A View From My Office

Wierd Stuff You Don't See Just Anywhere...

I know that blogging has been a little light recently because I've been busy and distracted, so I thought I would turn to my camera's view of my life this morning to see if I could find anything that was interesting going on.

Here, take a look at this scene:



That's a real sewn cotton 5' x 9' flag made by the Valley Forge Flag Company I have hanging on the wall now in the office. I bought it on E-bay last year and I had to re-arrange the furniture in order to properly display it.

Then I found this thing flopping around in my oven about 8:30 last night:



That's a load of crab stuffed Tilapia encased in puff pastry, surrounded by a little pastry starfish and some left over onions.

(My imagination and my chef's knife got the best of me there...but Hey...it was fun regardless.)

Feckless White Boy European American du Jour

Hey Mr. Taxpayer...Do As I Say...Not As I Do Did




(Again if you're busy watching American Idol and Desparite Housewives, that would be Timothy Geithner...new US Treasury Secretary and head of the IRS. This SOB got away with intentionally paying six figures of income and self employment tax a half decade late without any penalty or interest...just you or me try that and see if they don't double the amount due with interest and penalty...)

Could Somebody Please Tell Me A Couple Of Things??

I'm Asleep At The Helm...


Last I heard the first family was making a decision on acquiring a dog to crap all over the carpets and lawn at the white house.

I think I remember them making some sort of decision but it went right past my ever greying, ever balding head...

so today I actually don't know what breed or half-breed (no pun or slight to the president intended) they selected, but...

the other thing I was wondering was if the barracuda lady Lady Obama's mother had actually moved into the White House or if she had just left the south side of Chicago to move into some location nearby in the DC suburbs?

I really couldn't give a crap about details like this but I also hate not being informed so if I have the time I may have to do some Googling later today.

Other than that everything just Peachy here on the banks of the Mighty Tennessee River.

Y'all have a nice day...If you will...

The First One Hundred Minutes

Thanks Roger...

AWMA's Stand Up To Obama

Doesn't $50K out Of My House Cover My "Fair Share" For What...About Twenty years???


I'm sorry.

(OK I'm really not sorry...)

I know that I sometimes brag about living large (even in the days when I was letting Pat pay most of the bills and I was leading the charge slinking around the world enjoying the good life on a marginal well conceived, pre-planned cost basis...BUT...)

What I want to talk about right now in the current national calamity is the explanation of how our whole circumstance is FAIR when you look into the future?

But I digress...

I haven't admitted it here on this blog until right this very minute, but I'm sorry to report that I walked off the elevator into my glitzy office building on December 19th and learned that my company here on the banks of the Mighty Tennessee River was by-God closing down.

That day.

Right then.

Ten of twelve of the slowly sinking numbers of staff (that was 17 when I got there) put out on the street with little chance of making another dime before like--February 1st?

Everyone but the Owner and underachieving VP boy on the street Friday before Christmas (with the silly angry bitch accountant chick retained on an hourly basis to count the money coming in and out...mostly going out)

I stayed to 5:30 because I had drawings and calculations going out coincidentally that same afternoon, but in the mean time I ran home and brought back a bunch of moving boxes and a couple rolls of tape to assist in the exodus.

Then we spent Christmas in Kansas City anyway...sticking our thumb in the eye of fate and of all things...having confidence in OUR own personal responsibility for our situation and our ability to find something else profitable to do without waiting on the freaking GOVERNMENT to help.

So today Pat and I are forced to live out of savings...savings reduced by nearly $50,000 just in the past year by taxes--paid to the GOVERNMENT and getting us what in return?

Oh...I know...how about my ongoing investment property/construction debacle broken into in Brunswick--most likely by "minority" or other "disenfranchised" members of our society--taking a couple thousand dollars of construction materials including lumber and prehung doors, and the local Police department only grimacing and rolling their eyes as they took the report of the incident.

"shut up silly white boy and go back to your island and stop trying to build clean affordable housing in a ghetto...don't you know that's the GOVERNMENT's job..?"

And now the GOVERNMENT forces me to watch an endless debate about increased taxes and banking bailouts and "$500 stimulus checks" miraculously causing a turn around in the flagging economy.

Funny thing...in the year before I came back to work here on the banks of the Mighty Tennessee river I didn't report enough "Wages" on my tax return, so I didn't get a stimulus check. You see, I've been living the past decade mostly on rental income and the profits earned buying and selling real estate.

And so now I'm a great big old TARGET for the IRS and the Obama socialists.

That's right...they want to raise MY taxes--specifically my CAPITOL GAINS TAXES, from their current 5% to 15% rate up to the same marginal rate they charged me on my income last year.

If Obama and Pelosi get their way, I would have paid at least another TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS in taxes last year on the sale of some investment property, and then today I'd still be looking in my mailbox or bank account and not seeing any regular income because my job went away in 2008.

Funny thing, the engineering company I worked for did work primarily for customers building Coal fired power plants for people like TVA, Duke Power & Southern Company and for companies making Coke for steel mills.

Needless to say that I sure was happy about our new president's pre-election comments about wanting to "put the coal companies out of business" and he and his fellow Democrats' support for wild eyed bullshit boondoggled subsidies for Wind, Bio-Diesel and "alternative technologies" while we're sitting on top of the biggest coal supplies in the ENTIRE WORLD.

And another thing...

You know what paying last year's $50K federal taxes and a lifetime of paying "unemployment" taxes, not to mention at least another $50K of property taxes in three states gets me IF and WHEN I finally accept a GOVERNMENT "unemployment" check?

In Tennessee it maxes out at $275 a week...the equivalent of about $6.88 an hour paid to a guy that hasn't earned less than $20 an hour since the mid 1980's.

I stooped down to the level of making the application on line, but I haven't received nor cashed a single check, and given a couple of things happening here in the next ten to fourteen days I'll be mailing any funds I received back to the GOVERNMENT bastards.

Yes I've been "unemployed" in the past, but it was usually by choice or default. I've never spent a single day of my life collecting "unemployment", and my "22 week" eligibility" and my giant potential payout makes it even more unpalatable right now.

This is unbelieveable total GOVERNMENT shit...people. They're screwing us coming and going, and blaiming everyone but themselves after the fact.

I just wish all the AWMA's out there (Angry White Male Americans), the very people that built this country in spite of the text of the current history books, would stand up and tell their own stories like mine--hopefully displacing some of the stupid mindless rhetoric that's out there being delivered each day by the liberals and the liberal media.

These son-of-a-bitches do nothing but create problems, then create stupid solutions that only cause more problems in an endless cycle of social engineering.

I say we need to build a fence around Washington DC, close down all of the public housing and Gitmo, and move the "detainees" and "downtrodden" and "disenfranchised" inside the fence and let Obama and Pelosi and Reid live with them on a day in and day out basis. They love them, let them live with them rather than taxing me, throwing my money at them, and then going home under Secret Service guard to read the NY Times and contemplate their next Government induced "good social deed."

While they're at it let them PAY for their upkeep...

and in the process leave me and my wallet the hell out of their charitable experimentation.

...dammit.

(PS...I'm confident that everything's going to be OK here one way or the other. Chances are we're able to stay put on the banks of the Mighty Tennessee River, and if not I have a couple of irons in the fire back along the Atlantic coast of Florida. I stumble with unfortunate frequency, but I always land on my feet.)

Is This What We're Dealing With???

Saul Alinsky's Rules


I'm just learning much about Saul Alinsky, but what I've read so far seems to be the foundations of the textbook being employed by President Obama and a whole bunch of other people--Democrats and Republicans--today.

"There's another reason for working inside the system. Dostoevski said that taking a new step is what people fear most. Any revolutionary change must be preceded by a passive, affirmative, non-challenging attitude toward change among the mass of our people. They must feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost, so futureless in the prevailing system that they are willing to let go of the past and change the future. This acceptance is the reformation essential to any revolution. To bring on this reformation requires that the organizer work inside the system, among not only the middle class but the 40 per cent of American families - more than seventy million people - whose income range from $5,000 to $10,000 a year [in 1971]. They cannot be dismissed by labeling them blue collar or hard hat. They will not continue to be relatively passive and slightly challenging. If we fail to communicate with them, if we don't encourage them to form alliances with us, they will move to the right. Maybe they will anyway, but let's not let it happen by default."



And this from Mr. Alinsky's 1971 book entitled "Rules for Radicals."


1. "Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have."

2. "Never go outside the expertise of your people. When an action or tactic is outside the experience of the people, the result is confusion, fear and retreat.... [and] the collapse of communication.

3. "Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy. Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty. (This happens all the time. Watch how many organizations under attack are blind-sided by seemingly irrelevant arguments that they are then forced to address.)

4. "Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules. You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than t he Christian church can live up to Christianity."

5. "Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counteract ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage."

6. "A good tactic is one your people enjoy."

7. "A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag. Man can sustain militant interest in any issue for only a limited time...."

8. "Keep the pressure on, with different tactics and actions, and utilize all events of the period for your purpose."

9. "The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself."

10. "The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition. It is this unceasing pressure that results in the reactions from the opposition that are essential for the success of the campaign."

11. "If you push a negative hard and deep enough, it will break through into its counterside... every positive has its negative."

12. "The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative."

13. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. In conflict tactics there are certain rules that [should be regarded] as universalities. One is that the opposition must be singled out as the target and 'frozen.' ... When your 'freeze the target,' you disregard these [rational but distracting] arguments and carry out your attack.... One acts decisively only in the conviction that all the angles are on one side and all the devils on the other." pp.127-134

Try not to break out in a cold sweat or a bad case of the psyco shivers when you realize, like I have, that we're on the verge of being at the point of no return--and it was all PLANNED...

...as in NOT ACCIDENTAL or through ineptitude.

dammit...

Government Tax Crap O' The Day

Did You Know This?


After spending a half hour standing in line at the local UPS Store to make copies of my tax paperwork on April 15th last year (I owed additional taxes), I've somehow managed to have a file labeled "VRR Taxes 2007," but contained within is only some supporting paperwork and a copy of some various 1099's.

I guese the balance of the info is misfiled in one of the ten or twelve file drawers sprinkled around the upstairs and basement office cabinets.

Any way, in order to E-file for my 2008 return which will include a sizable refund (silly me), I have to produce the Adjusted Gross Income from last year's return.

No problem, I'll just get the IRS to send me a copy of last year's filing.

Well, as is usual with G O V E R M E N T, even in an age where virtually everything is available on line--most of the time for FREE--but they want me to go to this IRS Web Page and...

PAY THEM FIFTY SEVEN DOLLARS FOR A COPY OF MY RETURN.

Doing a little quick math, that would work out to over $14 PER PAGE.

Add that to this years' requirement that you make less than $56,000 in order to e-file for free, and what you have here folks is yet another example of the G O V E R N M E N T putting the screws to people that elect to make a living and pay their own way in this country.

So now I've paid $29 to file Pat's return with Turbo Tax--an IRS "certified" and "approved" e-file "provider," then shortly after I hit the "e-file button" I learned that the $29 fee only covered one return.

If I had bought the software download or went to Circuit City and picked up a CD ROM copy I could file for the "entire family," but noooooooOOOOOOO...

Now I'm faced with paying the IRS $57 and then ponying up another $29 for another Turbo Tax session to e-file.

All this in order to comply with an archaic, inane, insane system of theft and wealth redistribution run by idiots and ingrates elected by all of the liberal doo-gooders and their following of underachievers in our great country.

Did I mention the two full days it's taken me to put the tax returns together thus far?

How about paying me my billable hourly rate for that time spent Mr. Obama?

SCREW it, I'm not paying that much for a COPY of my own tax eturn so I guess that I'm sending in the package via the plain old US mail and waiting for eternity to get my refund.

dammit... when will the rip off mentality and insanity end?

Here...Take This Driving Knowledge Test

(And Stay The Heck Home If You Don't Make At Least 80)


http://moneycentral.msn.com/quiz/driving-skills-quiz/home.aspx

I made a 95...but I lost the screen shot before I could paste it here.

Live Tax Info From My Cave

File Federal Tax Returns? For free? On line?


I'm all a tremble with anticipation of getting OUR overpaid tax money back in OUR Bank accounts in a hurry this year.

You too can go to this web site and save some paper and a stamp or two:

http://www.irs.gov/efile/article/0,,id=201897,00.html

Unfortunately the State of Georgia is still operating in the dark ages, and since they owe Pat a freaking fortune for drawing a severance paycheck out of Georgia while living in Tennessee--a state with no "state" income tax--I'll have to grind around with a pen and paper and wait a couple of months to get "our fair share" back from the idiots in downtown Atlanta.

Meanwhile, I encourage you to get your paperwork filed and not pay H&R Block or any of the other scam operations a single cent to expedite your refund.

If, on the other hand, you own the vultures at the IRS a single cent--wait until April 14th and pay the bastards at the very last minute like I've done for my own account in the past.

Tis the season...TAX Season...

Ho Ho Ho...dammit

Mobach Bobama

mobach mobama ...mobach bobama... mbache b-bamma


Sorry...I'm just trying out celebrating the new president's election in the way I see it on my TV.

Government Air Quality = Zero Customer Service

Bureaucratic DumbASSES Prevail...


Well, I've been sitting here manning the phones for a day and one-half, waiting on my government mandated 'burn permit" to arrive via fax AND I'm sure it won't take much for you to guess that the idiots over in the Knox County Air Quality office can't be troubled with getting a dial tone and satisfying my request.

Oh yeah, I'm sure when I call tomorrow morning they'll manage to act like they either didn't get a phone call early yesterday afternoon else blame the delay on my fax machine or some other technicality, but in the end this is just another perfect example of G O V E R N M E N T...

and the lack of competition allowing them to have e-mail and a web site but still rely on TWENTY YEAR OLD technology to deliver the product which is one of their primary roles in even existing.

One Less Kennedy In The Senate

One More Fine Day Spent Away From Liberal Hell


Caroline's out...undone by of all things personal finances and TAXES--something members of the Kennedy family have been shoving down our throats and up our neither regions for decades.

One has to smile and understand that--just like thermodynamics--nature hates an unbalance of entropy.

(that means shit flows downhill for those of you in the the unwashed non-technical masses)

Canadians Finally Getting Some Balls?

Their Geese Bring Airliner Down, But A Terrorist Is Still A Terrorist...


Check this crap out... Obamarama pal Bill Ayers is refused entry to Canada this week in this ASSociated Press story:


TORONTO -- William Ayers, a former U.S. radical who featured prominently in Republican efforts to thwart Barack Obama’s election campaign, has been denied entry to Canada.

The University of Toronto’s Centre for Urban Schooling issued a statement Monday saying Ayers was denied entry to Canada on Sunday night.

Forty years ago Ayers was a member of the Weather Underground, a radical group that claimed responsibility for a series of bombings, including nonfatal explosions at the Pentagon and U.S. Capitol.

(anyone but me notice the ASSocaited press makes a point of the bombings being "non-fatal?")

Ayers was a fugitive for years but after surrendering in 1980 the charges were dropped because of prosecutorial misconduct.

(Lucky bastard...)

Ayers was not allowed an opportunity to meet with his lawyer, the center said. Paul Copeland, his lawyer in Canada, said he was wasn’t allowed to speak to Ayers or a border supervisor.

Copeland said Ayers was denied entry at Toronto’s island airport.

“I couldn’t get anybody to talk to me and it doesn’t surprise me,” Copeland said.

Ayers told Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper that he has traveled to Canada more than a dozen times in the past.

“It seems very arbitrary,” he said. “The border agent said I had a conviction for a felony from 1969. I have several arrests for misdemeanors, but not for felonies.”

So they (the Canadians), home of draft dodgers and "consequential" objectors of all religions and political leanings, elected for once to keep someone out of their country that has personally assaulted the American People and the American government.

I say that it's about DAMN TIME, since if it wasn't for the American Taxpayer dollars and the government of the United By God States of 'merica the Canadians would be speaking Russian or Japanese about a half century ago.

And another thing while I'm bitching on a good rant...

Why the heck does the ASSociated press have to interject these paragraphs in the middle of an otherwise non-partisan news story?

Obama had a very limited relationship with Ayers, whose Chicago home is in the same neighborhood. They served together on the board of a Chicago charity, and in the mid-1990s when Obama first ran for office, Ayers hosted a meet-the-candidate session for Obama at his home.

Obama has condemned Ayers’ radical activities. There’s no evidence the two ever were close friends or that Ayers advised Obama on policy. Ayers has said he hardly knew Obama.

Yeah...I thought so...

If you say something often enough to people that don't know the truth (or care about actually knowing the truth or have the capacity to think critically), the what you say will by default become the truth.

Obviously the ASSociated Press is concerned that you might be confused about our new President's past ASSociation with Terrorist Ayers.

fortunately, I'm not.

Are YOU?

Here...Read This

Dang Fine Words Of Hope In Trying Times...


All over the country Americans have invested their hopes in Obama's ability to pull his country together to face its challenges. Among these Americans are millions -- most likely tens of millions -- who have never identified with their government before, who felt "outside" the system they regarded as run by elites, who ascribed its economic troubles to the greedy rich, who bought the Jackson-Sharpton canard that America was a racist society and they were locked out, who would have scorned the term "patriot" as a compromise with such evils, and who turned their backs on America's wars.

But today celebrating their new president are millions of Americans who never would have dreamed of celebrating their president before. Millions of Americans -- visible in all their racial and ethnic variety at the Lincoln Memorial on Sunday -- have begun to feel a patriotic stirring because they see in this First Family a reflection of themselves.

The change is still symbolic and may not last. A lot depends on what President Obama will do, which is not a small question given how little is still known about this man and how little tested he remains. Some of this patriotism may be of the sunshine variety -- in for a day or a season, when the costs are not great. Or more cynically: in to show that their hatred for America is really just another form of political "dissent." Yet whatever the nature of these changes they cannot for now be discounted. Consider: When President Obama commits this nation to war against the Islamic terrorists, as he already has in Afghanistan, he will take millions of previously alienated and disaffected Americans with him, and they will support our troops in a way that most of his party has refused to support them until now. When another liberal, Bill Clinton went to war from the air, there was no anti-war movement in the streets or in his party's ranks to oppose him. That is an encouraging fact for us in the dangerous world we confront.

If it seems unfair that Barack Obama should be the source of a new patriotism -- albeit of untested mettle -- life is unfair. If the Obama future is uncertain and fraught with unseen perils, conservatives can deal with those perils as they come. What matters today is that many Americans have begun to join their country's cause, and conservatives should celebrate that fact and encourage it. What matters now is that the American dream with its enormous power to inspire at home and abroad is back in business. What it means is that the race card has been played out and America can once again see itself -- and be seen -- for what it is: a land of incomparable opportunity, incomparable tolerance, and justice for all. Conservative values -- individual responsibility, equal opportunity, racial and ethnic pluralism, and family -- are now symbolically embedded in the American White House. As a result, a great dimension of American power has been restored. Will these values be supported, strengthened, put into practice? It is up to us to see that they are.


Go HERE to read the entire article

"Burn Permits" Burn My Butt

More Un-needed Government Intervention...


I've been looking around the property the past month, and since it's winter and the leaves are off the bushes and weeds I can see the structure of the Fawnia and Flora and to be honest...I think that I need to get out the electric chainsaw and the pruning clippers and do a little lawn maintenance.

The temperature is supposed to near 50 tomorrow for the first time in a couple of weeks, and in anticipation of the event I made the phone call this afternoon.

I got the phone number off of the Knox County Website.

Guess what?

They have to FAX me my "Burn Permit" from the "Knox County Air Quality Office."

Further...even though I can find the address and phone number on line, I can't find the "burning rules" on line.

Also, they have a web site and e-mail addresses, but I still for some unknown reason have to tie up my telephone waiting on a fax from a government bureaucrat that will move three inches to open a file drawer or peck on their keyboard because they have to FAX ME THE GOVERNMENT MANDATED "BURN PERMIT."

The good news is that it's good for 90 days for some reason. All I wanted to do is burn some crap that been laying against the fence line since we bought the house last April along with some new stuff I knock down while doddering around the yard brandishing power tools of various descriptions.

Now after going through the trouble to get my 90 day faxed permit I may just cut everything in sight down and burn it in order to avoid any future conflict or worse of all...come up against of all things...

A BURNING BAN.

They have those, you know.

In Atlanta they had one every year from Memorial Day to Labor day, then I think they basically banned anything larger than a match or cigarette lighter outside for the remaining seven months of the year.

Doesn't anyone but me find it strange that today you have to ask the GOVERNMENT for permission to dispose of leaves or limbs or dead bodies of infants in your back yard in a nice bonfire fashion?

I guess it's sort of like the thinking of the gun control zealots...

When fires are outlawed...only outlaws will have fires.

The rest of us will just have to freeze to death while camping or be buried under piles of lawn refuse because the GOVERNMENT IS DOING IT'S BEST TO PROTECT US FROM OURSELVES.

dammit...

Can We All Just Get On With Business Now?

I'm Tired Of The Three Year "Election Cycle"


Imagine if you ran a company like we apparently run this country?

If you did, I say that if your company didn't run out of cash and close up for "market reasons", it would most certainly go down the crapper because all of the employees were constantly engaged in discussing who should be in charge and what clothes or hairstyle the new CEO's wife should wear to the company picnic.

I'm just plain tired of the entire process...how about you?

I just don't care anymore because now I'm in the legally "disenfranchised" part of the population that can only hope the government stays as far away as possible from my wallet and what few freedoms I have left, and that the "Left" either learns a few lessons in the process else implodes as the American people realize what they've done in putting celebrity ahead of content, character, and proven capability in the process of electing virtually unknown people like Obama and Al Franken to national office.

I have to accept the people, but I just hope I can accept all of their mindless programs and other "HELP" they're going to force on me in the next four years.

And Now Kennedy Falls Out Of His Chair At Lunch...

I'm Not Trying To Be Insentive or Boorish...BUT...


Poor old Ted Kennedy.

He's old and sick and I'm not suggesting that anyone laugh at him or his current misery, but I do have to suggest that what goes around comes around--usually at the worst possible moment.

I guess he'd rather be barfing on his table and writhing in the floor in a Tuxedo in 2009 rather than lying dead in the back seat of a car in the cold waters near his New England home in Chappaquiddick forty years earlier in 1969.

And then there's Pelosi's botoxed face and Durbin's crooked toothy smile and the rest of the cast of the usual Democratic characters--standing guard over today's inauguration "festivities" like mutant relatives at some macabre family holiday dinner...except this time it's the family of putrid stinking LIBERALS our electorate has decided to force on the other 49% of the country.

God help us all...

Things Aren't Starting Out Too Well

No Bible...


And he botched the words to the oath of office.

I sure hope things aren't downhill from here.


UPDATE -- 1:22 AM Wednesday 01/21/08

Ok...looking at some of the news sites they show a disjointed hand on a bible and attribute it by default to it being that of Obama, and just to be fair--apparently Chief Justice Roberts bumbled the words first causing President Obama to stumble as he tried to work from memory and heard something different offered in the ceremony.

No one can say that I'm not fair and correct myself when I report what I call "news". My opinion is subject to change also, but only on my schedule.

I wish I'd Wrote This...

The Facts Maam...Just The Facts...


This letter is apparently going around the Internet, but I hadn't seen it until I was reading Neal Boortz's website this morning.

Check it out:


To All My Valued Employees,

There have been some rumblings around the office about the future of this company, and more specifically, your job. As you know, the economy has changed for the worse and presents many challenges. However, the good news is this: The economy doesn't pose a threat to your job. What does threaten your job however, is the changing political landscape in this country.

However, let me tell you some little tidbits of fact which might help you decide what is in your best interests.

First, while it is easy to spew rhetoric that casts employers against employees, you have to understand that for every business owner there is a back story. This back story is often neglected and overshadowed by what you see and hear. Sure, you see me park my Mercedes outside. You've seen my big home at last years Christmas party. I'm sure; all these flashy icons of luxury conjure up some idealized thoughts about my life.

However, what you don't see is the back story.

I started this company 28 years ago. At that time, I lived in a 300 square foot studio apartment for 3 years. My entire living apartment was converted into an office so I could put forth 100% effort into building a company, which by the way, would eventually employ you.

My diet consisted of Ramen Pride noodles because every dollar I spent went back into this company. I drove a rusty Toyota Corolla with a defective transmission. I didn't have time to date. Often times, I stayed home on weekends, while my friends went out drinking and partying. In fact, I was married to my business -- hard work, discipline, and sacrifice.

Meanwhile, my friends got jobs. They worked 40 hours a week and made a modest $50K a year and spent every dime they earned. They drove flashy cars and lived in expensive homes and wore fancy designer clothes. Instead of hitting the Nordstrom's for the latest hot fashion item, I was trolling through the Goodwill store extracting any clothing item that didn't look like it was birthed in the 70's. My friends refinanced their mortgages and lived a life of luxury. I, however, did not. I put my time, my money, and my life into a business with a vision that eventually, some day, I too, will be able to afford these luxuries my friends supposedly had.

So, while you physically arrive at the office at 9am, mentally check in at about noon, and then leave at 5pm, I don't. There is no "off" button for me. When you leave the office, you are done and you have a weekend all to yourself. I unfortunately do not have the freedom. I eat, and breathe this company every minute of the day. There is no rest. There is no weekend. There is no happy hour. Every day this business is attached to my hip like a 1 year old special-needs child. You, of course, only see the fruits of that garden -- the nice house, the Mercedes, the vacations... You never realize the back story and the sacrifices I've made.

Now, the economy is falling apart and I, the guy that made all the right decisions and saved his money, have to bail-out all the people who didn't. The people that overspent their paychecks suddenly feel entitled to the same luxuries that I earned and sacrificed a decade of my life for.

Yes, business ownership has is benefits but the price I've paid is steep and not without wounds.

Unfortunately, the cost of running this business, and employing you, is starting to eclipse the threshold of marginal benefit and let me tell you why:

I am being taxed to death and the government thinks I don't pay enough. I have state taxes. Federal taxes. Property taxes. Sales and use taxes. Payroll taxes. Workers compensation taxes. Unemployment taxes. Taxes on taxes. I have to hire a tax man to manage all these taxes and then guess what? I have to pay taxes for employing him. Government mandates and regulations and all the accounting that goes with it, now occupy most of my time. On Oct 15th, I wrote a check to the US Treasury for $288,000 for quarterly taxes. You know what my "stimulus" check was? Zero. Nada. Zilch.

The question I have is this: Who is stimulating the economy? Me, the guy who has provided 14 people good paying jobs and serves over 2,200,000 people per year with a flourishing business? Or, the single mother sitting at home pregnant with her fourth child waiting for her next welfare check? Obviously, government feels the latter is the economic stimulus of this country.

The fact is, if I deducted (Read: Stole) 50% of your paycheck you'd quit and you wouldn't work here. I mean, why should you? That's nuts. Who wants to get rewarded only 50% of their hard work? Well, I agree which is why your job is in jeopardy.

Here is what many of you don't understand ... to stimulate the economy you need to stimulate what runs the economy. Had suddenly government mandated to me that I didn't need to pay taxes, guess what? Instead of depositing that $288,000 into the Washington black-hole, I would have spent it, hired more employees, and generated substantial economic growth. My employees would have enjoyed the wealth of that tax cut in the form of promotions and better salaries. But you can forget it now.

When you have a comatose man on the verge of death, you don't defibrillate and shock his thumb thinking that will bring him back to life, do you? Or, do you defibrillate his heart? Business is at the heart of America and always has been. To restart it, you must stimulate it, not kill it. Suddenly, the power brokers in Washington believe the poor of America are the essential drivers of the American economic engine. Nothing could be further from the truth and this is the type of change you can keep.

So where am I going with all this?

It's quite simple.

If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, my reaction will be swift and simple. I fire you. I fire your co-workers. You can then plead with the government to pay for your mortgage, your SUV, and your child's future. Frankly, it isn't my problem any more.

Then, I will close this company down, move to another country, and retire. You see, I'm done. I'm done with a country that penalizes the productive and gives to the unproductive. My motivation to work and to provide jobs will be destroyed, and with it, will be my citizenship.

If you lose your job, it won't be at the hands of the economy; it will be at the hands of a political hurricane that swept through this country, steamrolled the constitution, and will have changed its landscape forever. If that happens, you can find me sitting on a beach, retired, and with no employees to worry about....

Signed,

Your boss

(Shamelssly stolen from Neal Boortz's website)

No Doubt A Great Man In His Time

Is "The Dream" Still Not Becoming A Faded Memory?

They evoke his name.

They evoke his words.

Unfortunately, I say that today those words are generally taken entirely out of context, and in the process their original meaning is lost as the words are used to not just right the wrongs addressed therein, but to unfairly tilt the table further and further in the opposite direction, under government mandate, in some misdirected effort to reach a minority of a minority which will not be saved from themselves.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

(Read the entire text here: http://www.usconstitution.net/dream.html)

When Dr. King spoke those words his children, like those of most of Black America, lived in a home with both a mother AND a father present.

Today that number has sunk by some accounts to somewhere approaching 20% (single parent households.)

This is a tragedy for the black race here in the United States, and no amout of legislation, government programs, sensitivity training, and taxation is going to solve the problem....

and it certainly is a problem for you and me and the government, but it is also most certainly not our fault.

Only black MEN (and the women they neglect) can solve this problem--and in the process and the solution of this single issue I say 75% of their perceived inequality and "disadvantages" will evaporate in a single generation.

Black women could help things along by demanding some accountability of the so called gentlemen they choose to associate with, but remember this mean old white man's words on Dr. King's day:

You can't get a good job if you don't graduate from high school.

You can't go to college if you spend five of the first twenty years of your life in jail and government "juvenile facilities."

You can't expect kids to raise themselves or for kids less than 18 years old to responsibly raise their own kids or their siblings, and you can't expect women to raise children and earn a living while your punk black ass is out playing hoops or hangin with your "homies" and looking for your next young target to sexually exploit and impregnate.

And another thing...notice Reverend King said "my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

He didn't say that the government should get into the class warfare business where "color of their skin" was replaced with "contents of their father's wallet" when it comes to government taxation.

In Lincoln's time in this country only white people had the right to make decisions in life and enjoy the fruits of their education and earnings of their efforts.

Since King's time an overwhelming amount of time and money has been spent righting this wrong and leveling the playing field for people of all colors.

Somehow the government and "black leaders" can't be satisfied with simply having a level playing field--they have to rely on an never ending, ever expanding series of "preferences" and "set-asides" and programs for "working families" of all colors who still refuse to make good decisions and take advantage of things as simple as the twelve free years of education currently offered in every city and town in our nation.

As we watch the celebrations of Dr. King's life achievements and the inauguration of Mr. Obama as the first "black" president of our great Republic--it would be counter productive to wish for anything other than the very best results from the coming administration.

That said, I can only hope the current league of what I see as Impostors and "King Wanna-be's" can live up to half the standard which was set for them over forty five years ago in the very same buildings and lawns of Washington DC.

Girrrrrrrrrrrrr I'm Cranky Lazy

Trying To Figure How I Fit In...


So I'm sitting here watching the salivating media frenzy building up to Monday's MLK day and Tuesday's inauguration, and being a mean old middle aged white male bastard that's enjoyed obvious unfair advantages of wealth and prosperity and, having trampled over women and "people of color" while helping build the most prosperous nation in the history of the world for the past 49 years...

you'll have to excuse me if I don't celebrate Obama and Pelosi and Frank and Durbin taking charge of our government and in the process wrapping everything I've worked for up in pretty green printed government supplied toilet paper and flushing it all down the giant global toilet.

I'm going to stop writing now before I print something that will cause the secret service to come knocking on my door--not for threatening the new president, but for threatening nearly half of the other 535 idiots we've given a seat to in the House and the Senate that make all of the upcoming "stimulus" possible.

dammit...

pROOF iT'S cOLD hERE...

Six Degrees? AaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhHHHHHHHHHHHH

Are You People Crazy?

I'm Having Serious Second Thoughts...


OK...it's like this.

I don't own a sled.

nor skis

no snowmobile in the garage or shed.

and while I'm at it there's no actual snow outside in my yard...BUT

IT'S FREAKING 9 DEGREES FAHRENHEIT OUTSIDE MY FRONT DOOR RIGHT NOW.

Meanwhile, our our Little Island its a balmy 34 degrees F.

I can't imagine what it's like in Minnesota or Wisconsin or in downtown Chicago right now.

Like I said in the title...if you live there ...

ARE YOU PEOPLE CRAZY?

155 Safe In Hudson River Crash Landing

Katrina Victims Still Stranded On Aircraft's Wing


Bush Administration Blamed For Rapid Rescue Of White People...

Spinning In Circles To Keep From Freezing To Death

Who's Idea Was This Any Way?


OK, it's below freezing outside after making it up to 42 about 5 PM yesterday, and looking at the forecast its going to keep cooling off toward a daytime high of 25 on our way to sinking down to FIVE degrees Fahrenheit Thursday night.

Same for Friday night.

We might see daytime HIGHS near freezing once or twice between now and Tuesday.

Meanwhile, checking the weather on our little Island, I see that it's near 40 degrees down there on the Atlantic Ocean right now, and they're looking at the mid 50's tomorrow with some lows in the 20's at night and highs in the 30's and 50's through early next week.

What the HECK was I thinking moving up here last spring?

Quote(s) O' The Day

Pearls Of Wisdom For Trying Times...


However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.


Personally I'm always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.


I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.


Never hold discussions with the monkey when the organ grinder is in the room.


When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber.


And finally...this one sort of covers this coming inauguration day:

To build may have to be the slow and laborious task of years. To destroy can be the thoughtless act of a single day.

Sir Winston Churchill
British politician, Writer, and Painter (1874 - 1965)

This Ain't MY Alabama

Someone Needs To Get A Life Down There...


Crap like what happened in this news story just makes me shake my head:

NOTASULA, AL -- Residents of the tiny Alabama town of Notasulga are rallying around a local fixture after his eviction from the post office.

"Sammy" the cat was banned from the building after someone wrote in to complain about the cat's presence.

"They said 'This is a federal building and he doesn't pay federal taxes so he can't come in'," said postal worker Rochelle Langford.

Before his banishment Sammy spent most of his time lounging in the post office's window.

Sammy's supporters think they've found a way to move him safely back in.

They've rented a P.O. box in his name.

Post office workers say they'll allow Sammy back in, but will try to keep him out of the way of customers.

Wierd Crap I Have To Worry About

Somebody Slapped Me Back To Thermodynamics Class...


If you're looking for pithy writing, humor, or a good rant this morning I'm sorry to report that thus far it ain't happened here.

You see, my brain has been attempting to get itself wrapped around a phenomena called a BLEVE (Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion) and as a result I'm wrestling with things like this equation:

Energy in Compressed Gas = ((Psub 1-Psub 0) x 2 x Vsub 1)/(Lambda sub 1 - 1)

Where: Psub 1 = absolute pressure of gas in question (in my problem it's steam)
Psub 0 = absolute pressure of ambient air
Vsub 1 = Volume of Pressure Vessel
Lambda sub 1 = ratio of specific heats of gas in system

Problem is--everything is in Metric and I'm a little rusty in my Newtons and Pascals and Joules--and for some reason I seem to keep coming up with numbers that are several orders of magnitude off from what I would need to make a prediction that something made out of stainless steel would explode.

I took five quarters of Calculus and a quarter of differential equations about 29 years ago, but today finds me wrestling with even the simplest thermodynamic concepts which in this case should be able to be solved by an EIGHTH GRADE ALGEBRA STUDENT...

SO I'M PISSED that my brain's having problems with this mental gymnastics.

I guess I'll take a little nap and come back at it fresh in the morning and see where my efforts get me.

dang it...

Senatorial Glamor Photos

Minnesota's Finest?

At least Ronald Regan and the current California Governator can have some dignity when looking back at their acting/TV careers...

(and NO...this is NOT a PhotoShop image...)

Places I Didn't Know I'd Been

Check Out The Company I'm Keeping Here...


http://www.ccblincoln.com/CCBL/3Background.html

Wall Street Journal?

Harvard Crimson?

New York Times?


Dang...Imagine what I could do as a writer if I actually put my mind to it?

Places I Used To Go

Things I Used To Do...


Sitting here in the New Year in the cold winter weather on the banks of the Mighty Tennessee River, I find my mind wandering off to all the warmer places I've been and even used to live in the days and years past.

I even miss some of the colder places I've visited, although this is as far north as I've ever lived "officially" (if you don't count the homes of friends and lovers I camped out in in the past.)

It's not that I don't love living here in our little large city in Eastern Tennessee, or that I regret moving here from our little Island on the Georgia Coast last spring, it's just that after spending an entire summer with not much of a sun tan for the first time since I was six years old, and now after spending half the winter with cold weather and the threat of snow--but not much real snow--that I sneak a peek at the National Weather Service Website for St. Simons Island and I see that it's 59 degrees down there--and the same website confirms why my sock encased feet are cold here in Knoxville because it's 30 degrees F with another "chance" of snow over a four days period later this week.

(someone remind me to get out my snow making equipment...)

I don't mind the cold, as long as it snows and it's a usable snow--something you can sled or ski in or on.

Or at least something that you can drive a few hours away from Campobello or Greer or Greenville or Spartanburg (and now Knoxville) and follow a County Snow Plow up a random mountain, park your truck, and proceed to slide around taking ski lessons at midnight in a 16 degree fog of snow?

If it's not just a little sledding snow and you don't live on a ski mountain, I say the next best thing is to get a doozie of a winter storm/blizzard that shuts most everything down, and after the rest of the public all get home after buying all of the bread and milk and cigarettes and peanut butter on the grocery shelves, that when the snow stops falling you can creep out in your giant white four wheel drive Suburban and wander around on back roads and up Saluda Pass or up to the 6,800 foot top of Mt. Mitchell in North Carolina and shiver in the parking lot taking pictures all by your lonesome.

I've done all that...and I found it to be an extremely satisfying experience.

Then there was the year I escaped from Atlanta after my house burned down, and I ran away to Mexico Beach Florida and lived on the Gulf of Mexico for a winter.

Everything I owned at the time would fit into my TRUCK.

It was actually a very liberating experience....talk about getting rid of old "baggage"...

I got away with only having to live through a few nights that went below freezing down there, and there's something inherently soothing about wandering around totally alone on the beach in the winter with grey sky overhead.

Many times my buddy Dave the Guitar player and I would drag our PA speakers out on the deck of the Lookout Lounge on the Bay County Line in January and He strummed and sang while I played the Harmonica and sang along.

We only drew a crowd of a few dozen locals most of the time...but today I'd pay to spend a Sunday night in January wearing flip flops and shorts doing exactly that. We actually got paid back then to do something I only started doing in the middle of my crazy, screwed up, fun life.

Did I mention the 32' Sea Ray boat I bought down in Hollywood, Florida and sailed around on and lived on in the intercoastal and the Keys and had stolen by pirates and sank? I never heard from that boat again after leaving it in a marina expecting it to be put into dry dock for some repairs on one of it's two giant Chevy V8 engines, but...

That experience was worth EVERY SINGLE PENNY in the end...when it's all said and done.

talk about making enough money to buy Miami and pissing it away so fast...

While I'm on the subject of boating...do you know anyone else but me that's rented a giant houseboat in the Keys...ran it a ground not once but TWICE in one day in a storm (within twenty feet of the same spot) after breaking anchor, sank the outboard powered dingy, and almost lost his girlfriend over the stern and off the bow a couple of times while she was chasing the dingy or handling the anchor and I was in the cockpit trying to steer into the wind with one of the two twin engines dead?

You can't PLAN stuff like that, it just happens...especially to me.

Fun...FUN...FUN...

More recently the time spent living on our little Island was rather sedate by those earlier lively standards. Other than continuing my real estate investment folly's and starting to ACT IN COMMUNITY THEATER...ultimately giving up imitating "Slingblade" and ending up taking over the set building and management duties for two different theaters.

I was proudly and largely USELESS back then ...my existence revolving around the theater, condo swimming pool and the beach (and some local pubs and taverns.)

So now here I sit in Knoxville, tanless and boatless, ass falling off and hair falling out, within three miles of the mighty Tennessee River--a body of water that can take me all the way to Mobile or New Orleans and on to the mouth of another "Mighty" River--the Mississippi.

How far I've sunk...How low can I actually go?

I'm a disgrace ...settling for owning a house instead of a giant fiberglass hull, and actually taking a full time job working for another man/company for the first time in over 18 years?

WTF? (what the heck...in Christian terms)

Well, not to worry...the Hull's still out a ways in the future, but I'm putting the band back together getting this independent consulting thing going here in the next few months.

Please understand if the blogging suffers a bit along the way because I'm looking at 12 & 15 hour days marketing instead of steady 8 hour stints, but I'll still be looking at the news and thinking about saying/writing something worth reading...until then

...Y'all have a good one.

Good Riddance

Darwin's At It Again...

SIX Somali pirates who hijacked a Saudi supertanker drowned with their share of the ransom when their boat capsized as it left the vessel, their leader said yesterday.

Four others were missing with their share of the $3m payoff, which been parachuted on to the tanker on Friday, Mohamed Said said by phone from the port of Harardhere.

“The small boat that was carrying those killed and eight who survived was overloaded . . . they were afraid of a chase from outsiders [foreign navies of the combined maritime forces],” he said.

(here's the LINK to the story)

While I'm at it, let me point out there's also this good news...

THE mastermind of Hamas’s long-range rocket attacks on Israel was killed yesterday in an airstrike, according to Israeli military sources.

Amir Mansi, an engineer who commanded cells responsible for firing Grad rockets supplied by Iran, died after coming under attack from a helicopter.

The Israeli army said he had been trying to fire mortar shells at their troops when he was targeted. Mansi headed the Hamas military wing’s Gaza Strip rocket division and “played a big role in Grad rocket attacks on Israeli communities”, a military spokesman said.

Nuthin' like starting your Sunday morning reading about a bunch of dead terrorist assholes...sorta' puts a little spring in my step as I head to the kitchen for more coffee...

If You Can't Get To Louisiana

Bring Louisiana To Your Kitchen...


Since late yesterday I've been doing prep work on a bunch of the Holy Trinity (Green Bell Pepper, Onion, and Celery), brining a whole chicken, and generally getting things together.

The bird was cooked with a batch of sacrificial vegetables to make a couple gallons of stock before bedtime last night, and a pound of red beans spent the balance of the evening soaking in cold water.

This morning after it had cooled I poured and strained the stock through cheese cloth, then hand picked the bird off it's bones and sliced up a couple pounds of Andoulli Sausage.

Then I spent 45 minutes stirring a big skillet full of oil and flour--producing a nice deep brown Roux.

More onions, garlic, etc. etc. and now I have two pots of stuff sitting on the stove on low, low heat, waiting for 3:30 PM to come around on the clock so I can turn up the heat.

If you haven't guessed by now, we're having Red Beans & Rice and Gumbo for dinner tonight, with a breaded fried gator tail appetizer.

Six folks and one Turbo Pup will be sitting down to dinner about 7:00 PM.

Feel free to stop by if you're in the area and we'll hand you a bowl...

"THOUGHTS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS"

I Stole Jonathan Swift's Words From Here


We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.

How is it possible to expect that mankind will take advice, when they will not so much as take warning?

All fits of pleasure are balanced by an equal degree of pain or languor; it is like spending this year part of the next year’s revenue.

The latter part of a wise man’s life is taken up in curing the follies, prejudices, and false opinions he had contracted in the former.

Whatever the poets pretend, it is plain they give immortality to none but themselves; it is Homer and Virgil we reverence and admire, not Achilles or Æneas. With historians it is quite the contrary; our thoughts are taken up with the actions, persons, and events we read, and we little regard the authors.

When a true genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign; that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.

The greatest inventions were produced in the times of ignorance, as the use of the compass, gunpowder, and printing, and by the dullest nation, as the Germans.

It is pleasant to observe how free the present age is in laying taxes on the next. Future ages shall talk of this; this shall be famous to all posterity. Whereas their time and thoughts will be taken up about present things, as ours are now.

Some men, under the notions of weeding out prejudices, eradicate virtue, honesty, and religion.

I have known some men possessed of good qualities, which were very serviceable to others, but useless to themselves; like a sun-dial on the front of a house, to inform the neighbours and passengers, but not the owner within.

If a man would register all his opinions upon love, politics, religion, learning, etc., beginning from his youth and so go on to old age, what a bundle of inconsistencies and contradictions would appear at last!

The reason why so few marriages are happy, is, because young ladies spend their time in making nets, not in making cages.

Censure is the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent.

Law, in a free country, is, or ought to be, the determination of the majority of those who have property in land.

Every man desires to live long; but no man would be old.

If books and laws continue to increase as they have done for fifty years past, I am in some concern for future ages how any man will be learned, or any man a lawyer.


-Jonathan Swift
1667-1745

I'm Starting My Own Company Country

I'll Call It The United State of InSanity...


Since it appears to me that three quarters of the rat bastards and bitches we've elected to every level of political office are lying thieving scumbags who's whole purpose is to remain in office by taking my money and giving it to someone else in some form of "stimulus package"...

I hereby resign my US citizenship, am loading my guns, and putting up a fence around my near half acre of dirt.

Enter at your own risk if not invited.

The King Turns 74...

Happy Birthday Elvis

Testing Windows Live Writer

 

Hope this doesn't end up in the "Crap That Pisses Me Off" Category

Today's Political Commentary

Shooting From The Hip...


The funny thing to me this January is how the 17th amendment, which provided for the popular election rather than appointment of the Senators, and which effectively took away the direct representation of the interests of the sovereign individual "States United" before the Imperial Federal Government of the "United States"--is playing out as coming back into fashion.

In spite of the will of the people, Minnesota is putting that ignorant idiot asshole Al Franken into office as their Senator over incumbent Norm Coleman after conducting what at best could be considered a Circus of a recount involving psychics and Ouija Boards and ballots appearing in the back seats of election officials automobiles....

And Illinois has seen fit to allow their little asshole Governor (and soon to be Federal Prison Inmate) who appears to have a toupee on top of his toupee appoint the "Negro du jour" to fill Obamarama's vacated seat...

And Dick "Turbin" Durbin gets to play the unlikely role of George Wallace in the current drama except instead of the doors of the University of Alabama he's blocking the doors to the entrance to the US Senate...

And in the end I still have the presence of mind to fall back on the idea that was vacated with the ratification of the 17th Amendment.

According to the US Constitution as it was originally written, the Senate is supposed to represent the State Governments, not the people of the states directly, and therefor I guess I have to concede that in spite of my disdain for the individuals involved in the current process I say that we're actually seeing how bastardized and convoluted the selection of Senators could have been prior to 1913.

The only difference is that back then the states' Legislatures did the picking as a group, rather than leaving the result to people not qualified to pick their own noses as they are doing it today.

Dammit...

And I Thought A "Vista" Was Something Nice To Look At...

Not At My House These Days...


Here's my the view from my office "Vista" at least once every 24 hours...



What's even more infuriating is that when you click on the little box that wants to go look for a solution on the Internet, all it ever does is act like nothing happened in the first place...

it does make you hit the "Save" buttons more religiously after you lose a couple hours work a couple of times...

The Gaza Stripper?

I Think That I Might Be On To Something Here...


So I was sitting around spending the five minutes I haven't been busy in the past 24 hours worrying about the current round of carnage happening over in the middle east, when I had an idea for a new weapon which might just appease the Jihadists and Jihadist wannabes into getting out of the home made rocket business.


Then I promptly forgot it (the idea...)

Then this afternoon while working and listening to FOX News with one ear and eyeball it came back to me.

See if you think this might be effective in stopping the fighting...





(yes...me and my PhotoShop are at it again...)

2075 Miles Later

The Turbo Pup's Back Home...


I think that it would be safe to say that we're through driving across the US--at least for the next few weeks.

I hope everyone had a good Christmas and New Years...Did we miss anything interesting?

2009? Dang I'm getting old...I remember 1969 pretty clearly.

After covering various parts of Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, and Kansas over the past 11 days, I'm glad to be able to sit down on my sofa for longer than a 48 hour period.

Then there was the trip a few weeks earlier that took me to Detroit, Indianapolis, and Cincinnati on airplanes. I'm still recovering from that experience and writing reports and doing follow-up work for our Attorney client and it looks like I might be heading off somewhere on an airplane again in late January or early February. As long as they pay dearly for my time--they just have to name the place and I'll be there with my camera and clipboard.

There was a period of time back in the mid and late 1990's when I averaged nearly 3,000 miles PER MONTH in the old Chevy Suburban, but the past ten years have taken their toll on my patience to sit in a car every day and most of every weekend running around the Southeastern US.

Other than a winter trip back to the farm in south Alabama I think we're done with the traveling for a while unless business dictates my appearance on another part of the planet I can't get to by walking.

I guess I have my work cut out for me this weekend in getting the christmas tree over to the recycling center and taking down the outside lights in order to not gain some kind of negative reputation among the neighbors.

Until next time...

Oh Well...

LSU 38...GT 3


Stabbed through the heart again by a school that produces BETTER ENGINEERS than football players.

Fortunately I was in the former rather than the later group I guess...

Peach Bowlin'

Tech 34...LSU 23


One Man's Prediction...we're heading off to Atlanta for the game.

(Anyone want to cover my bets?)

Home Sweet Home

But Not For Long...


After hitting the banks of the Mighty Tennessee River mid-afternoon yesterday, things have basically been a whirlwind of activity with wading through the mail, paying bills, doing laundry, and other mundane stuff in anticipation of heading off to Hotlanta for the New Year's Eve Bowl festivities.

Being a little busy and a little slow, it took me until yesterday to realize that with a kickoff time of 7:30 PM that we'd likely be ringing in the New year in the Georgia Dome with 50,000 other Georgia Tech and LSU fans.

I hope that we're members of the happiest fan base after a victory over our Bayou based rivals.

Mean time, the consulting enterprise is driving me crazy keeping up with the phone and e-mails so you'll have to excuse the light posting until we get settled in Atlanta.

Early Happy New Year...Y'all...

I'm Going Bowling?

Greetings From Paducah...


This cross country driving is tough on old people...particularly when the trip is longer than seven or eight hours.

I guess that's why people tend to gravitate toward larger and larger vehicles the older they get.

Right now I feel like we need a 40' motor home with two bathrooms and a couple of beds so we can pull off the road and make a rest stop or sleep when the urge hits us.

Regardless of the number of axles and size of the frame, we'll be back home on the banks of the Mighty Tennessee River a little after noon today.

Then after reading the mail, doing a little laundry, and sleeping in our own bed for a couple of nights its off to Atlanta to watch Georgia Tech beat LSU in what they used to call the "Peach Bowl."

At least the weather is above freezing and the traffic for most of the trip is what could be considered "light."

Talk to y'all after the road is still moving under me...

More Holiday Scenes

I Couldn't have paid for better weather in the end...

Take a look at our accommodations in the snow at dusk as our evening's transportation arrived:

And here's a shot at our little Missy the Turbo Pup sitting around under the tree looking for left over presents and that weird bearded guy in the red underwear...



And here's a look at this little girl, Olive, a tiny mini smooth dappled Dachshund, that won my heart about four years ago and caused us to want our own giant dog in a miniature package...



Heading home tomorrow to catch up on some new consulting work and answer the mail.

Did you miss us?

The Limo Cometh

Film At Eleven...

MORE: 11:45 CST

And The Limo Goeth Away...

And a very merry time was had by four adults and Pat's two excited teen Grand Girls.

It snowed nearly an inch while we were out...I just wish I could have taken the three mini Dachshunds along for the ride.

Sixty Eight Degrees One Minute

33 Deg The Next...


Well, we walked around in short sleeve shirts here yesterday afternoon after wearing a parka and gloves two nights before with lows near 17 degrees, so I guess that it makes sense that we'd be back down to 33 and looking forward to an afternoon of freezing rain, sleet, and snow after spending the evening listening to it thunder and rain.

I think we got a little bit of hail while we were at it at one point.

Talk about variety being spicy...

Reheating Your Left Over Turkey Or Ham?

Here's Another Use For Your Microwave...




(for the tone deaf or otherwise musically declined...that was Jingle Bells...)

Homemade Sin Snow

And Some Real Stuff To Boot...


Here's a look at the results of my own snow storm I made in Knoxville



And here's what God gave us for Christmas Eve in Independence, MO.



The celebrations continue as the weather warms. Hope everyone is safe and enjoying the holidays.

White Christmas

We made it...


Photos to follow

Hope y'all all have a lovely Christmas, we already have.

Live From St. Louis

Interesting Travel...


Well ladies and gentlemen, I'm happy to report that we made an executive decision Monday night and as a result our long planned Christmas expedition to Kansas City, which had been canceled due to weather concerns, was back on.

The theory was to slip out between cold fonts and avoid driving in hazardous conditions.

Hah...

We've pretty much managed to beat the cold front part thus far, but looking at the clouds about 3:30 PM Tuesday we elected to stop short of our destination and spend the evening in a really nice pet friendly Marriott Residence Inn in downtown St. Louis instead of pushing on an additional five hours to our destination.

As we were unloading luggage into the lobby there was a flash of lightning followed by a peal of thunder, and it proceeded to "thunder sleet" until the ground was covered with melting ice pellets.

So far my amateur weather forecasting skills were correct. More than one good private aviator has been killed in an accident caused by a "had to get there" mentality that ended in a fatality.

Driving a car is no different in my opinion.

Having settled into our borrowed abode, as usual, one thing led to another and my culinary nose had us making a reservation at Tony's Restaurant in downtown SL.

The food and service was nothing short of awesome, but thirty years ago they'd have refused to admit us because we were both in jeans and I didn't have a jacket or collared shirt. (I was surprised they didn't have a closet full of "loaner jackets." )

Our head waiter warmed up to us after I apologized for our casual attire and explained that we were just passing through, found the place on a whim, but intended to sample a little of everything that evening.

Two hundred bucks later, after sitting a couple of hours in a room full of women in sequined dresses, and we were cruising back to our rented accommodations in the hotel's courtesy van to check on the Turbo Pup.

Looking at the forecast, this mornings plans present a bit of a dilemma because the weather forecast has taken a 180 degree turn and it looks like we're going to have to feel our way on across the state of Missouri in crappy 40 degree weather that deteriorates into a snowy mess in the mid 20's in KC.

So much for using the Weather Channel to fly or drive anywhere past the end of your driveway, I guess.

Wish us luck, if you will...

Making My Own Snow At Home

Am I "Father Nature"?


Here's what happens when you stumble across this web site...

and you end up building one of these:

...and you put it in your front yard connected to a garden hose and your air compressor:

...somebody wrap me in duct tape before I hurt myself...

Why We Win...

Cause We're Smarter Than Everybody Else--In spite Of Our Government's Stupidity


Below are the actual words from a recently closed US government solicitation for bids. Read along with me:

AF083-096 TITLE: Perching Micro Air Weapon

TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Weapons

The technology within this topic is restricted under the International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR), which controls the export and import of defense-related material and services. Offerors must disclose any proposed use of foreign nationals, their country of origin, and what tasks each would accomplish in the statement of work in accordance with section 3.5.b.(7) of the solicitation.

OBJECTIVE: To develop the technology for a Micro Air Vehicle (MAV) to harvest alternative power/energy sources to remain “on call” and engage targets while perching on a structure.


DESCRIPTION: The field of MAVs is revolutionary and highly necessary to maintaining complete dominance in the ever changing battle space environment. One newly identified role for MAVs is for a bird size Micro Air Vehicle, less than two pounds, to have the ability to harvest power or energy from alternative sources (e.g. power lines, wind, solar, etc.). This MAV should be capable of flying to and then perching on structures (e.g. power lines, trees, buildings, ground, etc.). Once perched, the MAV must be re-deployable, being able to return to the user or to remain “on call” and engage targets. The MAV will be remote controlled through the use of a line of sight datalink. The datalink will have an approximate range of 5 km at a frequency of about 1 GHz. A small onboard video camera will transmit what it sees back to the user by way of the datalink thus allowing the user to designate the target. The MAV will use GPS and an inertial navigation system (INS) to accurately fly from one waypoint to another as required. The warhead payload should be on the order of half a pound of high energy explosive which will be used to target people and/or lightweight vehicles. Combining all of these features a user would be able to fly the MAV into any environment, wait for an extended period of time for a specific target, and then eliminate the target. The ability to harvest power/energy from external sources is critical to persistent surveillance and would extend the operational time of the MAVs exponentially and benefit the war fighter immensely. These capabilities would require innovative technologies in power harvesting and storage technologies.

PHASE I: Define concepts and predict the performance for harvesting and storing power/energy from external sources for application to a perching MAV weighing about two pounds. The power plant should weigh no more than half a pound, and fit roughly within an eight inch long fuselage of one and a half inch radius.

PHASE II: Develop an operational prototype that demonstrates the intended technological concept. The final report should describe how CONOPS are supported and how using an alternative power source as well as the ability to perch affects the structure and design.

PHASE III/DUAL USE: Military Application: This technology will provide users an unprecedented surveillance and targeting combination for any environment. Weapon could wait days for a specific target. Commercial Application: This technology could be applied into any remote controlled device to provide it with a longer functional time.

REFERENCES:
1. Energy Havesting (EH) for Small Air Vehicles: http://www.dodsbir.net/SITIS/archives_display_topic.asp?Bookmark=29652.

2. Wickenheiser, Adam, Garcia, Ephrahim, "Longitudinal Dynamics of a Perching Aircraft," Journal of Aircraft, Vol. 43, No. 5, September-October 2006, http://lims.mae.cornell.edu/pubs/[Wickenheiser]%20Longitudinal%20Dynamics.pdf.

3. Bachmann, R., Boria, F.J., Quinn, R.D., Kline, J.E., Vaidyanathan, R., "Utility of a Sensor Platform Capable of Aerial and Terrestrial Locomotion," IEEE Conf. on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics, July 2005.

KEYWORDS: Micro-Air Vehicle, alternative energy supply, precision engagement, Multi-mode mobility, perching

So now our military is buying "mechanical Pigeons" that can fly around and "see" what's going on out there in the world and transmit the information back to a safe location instead of putting some poor bastard with combat boots and a helmet in harms way.

I LIKE IT.

How about you?