It's Supposed To Be 97 Degrees Outside Today

And It's About The Same Inside...Where I'M Working This Morning


Well, I've already been out to the pool before sunrise, smoked a cigar, and spent a couple hours planning my day over on my jobsite from hell construction site this morning.

I have a local real estate agent that's expressed an interest in marketing my finished product stopping by to take a peek at my efforts and offer some input regarding some options I'm considering executing.

That is...if the HEAT doesn't execute ME first.

I'm going to try to make it to noon and get some new ceiling framing installed in the new hallway.

If you don't hear from me by tomorrow, will someone call 911?

I Just Lost A Good Friend

So Did The Dartmouth Class of '42


When we moved down here to our little island from Atlanta in 2004, we didn't at the time realize that our condo included not only 1500 square feet of space situated in the middle of a golf course, but that it also came with the friendship of the most wonderful friend and neighbor that anyone could ever ask for.

His name was Harlan "Bucky" Strader, born way back in 1920, and at the time widowed and living alone in the condo directly downstairs from our new home.

The day we moved in Bucky came by to introduce himself, and over the next couple of years we became very close friends as I generally spent time with him each and every morning, sitting around his kitchen table discussing the events of the prior day, watching "Imus in the morning" on TV and looking at the newspaper.

Several afternoons each week Pat and I would stop by downstairs to have wine and enjoy some fine brie cheese with him, and we frequently went out to lunch and dinner together--always appreciating his sense of humor and hating to see the effects time was taking on his ageing mind and body as he lost his ability to drive, and finally had to leave us to move back home to Connecticut to live closer to his family.

We managed to talk to him on the telephone every few months since his move from St. Simons island, and we took a trip last fall up to his part of the world to visit him, also enjoying getting to see his daughter and one of his sons--the tea merchant--again during our stay.

Things hadn't been going so well in the past few months for him, and Bucky decided to make his final move about 6:30 AM this morning. I just learned the news from his daughter Pam a few minutes ago and am still trying to process my own personal loss.

It's about like losing another grandfather...I think.

WWII veteran, business executive, husband, father, Gentleman, and overall connoisseur of Life, the world has lost yet another great man with the passing of our dear friend Bucky.

Rest in Peace, Mr. Strader...

All Southerners Aren't Really Stupid

We Just Can't Keep The Mentally Weakest Among Us Off Of The TV News...


I have to admit that my Title and Sub-Title are shamelessly stolen from my fellow Georgia Tech Alumni and internationally famous comedian Mr. Jeff Foxworthy, but I couldn't think of a better line to use in introducing this AP News story about a 5 year old boy wrestling with a rabid fox to save his siblings.

KINGSTOWN, N.C. - A 5-year-old boy grabbed a rabid fox by the neck and pinned it to the ground during a family cookout, protecting six other children before his stepfather could step in.

I wanted to protect my little brother," said Rayshun McDowell, who battled the animal in the front yard of his home Sunday in Kingstown, a town about 50 miles west of Charlotte.

The fox bit Rayshun in the leg, but the 61-pound-boy held the animal down. Health officials later identified the fox as rabid.

"I looked out the window and Rayshun had the fox by the neck and was pushing it into the ground," said his mother, Shinda Linder. "I couldn't believe what I was seeing."

Rayshun's stepfather, Ryan Thompson, pulled the boy off the animal and kicked it. A neighbor fired a handgun three times but the fox continued to advance.

Thompson, wearing a cast because of a broken leg, said he used a stick and his crutch to beat the fox to death.

Rayshun, meanwhile, asked only for a Band-Aid and didn't complain of any pain.

That must have been one tough little Fox to have survived three gunshots only to be beaten to death by a crippled man wielding a stick and a crutch.

If I was the guy holding the gun I would be totally embarrassed--he must have missed three times--because the other thing you can generally say about Americans that reside in the south is that we love our guns and most of the time we know how to shoot them quite accurately.

I have to get some sleep now because I feel the urge to make sawdust coming on me again later this morning.

Y'all have a nice post 4th of July day now, if you will...

July 4th, 1864

I Was There...110 Years Too Late...


In addition to all the other things I've talked about here on the old blog, I don't believe that I've mentioned that I'm a bit of an American Civil War fan, having visited a number of Battlefield sites with my parents as a kid and having lived beside and on top of a good piece of Civil War history as an adult in Atlanta, Smyrna and Marietta, Georgia for nearly thirty years beginning in the 1970's.

I always like to remember that July 4th, in addition to being our National celebration of Independence, also represents the anniversary of Union General Sherman's march through what is now Cobb County Georgia on his way through Atlanta to Savannah.

Having lost the high ground at Kennesaw Mountain in late June, the Rebels fell back toward the Chattahoochee River and on July 4th, 1864 Confederate General Johnson was attacked by McPherson (a damn Yankee General) at Ruff's Mill outside modern day Smyrna Georgia.

Again the Yankee's prevailed, the confederates fell back across the 'Hooch, and Atlanta was toast within weeks.

Any way...I built and lived in a house in the late 1980's on property across the street from some hand dug trenches that were part of this segment of Sherman's so called "Atlanta Campaign."

In fact, the entire area that has been paved over and crisscrossed with asphalt over the past 150 years still has relics and artifacts of the Civil War if you look closely. One of Georgia's 12 remaining covered bridges, the Concord Bridge, still serves commuter auto traffic every day of the week there in Smyrna.

Here's an interesting chronological summary of the battles which I found at the About North Georgia Website:

July 2

After McPherson moves to outflank Johnston, the Confederate General withdraws to Smyrna.

July 4

Intense fighting at Ruff's Mill turns Johnston's left flank. Johnston pulls back to the so-called Chattahoochee Line starting late today.

July 10

Johnston withdraws to the gates of Atlanta, carefully destroying all bridges over the Chattahoochee River. Skirmish in Alpharetta. Braxton Bragg is traveling to Atlanta to meet with Johnston as a representative of President Davis

July 11

Davis informs Robert E. Lee of his decision to remove Johnston, asks Lee about his feelings on Hood as a replacement.

July 16

Moving east from Marietta, Georgia, Sherman's forces spread across the open land north of Atlanta. Replying to an inquiry about his plans made by President Davis, Johnston says, "As the enemy has double our number, we must be on the defensive. My plan of operations, therefore, must depend upon that of the enemy."

July 17

President Davis relieves Johnston of command and places John Bell Hood in charge. In a meeting with his men two days later Sherman instructs them to expect an attack at any moment, given Hood's aggressive nature. Sherman had found out about the change in command thanks to the Atlanta newspapers.

July 20

Hood attacks and loses at Peachtree Creek. From a point northeast of Atlanta along the Decatur Road (at the corner of present-day Dekalb Avenue and Degress St.) the first artillery shells fall on the city.

July 21

A "bald hill" east of the city falls to men under the command of Mortimer Leggitt. Renamed Leggett's Hill, this rise offers Sherman an elevated place to fire artillery into the heart of downtown Atlanta. Sherman believes the city will be quickly abandoned. Forward troops report large-scale movement of Confederate forces.

July 22

The large-scale troop movements is not the retreat of the Army of Tennessee, but the movement of Hardee's Corps on a 15-mile circuitous route to attack the Federal left flank in East Atlanta. General McPherson dies. Confederate loses may exceed 10,000 in this battle."

Anyone but me notice that even in 1864 the media, or more specifically--the Atlanta "Newspapers"--are providing information that could be of value to the "enemy", even as the enemy is attacking the very city where the "media's" offices are based?

And TEN THOUSAND DEAD?

There would be soiled underwear and wringing hands on two foot centers in the US today with military casualties of even 10% of those numbers today.


The city of Atlanta is still held under the siege of the Cox Media Empire's Atlanta Journal and Constitution (otherwise locally known as the "Urinal and Constipation"). It is, in my personal opinion, perhaps the worst big city newspaper in the entire country.

I can say so because I've subscribed to and yelled at it's editorial page for thirty years now.

Finally, in closing out my final fourth of July posting in 2007, let me state that I regret that I never really took the time that I needed to go through the archives held in the local libraries addressing the details of what the US Government allowed it's troops to do to the citizens of Georgia in the name of national unity.

Regardless, every time some limp wristed liberal asshole journalist starts whining about military atrocities in Iraq I want to kick them in the head and remind them of what my fellow southerners endured in 1864 as Sherman was allowed to conduct his famous "March to the Sea."

New Beach Chair

Her First Test Drive...


Here's Missy, my "Turbo Pup", sitting in her new pink colored beach chair that we've been watching at Harris Teeter for the past few weeks priced at nearly $20.

Today the last one was on sale at a substantial price reduction, so it came home with us and we tossed one of her favorite blankets in the seat to entice her to try it out and take a sit.

Here's a close up view of a very happy dog (click on the picture to get a larger view):




The next use will be when she makes her next trip out on the beach, and that won't be until once everyone else has gone back home from the holiday.

Have A Good 4th...

Then Get The Heck Back Home


We went over to the mainland today to exchange some stuff at Sears, then we stumbled back through the traffic on the causeway, down to the village, in order to take a preview peek at my photos hanging there in the Gallery with everybody Else's work.

I'm pretty sure that I probably won't even get an honorable mention, but hey...my work looks pretty good and it's hanging in a room full of excellent photography.

Can you say "Impostor?"

Then we struggled through more traffic in order to grab some Sushi and Tempura for dinner, then ran back to our little island home where we will comfortably hide for the next couple of days while the rest of America celebrates July 4th.

Tomorrow night we actually have the luxury of wandering out poolside at dusk to watch the Sea Island Company's fireworks display out over the lagoon and 18th hole of the adjacent golf course instead of suffering through traffic and parking problems down there on the south end of the island.

Any way...have a good one, and then to all of the visitors that insist on parking in my parking space and tossing trash around the lawns...

GO HOME

I'm Melting

Help Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee....


Yes, thankfully I survived yet another sweltering day bumbling around solo on my construction job site on Monday.

By the time I had loaded a couple hundred dollars worth of lumber into my truck at Home Depot and unloaded it down on Wolfe Street I was almost ready to go home, but then I remembered that I had a new air compressor and air powered nail guns to play with and I couldn't resist hanging around to see if I could shoot myself in the foot or something.

Adding to my current construction frenzy is the much awaited opening of our new Lowe's store.

Somehow I didn't know about the event because they didn't advertise it (or I missed the ads) and I only learned about my new purchasing option by listening to Lauren Nobles' local AM Radio Talk Show later in the morning while wiping my face and gasping for air on one of my numerous breaks to drink a few gulps of GatorAid.

I'm still trying to juggle multiple, diverse projects with the sawdust laden residential construction battling for my attention versus the steel stack design, while taking delivery on spandex samples to show Band parents and Band Directors in a meeting tomorrow afternoon.

Next is the Photo Exhibit opening on Thursday after taking time off Wednesday to lounge by the pool and possibly cook a couple of racks of baby back Pork ribs, and then there is the festering and suffering that this blog and my Redneck Gormet blog is undergoing due to my inattention and lack of effort.

Speaking of Blogging effort, one of my blog acquaintences, Lisa Sabin-Wilson over at Just a girl in the world blog is in the process of managing the release of a new book on blog publishing, Wordpress for Dummies, that is available for pre-purchase on Amazon.com.

In addition buying her book, I'll probably be letting her handle the redesign of both my blogs later this summer. We've talked about the idea starting a couple of years ago and I've just not had the time, energy, or funding to put into restarting my efforts in a new, more professional looking format.

Of course that means that by committing to spending money monthly for web hosting and paying a designer for page setup that I must justify the costs with something worth reading, but then again this is MY space on the Internet and if I want to pay a COUPLE HUNDRED DOLLARS A YEAR and write ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, then so be it.

I am Editor, Publisher, and Chief of Staff here and what I say goes 99.999999999999% of the time.

Terrorism Success?

It Looks To Me Like They're Recruiting Idiots...


Just in case you haven't noticed, it's been almost six years since the 9/11 attacks here in the US and in my opinion nothing of further significance has occurred inside our borders caused by any "dang foreigners." This is, of course, only true if you insist on ignoring the ongoing influx of fruit pickers, chicken puckers, maids, nannies, and construction workers that continue to stream in across the Mexican border.

If that isn't an outright foreign invasion, I don't know what is...

You also can’t count the numerous events where people freaked out over abandoned suitcases and "packages" found sitting around in public places and the local police departments time spent with their bomb squads investigating and blowing up "suspicious" boxes containing things like your Aunt Sally’s fruit salad that look funny in the new X-ray machines installed by the Department of Homeland Security into rural post offices around the Atlanta metro area.

Meanwhile, the enlightened, tolerant folks over in the United Kingdom and Continental Europe haven’t been so lucky. In spite of having spent the past six years handing over their guns to their respective governments and de-electing pro-war politicians, they’ve been forced to watch Al Qaeda’s current edition of the “Keystone Cops” terrorist brigade manage to blow up a few Spanish Trains and some British busses.

Now, even with the English electorate's ouster of Tony Blair as Prime minister in favor of a more lilly livered liberal moderate minded PM Brown, the wild eyed towel heads Muslim proselytizers have moved from 2001’s airliner bombs all the way down to relying on used Mercedes Benz Coups (and even a Jeep in Scotland) but apparently they’re having trouble timing their explosions and finding drivers that can operate autos as efficiently as they herd Camels.

Perhaps these Jihadists are actually drinking while they do their driving--I don’t know for sure--but thus far the terrorist wannabes seem to be the only ones being terrorized.

That said, I’ll point out that there might be a slightly increased chance that our own swarthy domestic Islamists might be planning something for July 4th, but then again in spite of our best efforts and the ineptitude of groups like the Democrats and the ACLU we’ve tapped enough telephones and populated the camps down in Cuba with the more capable, most dangerous types, leaving the terrorism here to raw amateurs.

I’m not promoting the idea, but I continue to remind you of the chaos that could be caused by a couple of dozen like minded people that elected to run the wrong way through the passenger exits in a dozen major airports at the same hour of the same day like the UGA football fan did in Atlanta’s Hartsfield Airport a few years ago. If someone violated the “secure” areas in Atlanta, Miami, JFK, Dulles, Dallas, Chicago, and LA at the exact same moment, the US air transportation system would grind to an immediate halt for at least 24 hours.

Pull a stunt like that at Christmas or Thanksgiving, and people would be sleeping on the floor in the terminal parking decks for a week.

Or what if the same group walked into the same airports and each abandoned two or three suitcases in restrooms or restaurants in the terminals? Fill those bags with some electrical junk and a few short lengths of pipe from Home Depot to produce an interesting image on an X-ray machine, and again you have an industrial strength logjam that would take days to correct.

Pretty soon they’d have us all boarding airplanes naked or wearing those little flimsy gowns like they give you at the hospital. Instead of checked luggage and carry on bags you’d have to ship your toothbrush and underwear to your destination by FedEx or buy new clothes in overpriced stores located in your destination airport.

Based on the skin I’ve seen hanging out of tank tops and shorts on some of the flights I’ve taken over the past 25 years, I would probably elect to travel by wagon train or just walk to my destination rather than risk putting up with hypersensitive security measures and half naked passengers with their butt cheeks flapping in the breeze.

I'd also like to remind anyone with the CIA or Homeland Security or any other Government or Pseudo-government agency that reads this posting and thinks that by writing my concerns that I am endorsing such behavior to stop and get a firm grip on their own aforementioned "flapping butt cheeks."

This flag waving, anthem singing red blooded American boy will in fact kick the ever loving crap out of anyone that I encounter misbehaving in an airport, on an airliner, and anywhere else they choose to enact their Jihadists bullshit, and your possession of US government credentials will not excuse you from my wrath if you are an idiot and show up at my door.

Do I make myself perfectly clear here?

Well then...you all have yourself a nice 4th of July if we don't speak again between now and then.

Dammit...

Somebody...Anybody...

Save Me From Myself


I'm now officially in the residential construction business.

How do I know?

Because today I came home with a portable air compressor and three nail guns from Sears.

Then I collapsed on the sofa with heat prostration because the AC in my Suburban is low on Freon and I'm too lazy to take it back to Island Automotive to get it fixed.

It was so hot that I passed up my planned weekly trip to Home Depot for more lumber and stuff, deferring it to early tomorrow morning before stopping by the beach to let Missy the "Turbo Pup" do a little digging.

Actually I ended up with a finish nailer, a brad nailer, and a stapler, because instead of 18D nails I'm using 2-1/2" screws to assemble the stud walls on the renovation project. The compressor will support one framing nailer, but I'm deferring that purchase until I do a whole house from scratch and need to slam a few thousand nails into some 2x4's.

I love doing construction, and perhaps the best part is getting to buy new tools to play with and hurt myself with. I still have all of my fingers and fingernails, but with all of the sledge hammers and saw blades I've acquired in the past few months, removing a digit or two here or there is a distinct possibility.

I really am a safety nerd when it comes to wearing protective glasses, hearing protection, gloves, and watching where and how I put up a ladder. Since much of my work is done solo, I sometimes worry about falling on my head or rupturing my spleen or something and having the police come and draw a chalk outline around my withered carcass after I've been missing for half a day or so.

Doing good work involves doing good design and planning, and getting in a hurry or cutting corners usually ends up costing more time and money than it saves, in my opinion. Having the right tools also goes a long way toward promoting safety, so I see another few hundred dollars worth of safety coming my way in the next few weeks.

Anybody know where I can get a good deal on a 10" table saw?

Building Progress

Bids Being Solicited...

My Pyramid Scheme

Stoned Illusions...


Boy oh boy am I ever an efficient little son of a gun these days, if I do say so myself.

In addition to wrestling my stack project to the ground this week and basically putting 99% of the design issues to rest in the process, I also delivered two framed photos to the Art Gallery yesterday (a day early), was notified that I had successfully negotiated the gauntlet down at City Hall to get a building permit for my duplex conversion project, and to finish things off I also built the first scale models of my "Pyramids of Egypt" set pieces that will be featured at Brunswick's Glynn Academy football games this season with their marching band.

I'm a little disappointed with one stipulation that the City of Brunswick threw at me on my construction project regarding the side setbacks on the four foot rear extension of the existing building, but I guess bureaucrats by their very nature being bureaucrats that you have to expect at least one inane government intrusion into every private endeavor. Otherwise the status wouldn't be "quo" any longer....you know what I mean?

Any way, this "Pyramid Scheme" has been an interesting mental exercise just to get to the model making phase of the project, and the next step will actually involve building yet another improved model using PVC pipe and some pieces of one yard samples of spandex fabric that I bought on the Internet in order to test the functionality of the process--what I call the "Do-ability Test"--before we spend $500 of hard earned Band Parent's money on bolts of fabric and pallets of PVC pipe.

The spandex idea actually was my most recent revelation, the idea of a "stretch fabric" solving several aesthetic and structural issues at the same time.

Dang I'm a genius.

The spandex takes on a modified form of something called a "Catenary Curve" between it's rigid support points, but if you stretch it tight enough it looks almost flat. I'm also using some techniques (battens, etc) employed in making the sails for a ship to produce a flexible, lightweight portable structure that can cover ten yards of football field, extend to a height of twenty feet, and not fall over and get me dragged into a courtroom by irate parents because of the trauma caused to their little darlin's in the process.

Perhaps the hardest part of this project is the requirement that the set pieces be able to travel with the band to out of town football games and marching contests.

That specification is added on top of the needs for being weatherproof, wind resistant, and capable of being installed and handled by gangly mobs of fourteen to eighteen year-old kids wielding trumpets and tubas and possibly those wearing skimpy sequined majorette costumes.

As has become a usual occurrence recently, my blogging has suffered at the hands of commercial enterprise. OK, maybe a combination of commercial and philanthropic enterprise, but reduced writing has resulted none the less.

I'm just having a hard time mustering the energy to bitch about everything that needs to be bitched about in the world these days.

For instance, the ENTIRE time I've been sitting here writing this posting FOX News has been freaking out about a purported bomb plot being thwarted near Piccadilly Circus in London this morning.

This on the heels of Tony Blair basically being pushed from the office of Prime Minister as a result of his ongoing support for the war on towel headed Muslim terrorism.

Go figure...

So now I have to get back to putting the final details on some smoke stack drawings, go over to Brunswick to pay for and pick up my Building Permit, stop by the cigar store to buy cigars and possibly wander back over to the swimming pool to contemplate my charmed existence.

I hope you have an equally satisfying day.

Everybody Run...

It's A Wild Doggggggg!!!!!!!

Here's My Smokestack

You Want Some Fries With That???


I was just wondering how I could present one of my AutoCAD drawings here on the blog, so I did a little fiddling around.

It was actually pretty easy. I just copied the image to the clipboard, then pasted it into Photoshop and saved it as a JPEG file.

Here, take a peek at what I've been designing:

This image is the assembled elevation view of a 115 foot tall, 9'-2" diameter exhaust stack that will be delivered this fall to a company out in California. It will weigh about 53 thousand pounds when erected.

That's a little over 25 tons for those of you that graduated from the University of Georgia.

There's also a platform around it there near the middle and an eighty foot high ladder running up the side for the adventuresome and/or athletic employees to climb when they feel like it.

This design is a relatively small structure as stacks go. The biggest I ever produced was 300' tall (again...thirty stories for the UGA crowd) and weighed in at over a quarter of a million pounds.

Actually we're building not one but TWO identical stacks for this customer, and we hope to build another design for the Sea Ray boat company down in Florida later this year.

In a past life I did this kind of work every day, and in addition to sitting on the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Steel Stack Standards Committee, I've designed and built a little over four hundred of these type structures over the past 25 years.

All in all the process is B O R I N G, but hey...it helps pay the bills...so what the heck?

I'm Staying At The Paris Hilton

Well...Maybe Not...


Why is it that virtually every single time I've elected to act like a complete, total, mindless dumbass in public either my parents or law enforcement snatched me up in the process and the experience ended up costing me time and money?

Meanwhile Miss Hilton can run around endlessly flashing her titties and insulting her grandfather's legacy and network TV and at least half of the world's population applauds her thoughtless efforts.

Like the old saying goes, "Life's a Bitch, then you die (or marry one...)"

I have to go now and draw some more lines on the computer screen.

Mental Flatulence

Oh That Aroma...


We'll...I'm still here...sitting in front of the computer, drawing lines.

The pool calls, but I refuse to listen.

All work and no play makes Virgil a dull boy.

Expert Incompetence

High Priced Bad Advice...


After bouncing around in the 1980's and finally finishing college and beginning my work career as a mechanical engineer, my Father told me a silly joke which I still remember today and has a good deal of applicability to my current situation.

It goes something like this:

Do you know what an "Expert" is?

No?

Well..."Ex" means former...right?

And a "spurt" is nothing but a simple "drip" of liquid (water, urine, etc.)...under pressure...

Right?

So, using that logic, an "EXPERT" is nothing but a former drip under pressure.

Using that description, I know one very good example of an "Expert" which does his business somewhere out in the great state of Colorado right now, charges a premium for his services, and knows virtually NOTHING about the topics which he addresses.

I've forgotten more about the subject than he apparently knows today.

Dammit...

My Body's Medium Rare

...But My Application's Well Done


Well, after spending most of the weekend's daylight hours roasting myself beside the swimming pool drinking white wine, smoking cheep cigars, and generally doing anything else I could come up with to avoid actually working, it looks like I'll be making it down to the Building inspectors office later this morning.

In addition to my application for a building permit and three sets of drawings (eight 11" x 17" pages each,) I'll also be tendering a check for $96 for the permit and another for $25 to cover the so-called "drawing review fee" that I just found out about in re-reading the instructions.

Isn't that a neat idea...demand that people send you drawings in triplicate and then charge a "fee" to actually look at them?

Only the government can get away with this type of crap, in my opinion.

I think that I'll start my own government office called the "Junk Mail Review Authority", then get some lawyers and a couple of judges to demand that random citizens be required to send me their junk mail along with their spare change to cover my costs to read it and throw it into the trashcan for them.

If you ever got caught wearing black or white socks with sandals while on vacation down here on our little island you can count on being included on my list of customers for my services.

Any way, the skin on my face and shoulders is in that just on the verge of being burned mode where my forehead keeps the wrinkles like I'm in a constant state of surprise or am thinking very seriously about something. I don't hurt or anything, but another 30 minutes here or there spent in the sun would push me across that invisible boundary from well baked to sunburned.

Now I have to shift gears and start flogging a couple of other projects, one a paying enterprise and another a non-paying venture, before an angry mob of band parents and a couple of businessmen from South Carolina appear on my doorstep wielding clubs and torches.

I've promised myself that I'll have my California smokestack project finished by the end of the month, and since the end of the month occurs this week I guess the writing is on the wall (or in this case on the computer monitor.)

Just in case you too have been busy earning a living or taking vacation, let me remind you that our national legislative bodies and executive (otherwise known as both houses of the US Congress and the President) are quietly resurrecting their "immigration reform bill" and will probably have something passed through at least one group of overpaid irresponsible elected morons later this week.

Using the same logic, I just wish that I could have broken into Switzerland in 1980 when I was 21 and gotten away with hanging out my own shingle as an engineer and ski instructor...without having to show a passport or visa or any other form of personal documentation.

Then instead of landing in jail on immigration charges or being deported back to Alabama, I would of had a bunch of limp wristed panty waisted liberals run around waiving their arms over their heads and pleading my case that I NEEDED to be allowed to remain in Europe because of the shortage of mountains, deep powder snow, and of blond headed blue eyed babes named Olga found wandering around in parkas and tight ski pants in the flatland forests of the southeastern United States.

No, that wouldn't happen then and it won't be happening any time in the near future...not until there is substantial quantities of frozen precipitation occurring in Hades.

Doing Everything Twice Now

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished...


Sorry, but just in case you haven't noticed, I have to admit that I've been spending much of my time away from my keyboard the past few days. That wouldn't necessarily a bad thing in my opinion, IF I could say that I've actually accomplished anything in the process.

It would seem that I'm doomed to doing almost everything at least twice and, if I do manage to finish any given task, at least two other projects end up sitting and festering in various states of incompleteness while I spin around in circles pulling what's left of my hair out.

This process of taking one step forward, followed by two steps backward began last Wednesday while working on my renovation project. That day found me bumbling around up on a ladder holding a giant 12 foot long double 2x8 header over my head and managing to knock over a couple of loose 2x4's on top of our portable Sony radio.

It seems to still pick up radio stations OK without an antenna, as long as the radio station is next door or down the street a short distance, but now Pat will be taking a shiny new Sony AM/FM/CD Player that set me back about $50 out to the swimming pool as a penance for my ineptitude while the old antenna-less box is relegated to residing in a pile of sawdust on the jobsite from now on.

When I got home Wednesday evening I found that the little clear 40 watt light bulb that I had purchased to install in the back the the clothes dryer drum was in about twenty pieces inside the clear plastic package--also an apparent victim of my ham-fisted handling. I managed to buy another one and get it home in one piece yesterday. It isn't installed, however, so I still have time to break this one also if I'm not careful.

Thursday was a red letter day on our calendar as Pat and I signed a lease on a nice three bedroom house located down on the middle of the island near the airport. In addition to a formal living room & dining room, we're also getting a fireplace in the den and a garage for my hobbies and all my construction junk to live in for one of the cars to sit in out of the weather.

Missy, the "Turbo Pup" miniature Dachshund will benefit from having a fenced back yard to rumble around in at her leisure instead of spending her life asking to go outside attached to a leash like we have to make her do living here in the condo. I guess that you could say that everyone here in my household is excited, but I have a sense of dread lingering in the back of my skull knowing that everything I own has to be crammed into a box and put on a truck by August 1st.

Continuing along with my dissertation...

Friday was a relatively uneventful day, with me spending about four hours putting together the wet wall in the new laundry room in the Duplex and having my large format prints of my two photos show up via UPS--giving me a week to get things matted, framed, and ready for the "Welcome To My World" Photo Exhibit that opens next Saturday at the Mallory street Glynn Arts Association Gallery.

For once I was ahead of schedule and had plenty of time to finish my presentation, but then disaster struck Saturday morning when my friend Traci managed to put a couple of big finger prints in the middle of one of the $50 prints while measuring it for a mat and frame. We both felt terrible, but she graciously offered to buy another copy of the print at her cost and I placed the order once we arrived home from a trip to Walmart.

I managed to break the second light bulb of the week Saturday afternoon while attempting to be a good samaritan by replacing the light in the ladies' restroom at our pool house. Standing on my tiptoes to reach the fixture, I moved to adjust my position and dropped the bulb on the concrete floor, scattering glass shards over the entire bathroom floor and out onto the adjacent carpeted area.

Twenty minutes later I had managed to clean up the fruits of my efforts by dragging our upright vacuum down from the condo and sucking up all the glass shards (and hair and funk.) I'm sorry to report that my charitable spirit died sometime during the process and the ladies' room is still dark at this moment.

I did finally manage to almost get myself a nice sunburn while sitting around poolside drinking wine and waiting for a batch of my pizza dough to rise. Pizza has now become a weekend tradition for our household here on our little island.

A couple of weeks ago I made a little separate pizza for Missy the "turbo pup", and ever since then I've had not two but three mouths to feed on Saturday afternoon with my home made pizza.

Last evening was no exception, and the little hound diligently sat by her food bowl full of designer dog food and waited for me to cut up a small slice of pizza, let it cool, and place it in a bowl on the floor in the kitchen. She seems to like the crust, cheese, and pepperoni, but is a bit undecided about the Mushrooms and Black Olives.

So any way, Sunday will be spent finishing up some drawings for the Duplex project and possibly making another trip to the pool, and maybe then I'll have time to get angry about the news and write something interesting for everyone to read.

Until then, best regards y'all

Tropical Weather

Ya Gotta Love It...


In case that you haven't noticed or I've failed to mention it, I plan my life these days around what I see on the NOAA Website and the Weather Channel.

As I've said before, if I was 17 years old again instead of 47 and I knew what I know now about the development of career opportunities for weather nerds I would have studied meteorology in college instead of engineering and you would possibly be able to tune in and see my ever greying, ever balding head on TV instead of Jim Cantori's shiny knob each evening.

Early this morning I noticed that the radar loop out of Jacksonville looked like we had a slight rotation in the weather sitting offshore between our little island and Daytona.

Now the weather nerds over at the Weather Channel are talking about it causing the Space Shuttle having to scrub it's landing plans twice today and I'm looking outside at wind gusts up near 30 MPH and a nice rain falling--thereby preventing my afternoon bike ride over to pick up a copy of the local newspaper from the Sea Palms Clubhouse.

That's OK, because I have a new generator, insurance, and gallons of drinking water standing by just in case another Katrina-like event stands up and blows us all away overnight.

I've taken a day off from the jobsite and spent the time finishing up eight pages of drawings for the Duplex renovation, and after an early morning trip tomorrow morning to Home Depot and Walmart I'll once again be grinding around building new wall framing and punching holes in concrete block.

Thank goodness my existing debris covered roof is still sound so I can work inside in the crappy weather that is apparently going to be with us through the weekend.

Y'all have a Happy Summer Solstice...enjoy the day with longest period of daylight of the year, if you will...

Still Infected

Anyone Have Any Digital Penicillin?


I'm sorry to report that my computer spent most of yesterday afternoon and the early evening either hiccuping , farting, and belching, else it was tied up spinning and banging and whirling around as it was being scanned by my Norton 360 software for the same fungus that's had us in it's grips since last Friday.

I was afraid to touch it during most of the process for fear of catching the same infection in the cuticles of my toes or somewhere else important like my crotch or gums, so not much got done around here since about 3 PM yesterday.

Once I revived myself and tried to get going again about 2:00 AM things seem to be OK as I haven't been interrupted by any fake Bellsouth DSL screens thus far this morning.

I'm not holding my breath, however.

I absolutely have to get my building permit application delivered to the City of Brunswick in the next couple of days else I'm going to be finished with the job and have the building inspectors kicking me in the head with stupid details that really don't matter in retribution for violating their government imposed rules.

I find it to somehow be damming that the government gets in the way of me improving a building that was built in 1959 and currently has clunky plumbing and no central AC or heat.

Who are they to tell me that if I don't leave things in their current ancient decrepit state that I have to jump through flaming hoops wearing $150 running shoes and pay them $90 for a permit to work on MY BUILDING.

MY BUILDING.

The building that I paid cash for a little over three years ago and have dropped another $1,000 of tax money on since then.

The building that one dumbass left in the middle of the night owing me $825 worth of past due rent money two years ago.

Yes...THAT building.

Screw the government...if they don't like it I'll tear the whole thing down and pay reduces taxes on the bare dirt like the guys did next door and across the street.

Dammit...