Come inside, if you dare, and subject yourself to my observations on life's experiences and my commentaries on politics and current events.
"...I have noticed a large number of people...implying with bad jokes and anecdotes...that Cajuns ain't smart...I beg to differ...Anybody who would build a city 5 feet below sea level in a hurricane zone and fill it with Democrats who can't swim is a damn genius".
Picture This Room Squeezed Down to 12 Feet x 11 Feet...
I think that anyone that's in the Architucture or Engineering Business, as well as many other Graphic Artists in various professions and endeavors, understand what it means to say that you have a vision or otherwise you "see in your head" a theme and design concept which you try to express in the form of drawings and finally replicate through the builder/constructor ending up with a finished product.
This morning I found this picture of this very large basement pub built in someone elses' house in 1974...but in essence it describes EXACTLY the concept I've been trying to produce in my little project in my basement.
Just imagine the whole thing squeezed down to the dimensions as stated in my subtitle ...actualy 12'-4-1/2" x10'-9 1/2" in real life.
Still...I can get the same character and feel in my little space, and based on the current cost estimates instead of $27,000 I can pull the whole thing off here for $2,700 or so with the realities of the reduced footprint and the fact that we don't know enough people here in Knoxtown to fill a bar room larger that the one currently under construction the limited flooplan size really justifies the sanity of my efforts.
All of that said, the second coat of paint on the ceiling is drying and it's time to put the second coat of Poly on the stair treads laying out in the carport.
My head is ready to explode with all of this BS talk about the Federal Government's role in "CREATING JOBS."
Apparently a lot of People...and particularly Politicians...actually believe today that it is somehow the role of the Government--Federal And State and Local--to create jobs.
In my considered Redneck Opinion...all the Government does is steal money, waste it on Government jobs paying twice as many people three times as much money as the position is worth to do half the work...
...while at the same time making it harder and harder for entrepreneurs and existing business owners to make a living.
I've over the past 21 years incorporated three different companies. The last one going on three years ago as a result of leaving an Island on the Atlantic Ocean to take a job here in Knoxville with a company which worked doing design and engineering work primarily for the Coal Fired Power Plant Industry.
Within two months of Obama's election that company was out of business.
No surprise--since the "Community Organizer In Chief" stated out loud that he was going to (paraphrasing here) "bankrupt coal companies while at the same time necessarily making the price of electricity skyrocket."
Today I have a small corporation doing design and fabrication for the Plastics Industry...people that make bottles like Catsup and Gatorade is sold in at the Grocery store.
You know what I spend 10% to 25% of my time doing (depending on the month and time of the year like Corporate Tax Season in March)?
Filling out stupid assed forms and writing checks to pay taxes and fees on a company which has yet to turn a substantial profit.
You want to know how I believe our government can improve the job situation in this country?
A really good friend of mine I've known for about 30 years now...he just turned 71 last week...sent me this quote and said he thought of ME when he saw it:
"Don't kill the mavericks. They will save your life one day.
And while they are around... they will get things done!"
My stairwell going between the main level of my house and my basement is currently driving me crazy.
At first I was just going to do a simple paint job and leave the stairs alone, but then one thing led to another and now I'm struggling with the process of putting in new stained stair treads, painted risers, and stumbling around on a cobbled up platform/ladder trying to reach the two levels of ceilings within a space 3'-6" wide holding a paint brush or roller in one hand and my ass in the other.
I'm really not afraid of heights, but I am afraid of falling from a height of 12 or 15 feet with a little pan of paint in one hand and a painting utensil in the other.
So any way, I've almost got the paint job done on the walls and ceiling, and today I'm cutting the new treads and riser covers which have been pre-painted in a giant 4'x8' sheet, and all the time I'm cursing under my breath because it was ME that came up with this grand IDEA in the FIRST place.
Time to get back to making Sawdust and Paint spatters...
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – Row, row, row your boat, just not down Main Street in Manayunk. That’s the message police are sending after arresting two men who used a raft as an alternate means of transportation down the flooded street Sunday.
CBS 3 reporter Dray Clark caught up with Pete and Pat, best friends and roommates from Manayunk, who paddled their way down the water covered street.
“I thought, Main Street floods a lot, go get a raft and float down,” said Pat, who admitted the idea was his.
We thought it would be a good time and it turns out it is,” said Pete.
Minutes later, Philadelphia police stopped the men and hauled them away in handcuffs.
When Dray asked why the men were being arrested, he said the officers replied, “for lack of common sense.”
No charges were filed against the boaters.
Still.
They put the cuffs on the guys. Probably ruined a perfectly good buzz from a few drinks before or during the adventure. And then they hauled them and their raft over to the police station and made their wives or girlfriends or mothers come and get them.
For WHAT?
Floating in a boat in a flooded STREET?
Did they get arrested because they weren't wearing life preservers or other "personal flotation devices?"
They didn't have a fire extinguisher and watercraft registration papers on board?
See here, Ladies and Gentlemen...
The Cops these days are all going to the "Barny Fife" School of Policing...letting serious crap go on un-interrupted while they run around with their gun and single bullet screwing with private citizens doing harmless stuff like floating in a rubber inflatable raft.
And until we kick some asses into line and get the politicians to back off pretty soon it's going to be against the law to fart or belch in public without some idiot writing you a ticket for offending their tender sensibilities.
I know that you, like I, are happy that the Imperial Federal Government of the By-God United States of 'Merica is on the job this morning doing important things like protecting us from products containing wood from trees illegally harvested.
I was really getting so worried about where the wood I've been buying and cutting into sections in my basement bar was coming from that I was having trouble sleeping.
They (the Federal Government) can't keep illegal immigrants from coming into the country taking jobs and committing crimes, but they can keep us from buying a match stick of wood or a guitar with an Ebony wood fretboard from Madagascar and India if they think it might violate the terms of the recently amended Lacey Act, something signed into law in 1900 by President McKinley.
Of course it was Obama and Holder and some of the other sniveling, booger eating, tree hugging, patchouli stinking, tied dyed wild eyed climate change believers that changed the Lacey Act in 2009 as soon as he got into office to cover exotic wood species like it already covered fish and other wildlife.
So now Obama and Holder and their armed Thugs are wasting time showing up with machine guns at private businesses around the country looking for "exotic wood." It's gotten so bad apparently that famous musicians are afraid to travel overseas for fear that when they return through Customs here in the US that their guitar might be confiscated...even if it is a 1950's vintage instrument built before the Lacey Act was amended...because they can't prove its origin and age.
Federal agents swooped in on Gibson Guitar Wednesday, raiding factories and offices in Memphis and Nashville, seizing several pallets of wood, electronic files and guitars. The Feds are keeping mum, but in a statement yesterday Gibson's chairman and CEO, Henry Juszkiewicz, defended his company's manufacturing policies, accusing the Justice Department of bullying the company. "The wood the government seized Wednesday is from a Forest Stewardship Council certified supplier," he said, suggesting the Feds are using the aggressive enforcement of overly broad laws to make the company cry uncle.
...
It isn't just Gibson that is sweating. Musicians who play vintage guitars and other instruments made of environmentally protected materials are worried the authorities may be coming for them next.
If you are the lucky owner of a 1920s Martin guitar, it may well be made, in part, of Brazilian rosewood. Cross an international border with an instrument made of that now-restricted wood, and you better have correct and complete documentation proving the age of the instrument. Otherwise, you could lose it to a zealous customs agent—not to mention face fines and prosecution.
John Thomas, a law professor at Quinnipiac University and a blues and ragtime guitarist, says "there's a lot of anxiety, and it's well justified." Once upon a time, he would have taken one of his vintage guitars on his travels. Now, "I don't go out of the country with a wooden guitar."
Henry Juszkiewicz, Chairman and CEO of Gibson Guitar Corp., has responded to the August 24 raid of Gibson facilities in Nashville and Memphis by the Federal Government. In a press release, Juszkiewicz said: “Gibson is innocent and will fight to protect its rights. Gibson has complied with foreign laws and believes it is innocent of ANY wrong doing. We will fight aggressively to prove our innocence.”
The raids forced Gibson to cease manufacturing operations and send workers home for the day while armed agents executed the search warrants. “Agents seized wood that was Forest Stewardship Council controlled,” Juszkiewicz said. “Gibson has a long history of supporting sustainable and responsible sources of wood and has worked diligently with entities such as the Rainforest Alliance and Greenpeace to secure FSC-certified supplies. The wood seized on August 24 satisfied FSC standards.”
Juszkiewicz believes that the Justice Department is bullying Gibson without filing charges.
“The Federal Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. has suggested that the use of wood from India that is not finished by Indian workers is illegal, not because of U.S. law, but because it is the Justice Department’s interpretation of a law in India. (If the same wood from the same tree was finished by Indian workers, the material would be legal.) This action was taken without the support and consent of the government in India.”
Here's an good example of how the government is handling things these days:
I swear, Ladies and Gentlemen...It's a truly screwed up world we live in when the government has the time to run around carrying guns chasing the remnants of DEAD TREES but they don't have the time and energy and resolve to defend our borders.
Then again, we get what we pay for and throwing tons of money at the problem is obviously not the solution.
Take public schools government EDUCATION...for example. Today I feel we live in a country full of by and large ill-educated and by default STUPID people...people that believe that government is the solution to everything they face in life.
Thus today we have the government pointing guns at people because they paid for wood which the government thinks possibly might not meet their standards.
Is that really the kind of thing that you want your government spending your money on?
Sniveling, Booger Eating, Tree Huggers Afraid Of "Mother Earth"...
I can't even watch The Weather Channel or FOX News without laughing out loud at the hysteria being presented about this little wimpy storm called Irene.
I've checked the NOAA Forecasts presented four times a day, and by noon yesterday it was obvious that the storm was substantially weakened and would not regain strength before it hit NY City, but the media kept on banging their drums while the Obamamaniacs cut their vacation out on Martha's Vinyard short so the President could...according to the Drudge Report/Yahoo News--"Take Charge At Hurricane Command Center."
Here's a picture for your enjoyment:
I would say that President Obama's compentency in this role would be the equivalent of me sitting at the controls of the Space Shuttle or possibly a Nuclear Power Plant.
Another funny thing to me?
That NOAA was asked or otherwise felt it necessiary to have to make a custom Name Tag/Desk Plackard with the name "Barack Obama"..."President of the United States" to place in front of this inept, feckless, obtuse man like somehow everyone in the room didn't know who he was on sight.
So any way, it's time now to get back to business in my basement building a new staircase, and hopefully the rest of the country will get back to business making money in spite of the By God Imperial Federal Government of the United States of 'Merica's best efforts to the contrary, and think about electing some people to office in November 2012 that will do a better job than the efforts of much of the crowd we have sitting in DC today.
Long time listener, first time caller...well, not really.........
I started this blog thing a good while back and found it to be a rather cathartic experience--doing my ranting and raving in public--so much so, I started another blog and started writing about cooking.
Don't mess with me, or I'll start another one and talk about YOU!
