED's and car bombs.

Am I onto something here, or not???

WHAT, you don't agree?

Well, at least it couldn’t hurt to try…

.

You Got To Love It

I Do Stuff Like This Too...