Just In Case You're Wondering

I Say We're All Screwed


Somewhere a long time ago one of our founding fathers--Jefferson or Adams or one of those old dudes with the powdered wigs--was quoted as saying that (and I paraphrase) "Democracy works until the majority of the population realizes that they can VOTE themselves a piece of the PIE (public largess was how I believe they said it in those days.)"

Well ladies and gentlemen, I submit that not only have we as a country arrived at this miserable point in history, but, based on the choices we're faced with in this presidential election cycle, we shall as a people ineptly race across the finish line and burst into flame--spewing platitudes of insanity as China, Iran, and North Korea celebrate our implosion and pick over our remains.

Archaeologists will likely find our carcasses buried in layers of ash and cinders, clutching our remote controls, fingers poking the buttons feebly looking for reruns of American Idol and Dancing with the Stars.

God help the Democrats for only mustering Obama and Clinton as candidates...what the hell do you think George Wallace would think today?

Nothing but a thin suit of a half assed black man and a lieing, miserable hag of a woman seriously vieing for the highest office in what was once a great land.

Regarding the Republicans and their current ancient war relic candidate du jour...all I can say is that I'm happy that I never registered to put an "R" by my every vote and still consider myself to be a Libertarian at heart. It's too bad the Libertarians can never manage to beat Ralph Nader for most of the moonbat vote every four years in national elections.

At least Bob Dole carried an Ink pen every where he went in that lame hand/arm (real war injury) while talking about himself in third person...I'm afraid that McCain not only talks to himself, but that he answers his own questions while no one is looking.

Few Original Thoughts

Sermon Transcripts For Sale


I'm just not sure what to do with myself these days...

Everything's changing, and my carefully crafted, cloistered existence is crumbling around my head rapidly coming to an end, or so it would seem.

The worst part of it all is that I am the one responsible for making the changes, and I have to act like I enjoy it when at times I'm not so sure that I do.

Then there is the fact that I have no one to blame but myself for instituting such radical lifestyle modifications in the first place.

For instance...there's important things like:

No more sitting on the sofa all day and night with a computer in my lap whenever I want to.

No more wandering around the island on my bike in the middle of the night on a whim.

No more trips to the beach or over to the marsh to make pictures of sunrises or sunsets or to capture foggy morning scenes most of the population manages to sleep through...just because.

No more bitching and complaining about the difficulties encountered living the life of an unemployed derelict a delusional self-worshipping blogger a professional beach bum.

Soon all of that will be history as I move back into the "real" world for my encore engineering tour. I hope I can make it through at least a month of getting up in the morning, shaving ahhhhggghhh, combing my hair, and putting on socks and shoes to go out and interact with real people, in person, on a daily basis.

Get this...maybe this proves I've lost my mind...

I'm actually thinking of cutting all of my hair off--nearly five years worth of growth--because it's easier to face the public with a sweaty head of 1/4" stubble than to deal with the preconceived assumptions people make about you when you run around at my age with a 8" pony tail flanking bald temples and thinning fringes.

Am I losing it?

Am I right to worry about things like that?

Do you guys out there in the real world really care about hair these days?

Then in addition to facing the weekly 9 to 5 ritual again for the first time in nearly ten years, there's the reality of having less than six weeks to find a new house, pack everything we own into boxes, and hand it all to total strangers to move 500 miles inland away from paradise.

Voluntarily...

I've never lived north of Atlanta. Now I'm spending money to move beside the Tennessee river three hours north of there.

That's right, I'm PAYING someone to move us AWAY from the BEACH.

This, after spending most of my life PAYING to get to the beach on vacation, and living within earshot of the Atlantic Ocean or the Gulf of Mexico for most of the past five or six years.

(vigorously shaking my ever greying, ever balding head)

I don't know if there's something in the water down here or if I've just lost my middle aged mind in a fit of insanity and infirmity or what, but sometimes I have second thoughts about this whole process I've undertaken.

Is it just me?

Tornados Vacuum Atlanta Streets Clean?

Weather Makes News On Slow Saturday


After spending the morning recounting the results of last night's weather related damage in downtown Atlanta, Fox News and most of the other TV media are now enjoying covering "Round II" of the events this afternoon as yet another severe thunderstorm blasts its way through the city.

During the 27 years I lived there it always amazed me how the north side of town could take a beating every spring and fall and the center of the city always managed to miss the action. I lived inches off of Windy Hill Road for much of my tenure in the area and we seemed to get a twister every two years or so--thus the name "windy hill..."

Being a son of the south I have a hard time getting all worked up over a little severe weather, as long as I have four walls and a roof over my head things usually work out OK in the end.

If you want excitement, try going through even a mild thunderstorm in a small boat in the middle of a lake or just off shore and you'll think having a house around you the equivalent of being in a stone fortress compared to the exposure you feel surrounded by thin sheets of aluminum and fiberglass.

Wait a minute...this just in...

Continuing in the perils of urban living, now FOX is talking about a crane collapse in downtown NY City, taking out a chunk of a five story building in the process.

Of course Republican and Democratic pundits will be sharpening their pencils and working up statements outlining four or five new government programs to address these hazards of living in the inner city.

Perhaps the "Clinton/Obama/McCain massive spending of taxpayer funds to make you safer from tornados and cranes program..."???

I hope you'll excuse me while I go trim my toenails now...

Not Much Worse For The Wear

Last Remnants Removed...


Well, my doctor yanked (literally) the tube "pig tailed catheter" out of my abdomen this afternoon, shortly after I tipped the scales at a measly 218 pounds.

I don't recommend the diet for the faint of heart, but thus far I've dropped a little over 30 pounds in seven weeks.

I don't know about you, but I'm glad this ordeal is nearly over with. I feel a good rant coming on later.

Stay tuned...

Meanwhile...Back On My Sofa

Slowly But Steadily


Today was sort of a red letter day on my calendar, having yet another letter to the editor of our local newspaper, The Brunswick News, published--including a little sidebar quotation featuring my name on the front page.

Long time readers may remember that I actually applied for a position working part time for The News about three or so years ago, and then ended up withdrawing my application and blistering one of the local beat reporters over the paper's coverage of a story in which I was intimately involved.

I've only spoken to the editor once since then, but I take his past and ongoing usage of my commentary as an olive branch of peace in what was once a very sore spot in my nervous system.

They publish practically everything I submit, and today's piece represents somewhere near two dozen times I've managed to annoy the general public with my sharp whit and keen intellectual insight over the past four or five years.

Speaking of keen intellectuals, I also just received the used copy of William F. Buckley's famous work "Nearer My God" that I bought on Amazon a couple of weeks ago. I haven't had time to do anything other than glance at the cover and the inside text, but I'm looking forward to spending some time with Mr. Buckley in the near future.

Why don't YOU get on line or wander over to the library and check out some of his writing? If you've never read his work, I believe you will be quite surprised at the content of his character.

Twisting The Dial On A World Full Of BS

Tuning In...By Tuning (Most Everything) Out


Thank GOD the NY Governor saved us maybe a few minutes of additional torture by resigning today.

Of course I don't expect the story to vaporize off the TV and out of the newspaper headlines, but still I offer my hearty "Thanks" shout out to "Gov. Spritz" for stepping up and being a man instead of a weasel about the matter.

Speaking of high government officials tangling with tawdry women, it seems that even our peaceful Muslim brothers in Iran aren't immune to the temptations of wicked women.

Tehran's police chief, Reza Zarei, has been arrested after he was found nude in a local brothel with six naked prostitutes, according to report on the Iranian Farda News...

Before he was arrested, Zarei was in charge of the programme for the 'moralisation of the city'.

It is alleged that in the past six months, hundreds of young people have been arrested in Iran for not respecting the Islamic code of behaviour.

I suspect that the lovely folks in Teran are likely to make the soon to be ex-police chief a little more uncomfortable than New York's now ex-governor.

I wonder what body part(s) are subject to removal in this instance?

Reflections Off A Dirty Mirror

Blurry Images From The Past Predict The Future?


Well, it's the end of day 35 in the latest episode of "Crappy Health Chronicles" and I am most definitely ready for this show to END...and SOON.

Besides being an officially confirmed addict to Oxycodone, I still have a tube sticking out of my right abdomen, a severely limited choice of diet, and I suspect that if I muster all of the strength in my body and spirit I MIGHT be able to make it from the sofa to the mailbox and back in under three minutes.

Other than that, everything is just peachy down here on our little island. Some good news is I believe that I've dropped about 25 pounds off the old pre-illness girth, and with any luck another five or ten pounds might be shaved off during the balance of the slow recovery process.

Perhaps the weirdest part of this ordeal is, although it seems to have gone on forever in some respects, it others it seems just like yesterday that I was wandering in the emergency room for the first time. There are HUGE gaps in my memory, and I'm having trouble filing away things I dreamed about versus things (conversations, events, etc.) that actually happened to me in the process.

One thing that looks the same all the time to me is the stupidity being written and broadcast in the lamestream media regarding the Presidential election. I've officially washed my hands of the process because I need all the strength I can muster just to get myself launched on the new track I've chosen back into the 9 to 5 workforce in a new city and state.

I'm just lucky things have worked like that they have and I still have a chance to get myself squared away medically--there's still a possibility that things could fall apart and I'll lose the new job because of medical issues.

I'm too dang young to be sidelined by medical disability, and I'm far, far away from being financially solvent enough to pay for sitting on my butt all day doing nothing for another twenty or thirty years.

Thank God for Social Security, and all the new Government programs...I guess.

Where do I go to get in line and sign up?

Back Among The Living

Cash Resurrects Spirits


No...I've not been in the hospital.

No...I'm not dead.

I was simply forced to take an unplanned weekend Internet hiatus since the $350 per night cottage we inhabited didn't have a functioning high speed connection.

I offer the fact that I only turned on the computer for about ten minutes over a three day period as further evidence of my mental cleansing and ongoing response to my physical maladies.

There have been days when I would have moved out of a rental or pitched some kind of fit if the Internet connection didn't work as advertised, but this weekend for some reason rest was ahead of following sHrillary and Obama's latest schoolyard antics.

On the real estate investment front, we exited the closing proceedings from the sale of my vacant land over in Brunswick. I TRIPLED MY investment on a net cash basis in less than five years...

Not bad for a amateur, eh?

I've Never Been "There"

But "Here " Will Be Much Worse If We Keep Going Like We Are


In the process of dragging around with an extra tube attached 24/7, I found this story about people in the UK crashing into street light posts:

Padded lampposts are being trialled in a London street to protect inattentive pedestrians.

A lot scheme has been launched in Brick Lane after it was found to have the highest number of 'walking and texting' injuries in the country.

A study carried out by 118 118 found one in ten people has hurt themselves while focused on their mobile phone screen.

The charity Living Streets is so concerned that it has teamed up with the directory enquiries service to test a scheme to wrap up the nation's lampposts.

A poll will be carried out on Brick Lane to gauge the response of locals.

If successful, the concept will be rolled out in Birmingham, Manchester, and Liverpool.

"Out Patient" Surgery?

Is That The Same Thing As "Shade Tree Medicine?"


I'm pleased to report that things went as expected at the hospital yesterday and I was back home collapsed in my own King Sized bed by about 2:30 PM.

Due to the serious Buzz created with the IV relaxants and the other pain medication I barely moved since then except to go to the restroom.

Everyone agreed that my own diagnosis was correct--a fluid/abscess build-up in the lower right abdominal cavity and I was smart to come in when I did before things had developed any farther.

Looks like I'm going to have to spend the rest of the week sitting on my butt or reclining on my sofa, trying to work up the energy to read let alone write.

See Y'all later

Oxycodone Rules

Blogging From A Drug Induced Coma...


Sorry about the light levels of posting recently, but mind has been busy contemplating the resurgence of abdominal discomfort rather than writing about politics.

It seems that now I'm experiencing what is commonly known as "surgical complications", and the only way to fix things is to make another trip over to the Hospital operating room tomorrow.

They say that this sojourn will be "minimally invasive", but then again my last trip under a knife produced a 9" scare.

I'm an Impatient Patient

Baffling Modern Medicine

After a week of steady progress, I was disappointed to have to report back to my doctor again yesterday for an unscheduled post-op exam.

I left his office with a pocket full of anti-cramp and pain pills, with a resolution to get well ASAP in spite of my advancing age.

The details of yesterday's blood work has everyone incuding myself spazzing around in a tizzy of wild eyed speculation, but we should know a little more about what's actually going on in my insides in a few hours after I have my CAT scan.

Wish me luck...if you will.

Two Steps Forward

One Step Back...


Well, I've drug my lazy butt around our little island this weekend entertaining house guests and managed to hurt myself in the process of trying to eat normally with company.

The combination of an Oyster Po Boy at lunch and a small Fillet Mignon at dinner served to lock my insides up and send me back to the sofa and bed almost continuously since yesterday afternoon.

I missed not one but TWO trips over to the beach to watch Missy the Turbo Pup gallop around the shallow water and sands. That dog does love her beach trips...

The task of guiding a middle aged body through recovery from hospitalization and surgery totally SUCKS.

I'm really really ready to get back to work and put this medical crap behind me, but my behind and my middle seems to have ideas of their own.

Dangit...

If It's Not One Darn Thing

It's Another


I was wandering around the Internet early this morning looking for something to rant about when I found this NY Times story about a Heparin recall that hits just a little too close to home.

The problems with heparin, which is used to prevent blood clotting during dialysis and after some surgery, were first reported last month at a hospital in Missouri. Since then, the number of reported adverse reactions has risen to 448, the F.D.A. said. “Yes, we have gotten more and we are continuing to evaluate those reports,” Dr. Kweder said.


At first, the agency said it believed that four people had died after allergic reactions to the drug. On Thursday, officials said as many as 17 more people may have died, but they described the links to heparin as more tenuous.

The adverse reactions have included decreased or low blood pressure and fast heart rate. Not all of them are known to involve Baxter products, but the drug agency did not issue warnings involving any other products.

In addition to low blood pressure and a heart rate of 120 - 135 BPM, my doctors had a hell of a time stabilizing my body's reaction to the drug and had to constantly adjust the dosage, sometimes taking me off entirely and other times increasing the infusion rate and adding a "bolus" dose to catch me up.

Any way, I sort of stewed around on the issue most of the day, then I did a Google search in the last hour and found that the Chicago Tribune was saying that the recall had been extended to all of Baxter's IV Heparin products--a product I took a couple thousand milliliters a day of for the entire 16 days I was hospitalized.

Baxter International, which has experienced problems with a widely used blood-thinning product but held off on mounting a recall because of concerns over a shortage, said late Thursday that because the nation's supply of heparin has now increased, it is moving ahead with a full-scale recall of its product.

More than 400 people have suffered adverse effects that may be related to Baxter-made heparin, and four patients who used it have died.

The Food and Drug Administration said Thursday that it has completed the inspection of the Chinese plant owned by the supplier of the active ingredient in Baxter's heparin product but still had not determined the cause of the problem.

In mid-January Deerfield-based Baxter recalled nine lots of the heparin, disclosing for the first time that there had been scores of adverse reactions. It said at the time that it had not yet determined the source of the problem but thought that whatever the difficulty was, it was limited to the nine lots it was recalling.

Later, however, the company disclosed it had determined that the problems were not limited to the nine production lots it had recalled.But, it said, company officials and the FDA decided that because the number of heparin producers is limited and because the product is so widely used nationwide in many kinds of surgery as well as in kidney dialysis, Baxter would suspend production but would not recall the heparin on the shelves of hospitals, drug distributors and medical clinics.

On Thursday, however, Baxter said "the FDA has now concluded that there is sufficient capacity on the part of other suppliers that Baxter's recall will not jeopardize access to this drug."Baxter said it is taking the "precautionary step" of recalling all remaining heparin products on the market, even though the vast majority of the reports of adverse reactions have been associated with the multidose form of the product.

I'm not a jump on the bandwagon...sue the pants off the bastards sort of guy, but I'm also pissed that I spent at least an extra week in the hospital at great expense and developed new blood clots in my left arm WHILE I WAS ON HEPARIN TREATMENT.

Excuse me while I call my attorney...I want to know the brand name on those bags of liquid they pumped into me this month. I hope it wasn't Baxter, but then again...

William F. Buckley Jr.'s Dead

And I'm Delinquent In Not Mentioning His Passing


I had a couple of chances to hear Mr. Buckley speak while I was in college and later at other engagements in Atlanta, but somehow I always managed to stay home and miss hearing his genius in person.

I've read some of his work and followed him in the media and on TV, but from the commentary I'm seeing around the Internet on his death I think that I need to spend some money on amazon and get a few of his books.

Regardless, great guys like Mr. Buckley seem to come along less often these days than they did back in the 1920's, and I would be remiss in not mentioning him and his accomplishments here on this blog in honor of his life.

RIP Mr. Buckley

A Tragedy

And A Cancellation...


I just got a phone call bearing some bad news about this weekend's Chili Cookoff.

We have to cancel our participation.

I was a bit shocked at first, but then when I understood the reason for the conflict I totally agreed with John's decision.

Josh, one of the chefs from Blackwater Grill was fatally injured in a head-on auto accident on the causeway connecting our little island to the mainland on Monday afternoon, and the funeral will be held early Saturday afternoon in Albany, Ga.

Rightfully so, John and most of the Blackwater staff--including Josh's fiancee--will be in attendance and have to make the eight hour round trip drive.

Realizing that there is no way I could pull things off by myself in my currently diminished physical condition, John had no choice but to pull out of the competition.

Here's a link to today's Brunswick News story about the ongoing hysterical situation on the causeway. That said , let me toss in my own two cents worth of commentary, with all due respect to Josh's recent demise.

For those not familiar with access to St. Simons Island, we have been connected to the mainland via the four mile long F.J. Torras Causeway since 1924. The first version of the road was a two lane design with a draw bridge installed after WWII to accommodate the new Intercoastal Waterway.

The two lane design survived until the late 1980's when the Causeway was enlarged and widened to four lanes, including a bicycle lane and a wide span high bay bridge to eliminate the Drawbridge at the relocated intercoastal channel location. Originally a toll road, the toll booths were shut down in the early 2000's and dismantled in 2006.

Now here's where the problem comes in.

The speed limit on the causeway has always been 50 MPH or less since it's inception.

In reality, however, actual traffic flow usually moves somewhere in the 55 to 60 MPH range, with many assholes self-important drivers electing to run closer to 70 MPH much of the time.

Local perception, as emotional as it is, considers the road to be a ticking time bomb because we manage to kill and maim about one or two drivers a month in near head on collisions.

The state DOT just completed a pseudo-widening project last year that added a center buffer lane at the expense of narrowing the existing four traffic lanes and shoulders by about a foot each.

As things are now, if you have mechanical trouble on one of the bridges there is hardly room to pull your car off the road, out of the traffic flow.

And still there is endless screaming that the only way to "FIX" the safety of the Causeway is to add a concrete barrier down the center, something DOT has thus far said is impossible because of lack of room on the bridges.

In my considered opinion, if people didn't speed all the time and drive like idiots, the causeway wouldn't be any more dangerous than any other road in Glynn county. After all, we kill about the same number of drivers on our other busy highway--US I-95--each year, and it has concrete barriers and/or a wide grass median along it's lenght.

As is usual, instead of taking responsibility for their own safety and behavior, people want the GOVERNMENT to step in and spend taxpayer money to save us all from ourselves.

Like I always say..."you can make it fool proof, but you can't make it damnfool proof..."

Danged Old Global Warming Waining?

Anyone But Me Seen This Data?


Here's a link to a story about a major drop in global temperatures--all occurring since January 2007.

You can go to the link and read the story and look at the graphs yourself, but in summary all four of the recognized temperature indicators showed global temperature drops of between 0.588 deg C and 0.750 deg C over only a recent one year period!!

Using the larger number (0.750 deg C), one could suggest that the global cooling experienced over the 12 month period between January 2007 to January 2008 has completely offset the three quarter degree C global temperature INCREASE touted by Owl Gore and all of the "man made global warming zombies" which they say took 100 years to produce.

Of course as usual you won't see this information on the front pages of the NY Times or leading the evening news headlines on ABC/CBS/NBC/CNN any time soon.

Imagine if the data had shown the opposite result...a 3/4 degree temperature increase in a year?

There wouldn't be enough ink to print the headlines screaming things like "GLOBAL WARMING COMING TO YOUR BEDROOM" or "OWL GORE DYING FROM HEAT PROSTRATION."

These lamestream media outlets will also ignore this story about record snow cover in the northern hemisphere, along with increasing amounts of sea ice in both the Northern and Southern Polar Oceans.

That's right, the amount of snow cover over the northern hemisphere this winter exceeds the previous 52 year old record set in 1966, but don't expect USA Today to be printing the story and sliding under your Hotel room door in the morning to let you know to stop worrying about baking your brains out and put on some gloves and extra socks.

Speaking of which, it's 46 here today...I need to go put on a t-shirt myself.

Living In Slow Motion

An Hour's Work Takes All Day Now


It's a warm but dreary day here on the Georgia coast, so at least I can't feel guilty for staying inside all day.

Although my improvement and progress is obvious to outside observers, it's still really frustrating living inside a nearly five decade old body running at about 75% efficiency...with a restrictor plate or other obstruction bolted to my carburetor.

I made it through yesterday without a nap, got a pot of less than perfect chili cooked, and made my meeting with my Chili Cookoff partner in time to come home and collapse on the sofa.

Then something amazing happened--I managed to sleep for six hours in a row, awakening about seven AM rested but still operating at something less than full speed.

The balance of the day will be spent making short trips off the sofa to do things like clean the ashes out of the fireplace and stagger through some more paperwork, and I may reward myself with a late morning nap just for the fun of it if the urge strikes me.

I wish someone could give me a giant shot of adrenalin or something to pep me up. I guess only time will tell...

Chili Cookoff Ensues

To Cook, Or Not To Cook?


My friend and popular Blackwater Grill restaurant owner John called me last evening to check on my health progress.

Apparently the rumor was out among some of the other contestants that his head Chef (that would be me) was potentially calling in sick for this upcoming weekend's Chili Cookoff, and they had stopped by the restaurant to gloat and drink beer in celebration.

Well, I've got news for them...come 10 AM this morning I'll be standing in the checkout line at the grocery store with a few items, the London Broil is already thawed out, and a gallon test batch of chili will be finished in the pot in time for a 4:00 PM strategy meeting over at Blackwater in the afternoon.

The only way I'm missing next Saturdays' event is if they haul me back to the hospital...and my newly modifed colon needs some chili therapy anyway so I can kill two birds with one stone this week.

Wish me luck...If you will.

"Here" Versus "There"

"Now" Against "Then"


Having earlier returned from the back yard after smoking half a cigar, I'm now busying myself laying on the sofa reading the Internet while Pat and Missy the Turbo Pup make a visit over to the beach to enjoy the afternoon's glorious weather.

Let's see...yep, it's now up to 72 degrees F outside, while up in Knoxville it's...

MOSTLY CLOUDY AND 44 DEGREES F (with a chance of snow Tuesday night thrown in for good measure.)

After nearly five years living here in paradise, all I can say is...

Oh the Humanity!!!

(time to go back out and finish that cigar now.)