I'm BaaaaakkkkkkKKKKKK

Taking Time Off For A Little Blog Maintenance...


Well, after a week or so hiatus I decided to bring the Blog back online this morning.

In the process I've managed to spend a few hours doing some basic maintenance like backing up a complete archival copies of this Blog and my much neglected cooking blog The RedneckGourmet on to my hard drive and a SD Memory card.

I also did some other background HTML infrastructure stuff you won't notice at first and the work remains of fixing some things like broken/dead links and other crap you have to do when you run your own website.

I started to just delete the entire blog content while keeping the template and start over again this morning from scratch, but the free Blogger makes it impossible to do anything but delete the entire blog lock, stock, and barrel or go through the thing item by item and hit the "DELETE" button so most of my content is still here on line for now.

This thing has just gotten so huge over the past seven years and over 3,100 postings that it is hard to manage...but it is what it is.

That's right...I just realized that this whole crazy Blogging thing for me started while sitting in a hotel room in Chicago way back on August 10th, 2004!

THIS BLOG IS 7 YEARS OLD NEXT WEEK!!!

So any Waaaayyyyy...my head has been about to explode during this self imposed down time because I kept coming up with things I wanted to write about and being in a self imposed "BLOGGING MORATORIUM" I realized how much I really enjoy writing every day here.

In the process I found out that apparently there are a few people out there that enjoy stopping by to read and are almost as addicted to this place as I am.

I even had a couple of regular readers including some non-family members freak out and start trying to contact me and/or other Bloggers to see what happened to me.

Ed and Heather come to mind...and of course my mother...but believe me the resulting drama was unintentional.

I just had some things come up suddenly which required that I suspend operations here and there wasn't a good way to leave a message saying something like "TEMPORARY SERVICE INTERRUPTION..." or something similar.

So I guess I'll go now and do some reading...but I reserve the right to come back and rant a little if I find something worthy of my commentary.

Until then...Regards Y'all...

I'm Busy Making Sawdust

Listen To This Until I get Back...


Scott Johnson, one of my Blog Idols over at Powerlineblog, pointed out that yesterday was country/bluegrass artist Alison Krauss' 40th birthday.

Dang What a Pretty woman...

I've had the privilege of playing several different musical instruments on and off now for the past nearly 40 years, sometimes in front of a crowd of a few thousand people at one time, but I've never had the chance to be an ugly old white guy making music in a room with the likes of Miss Krauss.




More on Monday Morning...

I knew that song was familiar...it was written by Gordon Lightfoot who (or is it whom?) we just saw perform it this past spring in concert.

Miss Krauss and her back-up group "Union Station" will be returning here in the US from Europe touring places like Asheville, NC; Atlanta, GA; and even here at the Tennessee Theater in Knoxville in September.

Unfortunately we'll be laying around down in Florida at the beach that week of September and miss that show.

If you're nearby and have the cash I think it might be worth spending the money for an evening with this lovely lady.

Good music beats the heck out of almost anything including good food in my book any day...and if you can happen to get both at one time you've got yourself a good life....in my considered Redneck Opinion.

My Favorite New County Song

I Wish I could Sing Like That...

Sorry For The Light Posting

I've Been Out Doing Stuff Like THIS...




Heh...

Blaa Blaa Blaa

Blaa Blaa Blaaaaaaaaaa Blaa BLAA

"The Best Thing About The Future...

...Is That It Comes One Day At A Time."


Just in case you are interested, my Blog title and subtitle this morning is actually a saying attributed to President Abraham Lincoln.

I found it a few months ago somewhere on the Internet and today I keep it written on a Post-It-Note stuck on the edge of my computer monitor in my office so I can see it each day.

When things get crazy like they are around here right now after being out of town for a week, it helps me to remember to worry first about today and possibly tomorrow and then let the day after tomorrow and next week and next month and next year sort of take care of themselves, you know?

It's frustrating because I managed to leave town with things around here professionally and personally sort of under control...

I thought.

I was actually worrying about running out of something to do in the near future, then all of the sudden a bunch of old and new crap sprang up and now everyone wants to talk to me and get things from me this week...

all at the same time.

I spent six hours yesterday working on a proposal for some new addendum on some old work with a customer, and then when my eyes and fingers were worn out from sitting at the computer I went out and stumbled around in the garden.

You know--the garden which is out of control with weeds because I ran the sprinklers on a timer for thirty minutes twice a day and it also rained every day while we were gone?

We had a bunch of peppers and tomatoes which had ripened while we were out of town.

Regarding my Pepper harvest, I bought a new batch of small mason jars before we left the state and I'm planning on acting like Peter Piper and pickling a peck a half-peck a few jar of peppers this week.

I've got sweet and "mildly hot" banana peppers running out my ears right now and besides just sitting around munching on them and putting some slices on the occasional pizza I find pickling to be the best way to avoid them just laying around out of sight spoiling in the bottom drawer of the fridge.

And fortunately/unfortunately this year's Tomato crop is a faint image of last year's bumper crop. We probably gave away half of the Tomato's we grew last year because we had so many ripen at the same time.

This year we ended up buying a bunch of our plants which are growing today from the local Kroger to replace the first ones we planted. They've been slow to start and half of them are still limping along not producing fruit in a section of ground last year that had plants with vines ten feet long.

The original planting I did Easter weekend (which were pretty much beat to death by the April 27th hail storm) came from Home Depot and a local place called Mayo Gardening Center which has been here in West Knoxtown for over 100 years.

Those few plants left from the original crop are thriving and in the next couple of weeks I hope to scald the skins off of a few dozen and make some pizza sauce out of them.

Wait...(checking the clock)

OK...

It's 4:30 AM and I have to wander down to the Basement Shop and get ready for my Programmer to stop by later this morning to pound on another PLC project.

Until next time...

Regards Y'all...

The Turbo Pup's Headin' Home

...And We Get To Go Along For The Ride...


Early this morning we're re-loading the Turbo Pup's lockers and sea chests into the old Chrysler 300 and blasting back across north Alabama and eastern Tennessee toward home.

It's been a really good week even though we got a couple of days of rain here at the end of the week that kept us from going fishing.

Other than that, we pretty much did everything we had planned.

I'm ready to sleep in my own king sized bed after wrestling the Turbo Pup for space on borrowed full sized and queen sized beds.

Y'all have a LOVELY Sunday and I'll probably write again this evening...

Another Day...Another Ocean...

Rainy Gulf Of Mexico Visit


The weather across south Georgia and lower Alabama was a rainy soup yesterday as we reluctantly left our little island and made our nearly seven hour run from St. Simons to the Farm.

It's really hard to leave after only a few day long dose of what we consider to be paradise.

We got to visit with my buddy John Howton who owns Blackwater Grill ( http://www.blackwatergrill.com/index.shtml ) on the island, and then we hung out with Keenan Carter who owns the most popular Shag dance club (for old people) called Ziggy Mahoney's ( http://www.ziggymahoneys.com/ )

Turns out that Keenan possibly wants me to help him do some interior design work on his new club location...building a couple of seating areas which look like a BOAT.  He's been waiting for some local guy to give him a proposal and I volunteered to take a shot at the design and if he likes it he said he'd pay me to come back down and do the construction with a couple of other friends I know that are carpenters.

Nothing like getting paid to show up on an Island, you know?

So now later this morning we head south to my Cousin's home on Choctawhatchee Bay for a family reunion event which I've managed to miss for the past few years due to scheduling conflicts.

I'm going to see some folks I haven't seen in probably ten or fifteen years and it should be quite interesting...

IF IT DOESN'T RAIN ALL AFTERNOON.

Based on the RSVP response there will be nearly 50 people there and it could get a bit crowded in the kitchen and living room if we're all forced inside due to weather.

Now I have to go put together three giant Muffulatta sandwiches to take along with us to the Buffet.

Y'all have a LOVELY Saturday and try to stay cool and dry in this sweaty summer weather...

Everybody...Run For Your Life....

There's A Wild Dog On The Beach...

That's a dang fine little dog we got right there...don't you think?

Live From Our Little Island

Back In Paradise...


I'm pleased to report that after starting yesterday morning standing in a chemical plant in South Carolina sweating my brains out, that as of about 4:30 PM yesterday my soul was at one with the Universe again, having made the 4.6 mile drive across the series of bridges and spans of asphalt across the Marshes of Glynn from the mainland to St Simons Island, Georgia.

We arrived at our host's home just in time for a small Happy Hour gathering with a bunch of old and new friends, followed by dinner, and then the next thing we new it was 9 PM and everyone was heading home.

This morning we're heading over to the beach for a while with the Turbo Pup before the temperature reaches 100 degrees F, then the swimming pool here in the Condo complex will probably supply some relief from the heat in the afternoon.

Y'all have a LOVELY day now...I know that I will...

I Have "IOS"???

Say It Isn't So...




I'm on the road today...suffering from IOS?

I'm Issuing An "All Points Bulletin"

Hide Your Women & Small Children and Pets In And Around All Southeastern States...


Everybody living in Eastern Tennessee, southern South Carolina, South Georgia, the Florida Panhandle, and lower Alabama...

LISTEN UP.

At about 2 PM Eastern Standard Time our Dark Green Chrysler 300 is blasting out of the Turbo Pup compound here on the Banks of the Mighty Tennessee River heading almost DUE EAST.

By dinner time we'll be residing in the opulent design and residential spaces of my old college room mate's facilities over at Prince Engineering.

Then tomorrow morning after doing some revised software installation work we'll continue our journey south down I-26 and I-95 to St. Simons Island...moving over Friday to Southern Alabama, then a little time in the Ft. Walton area, and then finally back home on Sunday if things go as planned.

I almost get tired just thinking about the process, but right now I have to load the car and shut down two computers and lock doors and herd everybody into the car...

So I'll talk to y'all from the road when we get there.

Bye...

It's A Wonder I Have Any Hair Left

Somebody Call 911...


Just in case you haven't noticed, I've been trying recently to not spit on my computer monitor while writing here on the blog about crazy government crap that makes my ever greying, ever balding head spin... at orbital rotational velocity.

I've let a number of stories go by in just the last week, but then this morning I find myself wanting to ask you...

Do you see anything wrong with the house and yard shown here in this picture?

No, that's not my front yard, it belongs to a woman in Oak Park, Michigan who IS FACING FINES AND UP TO 93 DAYS IN JAIL because the city says they have a code that says "a front yard has to have suitable, live, plant material" but a vegetable garden planted in attractive raised beds is, according to a few neighbors and the "code inspector", not "suitable."

"The price of organic food is kind of through the roof," said Julie Bass.

So, why not grow your own? However, Bass' garden is a little unique because it's in her front yard.

"We thought it'd be really cool to do it so the neighbors could see. The kids love it. The kids from the neighborhood all come and help," she said.

...

It looks like this critical debate is headed for a jury trial and neither side is backing down.

"I could sell out and save my own self and just not have them bother me anymore, but then there's no telling what they're going to harass the next person about," Bass told us.

There's another pretrial scheduled for July 26. The next step could be a jury trial.

See, Ladies and Gentlemen...this is where we are today with our governments--local, state, and national. They are intent on micromanaging our asses off, and taxing us to pay for the proceedings.

"I think it's sad that the City of Oak Park that's already strapped for cash is paying a lot of money to have a prosecutor bothering us..."

This story reminds me of a story I read from The Brunswick News where a mentally unbalanced guy down on our little island on the Georgia Coast confronted a code inspector about a large plywood for sale sign he had erected in the front yard of his OWN HOME. 

The inspector called in the cops, and the cops called in the swat team, and at the end of the day the swat team snipers shot the man dead, in his own yard, over...

A PLYWOOD YARD SIGN WHICH DIDN'T MEET THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT "CODE."

Stuff like this is total BULLSHIT...Ladies and Gentlemen... and as my new header quotation by Thomas Jefferson printed at the top of this blog says:

 "Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have...The course of history shows that as government grows, liberty decreases."



Put that in your pipe and smoke it this morning...

Having A Toe Tapping Good Time

My Head's Still Spinning...


Jeez...I really don't know what the heck I'm doing these days. 

OK, maybe I know what I'm doing but it's just that there is so much of it going on at one time.

I haven't had the time to take my mid-day nap but a couple of times in the past month, but yesterday I did manage to lay around and read a week's worth of newspapers and work on a couple of crossword puzzles for a couple of hours mid-day between projects.

I'm spending time doing a whole bunch of different stuff...still working on the final details on the doors on the new Carport Storage Closet which should be finished up today.

And yesterday I cut and put together a new 5-1/2" high foot rest addition and slid it up under the "Wee Pub's" ever evolving bar set up raising the height of the bar top from the old 36" level up to closer to the standard 42"-43".  I've still got to install wood panels and molding and trim over the old formica surfaces (the bar is a hand me down from our neighbor's kitchen remodling project) and then pour a epoxy resin finish on the bartop sometime in the future.

And meanwhile on the professional front I'm working on putting the final touches on writing the "Operator's Manual" for the revised PLC based Waste Water Storage System over in South Carolina. 

I'm pleased to report that the system passed the final inspection by the State and local  "officials" responsible for issuing the operational permits yesterday morning with flying colors.

Hurray...another professional milestone in my sordid storied so-called "Professional" career. 

Actually it really was sort of exciting because no one told the inspectors that this control system was designed and built and partially installed by a crazy guy who had never built anything like it before.

Sometimes I think that it helps to come at a project like that one not knowing how things are "usually done," because by thinking "outside the box" and taking a fresh look at the problem you can actually produce a unique and very eloquent solution to the challenges presented.

I think we ended up with a very simple yet powerful hardware and software solution to the operational tasks we were presented with, and next week when I deliver the final software revision I hope to pick up some follow on work adding new capabilities as they are already working on automating other aspects of their down stream waste processing operations.

And speaking of travel, we're in the final planning stages of a trip over the next two weeks which will take us over to the job site in South Carolina, then down I-95 for a few days visiting our former home on St. Simons Island, then across the Florida Panhandle to Mexico Beach and then Ft. Walton, then on to the family Farm in Lower Alabama to visit my dear Mother for most of a week before returning back here to the Turbo Pup Compound.

Little Missy the Turbo Pup's already packing her lockers and sea chests with toys and towels and bathing suits in anticipation of the adventure.

I've got to go now and bust my butt working on some more stupid tax forms and other paper shuffling crap, so y'all will have to excuse me for the moment...

Worn Totally Out

A Multitude Of Priorities And Minimum Energy...


This working all most of the day outside in the heat stuff is turning out to not be such a good idea.

While it has improved my sleep patterns to something near normal, it has also zapped me mentally at a time when I need to be thinking on my feet when I'm not standing outside making sawdust or using the pneumatic nailer.

Whose idea was all of this any way?

Oh yeah...I think I came up with this torture.

So any way, now I have to shift gears and sweep up the sawdust after ALMOST finishing my carport closet/locker and get back inside to do the stupid second quarter Corporate Tax crap and finish getting ready to be out of town for TWO weeks on a working "vacation."

Talk to y'all later I guess...

Thank GOD That Freaking Child Murder Trial Is Over With

Now We Can Get Back To Worrying About Something Else STUPID...

I was watching FOX news with my PLC Programmer yesterday afternoon when they announced the verdicts in the Casey Anthony murder trial.

Surprising, but not life changing for me personally.

Just like the missing Alabama Teen Natalie Holloway story down in Aruba, I figure that amid all of the media hoopla and noise is the underling truth that "Jordan van der Shit" (or what ever his name was...I'm too lazy to Google it right now) PROBABLY got away with one crime due to circumstances.

He might of not actually killed the girl, but he covered up her death and spent time in the Jail in Aruba and again in his home country in Europe--a country club environment compared to his jail circumstances now...

and then he continued to spiral out of control until he did the same thing again in another crappy third world country and he's stuck for life pooping in a 5 gallon bucket and eating stale bread and maggot infested corn mash.

OJ Simpson went down that same road...beating Murder charges only to continue to be the narcissistic asshole he was all the time mugging for publicity and the media spotlight until he finally got his stupid black ass locked up in Las Vegas.

And Today?

This silly little troubled bitch will be out of jail by Friday after the sentencing hearing on Thursday.

She'll probably get probation and community service in return for the time already served--two or three years.

And just like the other media bimbos she'll get her book deal and her Playboy centerfold shoot and possibly a reality show, and unless she changes her ways she will either end up back in jail for a probation violation as a minimum of found beat to death in a hotel room or dead on the side of the road a victim of drug overdose or DUI accident.

Most people like this can't take their good fortune of "dodging a bullet" and straighten up and get on with their lives, in my considered Redneck opinion.

I really do wish her well and hope that truth and justice has been well served in these verdicts--I really didn't give much of a damn about the story--but I also suspect that we haven't heard the last of Ms. Anthony and it won't be about her getting a Phd or winning a Nobel Prize.

I promise not to say "I told you so..." either

You've Probably Already Seen This Because It's Gone "Viral" on the Internet

But Just In Case You Haven't...

 Word has it a 15 year old girl put this video together. Take the time to watch the whole thing and see if it doesn't make your chest pound...




'Nuf Said I think

A NORMAL Night's Sleep?

I Must Be Getting Old...


A funny thing happened last night.

I laid my head on my pillows at about 7 PM.

The next thing I knew it was 4:30 AM.

I haven't gotten that quality of sleep but a few times in the past 5 years.

Right now I feel like going outside, climbing up on the roof, and building something out of rock and stone and sheet metal.

Fortunately I don't need anything built out of those materials right now...particularly located on my roof...and my inventory of rocks/stones consists of a few random samples about the size of a football which were laying around the back yard when we moved here a little over three years ago.

In addition to melting away about ten pounds sweating in the 95 degree heat in my carport working on my storage closet project yesterday, Pat spent a few hours helping our neighbor's family pull heirlooms and some pieces of furniture out of the fire damaged house and move other things into the end which was more or less intact except for the smoke damage.

We donated a bunch of boxes which I have a habit of hoarding in the basement because they couldn't buy any since it was Sunday before the 4th of July and every place selling boxes was closed.

Here's a look at the aftermath of the blaze:

The car there burnt to a crisp was a Honda Accord:

And the offending lawnmowers can be seen there on the right side of the garage also burned to a crisp. The weed eater was unidentifiable in the wreckage, so I suspect it or the push mower to be the source of the initial flame.

Just like my experience with a cheap crappy electrical power strip starting a fire which destroyed my house and most of it's contents years ago, this event just goes to show you how really complex the hazards are which we face in everyday life.

We use things like gasoline and propane and natural gas and even laundry and other household chemicals casually and with impunity every day, but lurking behind each of those substances and compounds is the potential for death and destruction.

We're conditioned these days to just assume that everything is OK and then sue the pants off of anyone which makes anything which causes us any harm or hardship after the fact.

That said, I hope everybody has a wonderful 4th of July, but at the same time I ask that you are CAREFUL with your Grills and Fireworks so I don't have to come down to the emergency room or watch you describe the ensuing explosion on the 6 PM evening news.

Regards Y'all...

Unexpected House Fire(Works)

Been There Myself And Got The Tee shirt...


So I was cruising along nicely yesterday morning happily making sawdust and torturing the Turbo Pup with her new box of 140 squeekies I had received to replace the innards in dead toys she is always chewing up.

Progress was slow but steady out in the carport and by just before noon I came back into the house to rest a few minutes from the 90 plus degree heat...promising myself that I would fire up the construction effort again (excuse the unintended pun...you'll understand when you finish reading this posting) at noon.  I had smelled smoke a few minutes earlier but just attributed it to someone burning lawn debris.

Unfortunately from about 12 PM on things didn't quite work out the way I had planned for Saturday, July 2nd, because when I walked back outside to start work I noticed that two houses down our street on the opposite side from our house black smoke was billowing out from under the partially open garage door.

I knew that our neighbor--a widow lady ten or fifteen years my senior--had just finished mowing her grass and running the weed eater, and apparently one of the two devices had mis-behaved after she put it away and she was in the house IN THE SHOWER.

I ran inside and called 911 while Pat ran next door to get our neighbor who knew the woman well and together they were able to bang on the storm door and storm windows and get her attention.

She came running outside clad in only a silk robe with no shoes, and then proceeded to run back into the building two times before we could physically restrain her and talk her into staying outside.

Here's a look at things about 15 minutes after I first noticed the fire:

Here's one of the brave fire fighters finally getting some water on things:

And here they've basically stopped things from progressing and are just beating the final hot spots down:

This whole experience strikes very close to home for me, because I had the unfortunate experience to have my house burn to the ground in April of 2001. Since I was not home at the time things were happening I had the good fortune to not having to sit there and watch the disaster unfold with a giant shower of electrical sparks when the breaker panel finally gave way or listen to the gas tanks on the lawn equipment, propane tanks, and the car gas tank and air conditioner system explode in the inferno.

Having already lived through the process however, I was amazed at the insight it gave me to help move everyone through the process. I'm not saying I'm some kind of hero or anything, I'm just saying that having dealt with the process from the inside personally gave me a punch list of things I could regurgitate in sequence/order for others to worry about from memory in the middle of the excitement.

I had to wander around trying to keep people off of the hot electrical wires--the next door neighbor insisted on trying to use his garden hose to defend his house and in the process was risking electrocution if his water stream came in contact with the current.

We basically spent the rest of the afternoon working with another dozen of our neighbors consoling the woman and helping her contact her family and the assholes at her so-called insurance company.

I use profanity--the word "assholes"--because that's the way I currently feel about the people and the corporation called Farm Bureau here in West Knoxville.

Do you know what the person which answered the telephone told us when we finally got through to them on Saturday before the Fourth of July?

"We can't possibly get anyone out there until TUESDAY because it's the WEEKEND and Monday's A HOLIDAY."

You might be "in good Hands with Allstate," but from my personal experience this year with a roof damaged by a hail storm, and now with this deal with a house fire which caused at least a loss of 50% of the property rendering it inhabitable, is that you are "shit out of luck with State Farm and Farm Bureau"...and that's a crying shame.

This woman has lived in the neighborhood for over thirty years, raised two sons, and burryed a Husband all the while paying premiums for her "Homeowner's Insurance" and just because her house burns at an "inconvenient" time they leave her sitting beside the road in a borrowed chair with no shoes.

Now here's the part of this story which could be considered a political commentary but which makes me proud that I was able to contribute and further, the way our neighbors and even some total strangers rallied around someone in need.

Don't get me wrong here...this lady was comfortable financially so she could afford to go rent a motel room and buy shoes and clothes, but she was distraught and losing her mind to the point of fainting and having to sit in an Ambulance for a half hour while they checked her out.

In the three hours following the start of the conflagration some total strangers from a nearby condo development brought her some shoes that fit and some pants and a top to wear.

When the smoke had proverbially cleared and the fire department had left the scene I was going to help her sons board up the broken windows and doors, but other people were tripping over me to help and I ended up managing the scene and watching other people swing hammers.



No FEMA.

No state or federal declaration of disaster areas.

No government supplied Trailers and Debit Cards and Free TV's and other crap paid for at taxpayer expense.

I know I hate what happened to our neighbor this Fourth of July Weekend, but at the same time it did my heart good to be able to participate in an exercise which demonstrated that the real, fundamental, core of the American Spirit is still alive and well here in West Knoxville in July of 2011.

I wish that we could all...using an unfortunate metaphor...take the time to "fan the flames" on the embers which are left laying around in places like my neighborhood on my street in other places around the country, and restore the fundamental ideals and self sufficiency on which our country was founded in the minds of the voters before the 2012 election takes us further down the road to socialism and destruction.

O K?

Working Holiday Weekend

Me And My Zanny Life...


Well, the good news is, after a hectic couple of weeks spent out of town on jobsites almost non-stop, that my brain has stopped rattling around in my skull and things have settled back down a good deal here at the Turbo Pup Compound on the banks of the Mighty Tennessee River.

The Turbo Pup isn't mad at me anymore for leaving town without her, and for some unknown reason I also actually managed to stay focused and work a "normal daytime" schedule on both Thursday and Friday--sort of.

I guess it was because I had to interact with a bunch of people that have real jobs and only show up at their offices between 8 AM and 5 PM.

Then I was sitting around in my office Friday morning contemplating things which needed doing here around the Turbo Pup's house, and since I am basically on vacation 365 days each year unless I accidentally trip over something in the professional "paid work" category of endeavors--I felt it only fair that while the rest of the country with "real jobs" took a long 4th of July holiday weekend vacation that I should be required to WORK this weekend...at least until Independence Day.
 
Thus in support of the festering Carport storage closet design project I've been fooling around with for the past year, and with the idea of putting the final touches on the "Wee Pub" in our basement, we ran over to Home Depot for an hour of picking various sizes and shapes of lumber out of bins and off of racks...

...and then we borrowed one of HD's "$19.99 for 75 Minutes" Rental Flat Bed Trucks and dragged a load of lumber back home by mid afternoon.

So now this morning I'm doing the final AutoCAD drawing tweeks and getting ready to start making sawdust ...

...hopefully by 7 AM...

That is, IF I can keep from getting distracted or hurt myself working in my basement shop on a new PLC system simulator panel I've designed. 

I have to use my saber saw to cut a precision square hole in a thermoplastic box, then drill a few dozen holes in the box for lights and switches, and then use a hot soldering iron to hook a bunch of wiring together.

Any one or all of those processes could, with my luck, cause a visit to the emergency room.

Then again, hopefully NOT.

That said, I hope everyone has a LOVELY Fourth of July Independence Day weekend, and besides just standing around drinking beer and burning stuff on the grill or baking your flesh at the beach I hope you take the time to pause and consider what this celebration really means...

...and what you can do personally to help restore some of the "Independence" and self sufficiency which the Government has slowly robbed from our population over the past 200 plus years.

In the very near future none of us are going to be either "Independent" or "Free" if we keep going down the path we are on. 

In my considered Redneck opinion, the government and the hoards of "moocher class" so-called citizens are going to end up legally owning at least half the lives of the "producer class" of patriots, and when that percentage finally exceeds 51% there will officially be a legislatively mandated system of "reverse slavery" in our country in which I will refuse to participate.

I'm going to "live free or die" as the New Hampshire State Motto says...

How about YOU?

Trains, Planes, And Automobiles

Did I Forget To Mention Buses?


Using all of the above pieces of machinery (not all at once of course), I managed to arrive home a little before 11 PM last night.

Needless to say that a day which started before 5 AM and included about 9 hours of travel causes me to be a little less than enthusiastic about writing this morning.

So with that truth in mind, I ask your forgiveness if I go do something else right now Ladies and Gentlemen.

Talk to Y'all later I'm sure...

Employment Opportunities In The "Hospitality" Business

Professional Assholes Need Not Apply?


So I was going to be nice and polite and civil this week and avoid bitching about this so-called "Bed and Breakfast" here in Havre de Grace, Maryland.

Then just now, after having to extend my trip yet again for an extra night, I went downstairs...wandered across the courtyard in my flip flops and a tee shirt and a golf cap looking for some juice and a bagel, and I proceeded to run into "HER" working in the dining area.

You know...HER?

The angry, chubby, peroxide blond goddess who took a personal interest in making my last visit here at the B&B a PURE HELL?

A couple of months ago this silly wench apparently got an attitude with me because I was...

1.--Staying in a Bed and Breakfast Inn.

2.--I wanted to actually USE THE ROOM I was renting on a 24 hour basis including nightly and didn't want housekeeping and maintenance people banging on the door and traipsing around accessing electrical panels and mop buckets.

3.--Then, in spite of knowing the "published hours" for the "Breakfast" included in the nightly price, when I didn't want the aforementioned "Breakfast," SHE got all pissed off when I didn't show up and didn't call and say I wasn't showing up.

Well E X C U S E MeeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEE.

So any way, as I said earlier I was going to shut up about this B&B Inn, but the angry Blond chick just pissed me off again when I went down to their lobby for some juice and a couple of pastries.

This building--whose name begins with the letter "V" and ends with the letters "andiver Inn"--is now officially on my list of squirrely places where the owners' promote spending the night and eating breakfast but don't have a clue how to pull the process off with anything close to grace and professionalism.

Here's the thing with me this morning.

The last time I stayed here they were in the process of renovating the property, and a bunch of unshaven electricians and carpet installers kept trying to catch me out of my room so they could rummage around moving stuff and gluing things down.

Since I had gotten food poisoning at the Baltimore airport I wanted to lay around and sleep and poop for a day and one half and that just didn't fit their schedule.

Needless to say that I was pissed off, but I got over it and decided to give the place a second chance on this visit.

But then GUESS WHAT HAPPENED THIS TIME?

They took my reservation, in a 35 room Inn which was not fully occupied at the time I decided to stay, then they put me in a room with the exit door to the outside opening into a courtyard...AND GET THIS...

after arriving at the Inn at 2:30 PM Sunday, at 2:55 PM when I walked outside to get a bucket of ice there was a Jewish Rabbi and about FIFTY people standing and sitting around my doorstep in the courtyard getting ready for a wedding or something.

I bolted over to the main house and got my ice and asked about the time on the event, and it was...

A WEDDING...

AT THREE PM, EASTERN STANDARD TIME.

Holly Crap...

No...

Holly SHIT...

So I literally ran back to my room and bolted through the door as the wedding party and guests looked at me during their final preparations, and when I had locked the door and closed the blinds I wondered to myself...

WHY THE F**K DID THE MORONS AT THE FRONT DESK FILL VIRTUALLY EVERY ROOM IN THESE THREE OLD HOUSES WITH THE "KOSHER JEWISH WEDDING PARTY", and leave my Protestant Methodist Redneck Ass living in a room at GROUND ZERO for the ceremony?

There are Answers which have no Questions out there in the world, but somehow I keep tripping over Questions and Situations which have no Answers.

Is it just me?

Why They Won't Let Me Have A Pool With A Diving Board

My Insurance Agent Called...And Said NO!

Wrestling With My Alter(ed) Ego

It's A "Love/Hate" Relationship...


As I understand things today, very few people actually "own their own business" i.e. work for themselves.

When you add everything up at the end of any given day, there are probably more people out there in the "unemployed" category than there are people in our population gainfully employed with a business enterprise in which they are the primary shareholder/owner.

The "Devil," as always, being in "the details" of business ownership--or "self-(un)employed" as I tend to call it these days--is the reality of having to actually produce the end product that you have sold and expect to be paid for at the end of the process.

I also agree whole heartetly with the old adage saying that "It's Lonely at the Top," because being in business for yourself...BY YOURSELF...means that when the "Company Owner" tells the "Corporate President" that the "Chief Programmer" and the "Senior Field Installation Technician" needs to get off of his ass and finish up the two festering current projects...

...in the case of a little company located in eastern Tennessee called Plastics Engineering Technologies, Inc. things can get a more than a little exciting implementing the "Company Owner's" mandate.

That would be because I CARRY ALL FOUR OF THOSE TITLES TODAY ON MY BUSINESS CARD.

So any way, today was what I would call "semi-successful" in as much as I got a version of my new program into the PLC and tested all of the basic input/output functions, but then the machine I am monitoring coughed up it's own PLC controller display and the plant maintenance guys had to manually run the machine for me on a hit or miss basis and that totally sucked.

When they initially demanded that I come up here this week to clean up some details, my only requirement was that they make the bottle production line available for an 8 to 12 hour period so I could tune the system performance.

As it stood after lunch yesterday...I MIGHT have had 30 minutes of total run time to measure and analyze.  Then I had to leave and come back to my B&B room to access the Internet and call my contract programmer.

What a total pain in the ass...

So now this morning I have to go back into the plant and screw around and attempt to get the final 2% of the bugs worked out of the system while at the same time the plant technicians are going to want to be replacing their broken crap they had delivered overnight by FedEX...and if I'm not finished by about 1:30 PM I'll miss my Amtrak connection to the airport and have to pay the stupid change fees and extra airfare.

That prospect could cost me five hundred bucks if I have to also stay another night here.

Dang it...

Then I also have to negotiate the details of who pays the extra cost and in the end it will probably be me because they have me over a barrel if I want to get any future new business...with no solid guarantee of same.

And when the stupid government comes to my house and asks for 35% of my hard earned money, and when people sit around blithering about not having a job and/or demanding that the government bring their accountants and guns and arrest powers to my house and take even more money from me next year and the year afterwards through the elimination of "tax cuts for the rich"...

...it really makes me think about whether running a business is really worth all of the hassle...

You know?

Increasing My Massive Carbon Footprint

Converting Oxygen To Carbon Dioxide Every Way Possible...


Well, I'm pleased to report that I managed to make it to Havre de Grace by around Noon yesterday. It wasn't exactly EASY.

Two airplanes...one train...and one old van Taxi supplied my method of conveyance.

Then I had some killer Crab Soup and a couple of drinks, and collapsed after a 16 hour day about 3 pm (yes...I was up since 11 PM Saturday night.

I managed to wander back down to the water front about 8:30 PM in time for some dinner, and now I've go to get things together and get over to the plant by the appointed 9 AM time.

Just like my last visit to this Bed and Breakfast, some interesting things happened here which I may write about later, but right now I have to get breakfast and head off into the real world for a few hours.

Y'all have a LOVELY day now...if you will...

Back In Knoxtown...But Headin' North

Pray For My Sanity...

I'm pleased to report that we had an uneventful trip back across the Smoky Mountians mid day Saturday.  I barely had time to catch my breath before having to unpack and then start re-loading my suitcases in anticipation of another business trip.

I absolutely hate having to fly into or drive through the corridor from Richmond, Virginia, up through Washington DC extending on through Baltimore and on up to Philadelphia and NY City.

This trip is a combination of flying and Amtrak.

I'm sorry if I offend anyone for saying it that way, but being from the rural south and having spent most of my life trying to get away from giant populations of people living like ants literally "on top" of each other in favor of smaller urban areas or better yet low population coastal areas....

hopefully you understand my problem this morning.

I'm taking a break from packing my computer bag and suitcase for a few minutes, but later this morning I'll head out on an airliner through Charlotte to the little Chesapeake Bay community of Havre de Grace.

Harve de Grace in and of itself is quite pleasant, but it's the territory and experiences and trials and tribulations existing in between here at the Turbo Pup Compound and there which presents the problem.

So any way, I have to go now and finish up my packing and possibly take a quick nap in anticipation of my 5:30 AM flight.

If you don't hear from me by Tuesday night...somebody send up a flare...

Heading Back Home

For A Short Time Only...


My brain is fried handling the current project resolutions and looking forward to leaving town again Sunday so I just don't have much original to write right now.

In my Internet reading I've seen some frequent reference to Conan O'Brien's recent graduation address at Dartmouth College earlier this month.

Now I have to admit that I'm not much of a fan of Conan's...having been a Johnny Carson devotee and later David Letterman before he lost his mind and became a insane partisan asshole.

And of course there is Jay Leno who is pretty cool but rarely gains my attention any more.

But any way, here's the YouTube version of Conan's address, and I have to say that I was surprised and impressed by how articulate and point on the man is.



If you don't have the time to view the entire 20 plus minutes, just watch the last half and see if you don't feel the same way.

Regards Y'all...

Lucille

"You Know How I Feel..."




Pretty funny...Huh?

Other than that, I'm getting ready to leave town for a while and don't have time to write.

Regards Y'all...

Mind Racing...Body Barely Able To Keep Up

Somebody Say "AMEN"...


OK...

I finally got a big check in the mail yesterday.

HurayyyyyyyyyYYYYYY!

After dancing around naked for about 12 seconds I put back on my clothes and ran to the bank, and then I managed to get off of my lumbering rear end and started making new business travel plans.

An hour later I had spent nearly a thousand dollars on renting and borrowing crap related to travel...

Now Thursday afternoon we're off to South Carolina so I can spend  a day in an Adhesives Plant on Friday installing new software and cleaning up some other technical details on one customer's job site.

Then after hanging out with my old College Buddy Rusty for dinner we'll get up and blast back across the Smokey Mountains through Asheville on Saturday.

Then after re-organizing my suitcase I'm getting up and getting on an airplane at FIVE FREAKING THIRTY AM Sunday morning to fly to Baltimore, then taking an Amtrak train to Aberdeen, Maryland, then hiring a taxi to take me on up to a Bed and Breakfast in Havre de Grace (the same one which pissed me off in April...I'm giving them a second chance) in preparation of spending another day and one half in a Plastics Bottle Plant updating another PLC system on Monday.

Then after smearing my face with paint and dancing around in a loincloth exorcizing the deamons from the equipment and smearing chicken blood all over myself and the hardware, hopefully sometime late Tuesday afternoon I will jump back on an Amtrak train, fly from Baltimore to LaGuardia, then LaGuardia to Washington Dulles International, the back here to the Turbo Pup Compound in West Knoxtown.

Pretty Darn Crazy Idea...Huh?

Well, I actually have a strategic reason for accepting the ridiculous schedule coming back home Tuesday.

I only have about 45 minutes between flights, and I know that it is almost an absolute certainty flying in that over crowded corridor of the northeast that if anyone anywhere so much as sneezes or farts...or better yet there is a single drop of rain or a wind blowing over 1/2 mile per hour...that the entire air travel network will melt down and YOU KNOW WHAT?

At the end of the day I'll end up spending Tuesday night somewhere in a Hotel at US Air's expense and I'll come back home sometime Wednesday little worse for the wear with a couple hundred dollars worth of "denied boarding" passes.

So now I have to collect my thoughts and get a brief nap before my programmer shows up here at 9 AM this morning to finish up a couple of nagging details on a program.

Y'all have a LOVELY balance of the week, and I'll write when I can and it might mean something or nothing depending on my circumstances and state of mine.

Regards Y'all...

Reality "Twenty-One" ... Me "Zero"

Losing The War While Winning A Few Battles...


Needless to say I am totally pissed off right now at the state of my financial affairs.

This after working my ass off over the past decade to recover from a "significant" setback when my old company was forced out of business when a couple of my customers decided to go bankrupt and take me with them down that legal/financial carnival ride to hell.

Now today once again I've built things back up to some reasonable level of solvency.

And I spend my days wheeling and dealing and selling things while at the same time paying all of our bills on time including three insurance companies which collect a substantial amount of cash each month with the idea of protecting what ever money we manage to earn and keep in the bank at the end of the year.

I'm sure many of my readers do the same thing day in and day out, but check this crap out.

I have not one but TWO outstanding claims with my insurance companies...one with the health insurance idiots and one with the homeowners insurance bastards, and now going on two/three months later I don't seem to be able to convince them that they should pay a SINGLE FREAKING DIME toward the claims processes.

And then there is my current major PLC System Customer over in the Carolina's which is going on a half month late making final payment on their system installed in May...after being a half month late on their first payment.

What really pisses me off is how the average Redneck Consumer like me is held to one commercial standard...pay your bills on time else get reported to the "Credit Bureaus"...while companies like I deal with on a day in and day out basis basically laugh in your face and take their time paying after you have financed and delivered your product to them.

It's not like I can show up with a set of wire cutters and a Phillips head screwdriver and repossess my Control system and sensors because there's just not much of a demand for that kind of thing down the street here in Knoxville or over in your neighborhood.

And yet they make you crawl around and cut your price to the bare bones when you write your proposal and then the silly bitches in "Accounts Payable" just shrug their shoulders and write you a check whenever they finally get around to it in spite of the "payment terms" on the Contract.

And these shameless liars running my second health insurance company in four years? 

All they have done is BOUNCE EVERY SINGLE BILLING FROM MY HOSPITAL VISIT IN APRIL and now the "service providers" i.e. the doctors and radiologists are coming after me demanding payment while the bean counters in the offices of the insurance company screw around apologizing and making excuses.

All I know is that when you see the news with some story about some guy walking into an office out there in middle 'Merica with a giant weapon proceeding to cause mayhem and carnage...

sometimes--while I don't agree with him--I somehow understand how he might have suffered a breakdown and got to the point where it seemed like the only thing left to do.

You want "Health Care Reform?"  Don't give me "Government Insurance", just get the "Government" to help me make the so called "Insurance Companies" honestly honor their agreements with their customers.
Is it just me?

OK...

That will be all...for now...

Knowledge Is Power?

No...But A Good "Miss-Information" Campaign does Go A Long Way...

 First of all Ladies and Gentlemen, honestly I'm afraid that I may end up yelling and cursing and piss a bunch of idiots off in the next fifteen to fifty minutes as a result of my writing this morning, so let's get a couple of things straight here right from the "get-go" as I get my keyboard fired up and running on all 12 cylinders.

First and foremost...you have to remember that by and large--although hosted by Google's "Blogger" system--this little space of the Internet you are looking at right here and now is MINE, so if at any moment during our short flight this evening you feel your panties or boxer shorts starting to bunch up and irritate your butt crack and your asshole I heartily offer you the the opportunity to get the f**k out...i.e. leave this web page!

O-Tay?

Next, if you are in the category of readers which stop by every now and then and are an under edu-macated government-schooled liberal, tie died, patchouli stinking, Kumbaya singing, dope-smoking, tree hugging, Owl Gore worshiping man-made global warming alarmist...

you probably need to drop a Xanex or Quaalude and check back by here later after the dust settles because what I'm getting ready to write and point out is going to cause you to leak urine and possibly feces.

So now does everyone have their seat belts tightened and their tray tables and seat backs moved into the upright and locked positions?

If not, just hit the "BACK" Browser button or click or the web page tab "X" close button and let you and let your little narrow mind evaporate away into the ether of the Universe.

O-key Do-key?

Good.

Now, with a properly prepared audience in hand...as to this evening's subject...GLOBAL WARMING...or the lack there of... based on a theory generally know as Anthropogenic Global Warming...

I want to once again say THIS about THAT.

'TAINT NO SUCH FREAKING THING

You know?

And in the defense of my own long time well researched opinion, I offer this latest Dissertation by Dr. William M. Gray...formerly of "The Weather Channel" and a well respected "Weather Scientist"...not just some quack that went to Devry or some stupid on-line "University" and started running his mouth suddenly after getting a PhD.

Here's a little sample of his latest commentary:

Many of us AMS members believe that the modest global warming we have observed is of natural origin and due to multi-decadal and multi-century changes in the globe’s deep ocean circulation resulting from salinity variations. These changes are not associated with CO2 increases. Most of the GCM modelers have little experience in practical meteorology. They do not realize that the strongly chaotic nature of the atmosphere-ocean climate system does not allow for skillful initial value numerical climate prediction. The GCM simulations are badly flawed in at least two fundamental ways:


1.Their upper tropospheric water vapor feedback loop is grossly wrong. They assume that increases in atmospheric CO2 will cause large upper-tropospheric water vapor increases which are very unrealistic. Most of their model warming follows from these invalid water vapor assumptions. Their handlings of rainfall processes are quite inadequate.


2.They lack an understanding and treatment of the fundamental role of the deep ocean circulation (i.e. Meridional Overturning Circulation – MOC) and how the changing ocean circulation (driven by salinity variations) can bring about wind, rainfall, and surface temperature changes independent of radiation and greenhouse gas changes. These ocean processes are not properly incorporated in their models. They assume the physics of global warming is entirely a product of radiation changes and radiation feedback processes. They neglect variations in global evaporation which is more related to surface wind speed and ocean minus surface and air temperature differences. These are major deficiencies.

As I've said many times before here on this blog, I have over the past ten years spent literally hundreds of hours reading and researching the concept of "Global Warming" in general and the "man-made" aspect of it specifically, and if you separate the piles of cow dung laden tripe and lilly livered alarmist public consumption fodder from the real papers and information which deal with SCIENCE instead of politics and hysteria...
 
...you know what?
 
WE JUST DON'T REALLY KNOW WHAT THE F**K IS GOING ON BECAUSE WE DON'T HAVE ENOUGH LONG TERM ACCURATE DATA TO DO ANYTHING OTHER THAN TAKE A SNAPSHOT OF THE PLANET OVER LESS THAN 200 YEARS OF TIME.,
 
Everything else is locked up in tree trunks in the form of growth ring samples or discovered from looking at "Ice Cores" and "sedimentary rock strata" from past glaciers or found in books written on Papyrus or chiseled in stone.
 
But yet the California Nasty Pelosi Liberals and the RINO Rockefeller Republicans up in Jersey and NY State all want to VOTE for a Government which will put a giant freaking TAX on everything I can use to make a fire and light a candle and cook a can of spam or drive across country at a speed faster than 3 MPH
 
While at the same time they are busy passing zoning laws making it illegal for me to have a garden or raise some chickens and pigs and cows or park my Howitzer Cannon and Sherman Tank in my back yard. (The 50 Cal anti-arcraft battery is already outlawed under earlier legislation.)
 
You almost have to absolutely be a MORON if you believe anything you read about this subject...POSITIVE OR NEGATIVE... and thus I say that running around passing laws and expanding the powers of the EPA and by default the anti-capitalistic Socialistic Fascistic tree hugging loons which have nothing better to do all day than run around crying "the sky is falling" and "the Earth is warming" is a GIANT ECONOMIC KILLER OF THE SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT WE ORIGINALLY HAD HERE IN THE GOOD OLD US OF A. 
 
AhhhhhhHHHHHHHHHHHHHH....CLUNK
 
(that would be the sound of me falling over out of my chair.)
 
Now with all of the above said, get off of YOUR ass and go do something worth doing based on some verifiable facts today.
 
I know I'm going to.

Call Your Daddy

I Know That I Wish I Could...


Happy Fathers Day to all of you real men out there which are good Fathers.

I never had the pleasure and opportunity of being  a child's Daddy in life, and when it's all said and done I just might be a lessor man as a result...

...but life is what life is...and I made a choice/decision about not having my own family years ago which I have followed through with on the calendar and have to live with this time each year.

Any way...call your Daddy while you still can...

"Pajama Jeans" Work Well With My "Snuggie"

Everybody Meet "Osama Bin Virgil"...


So I'm working my way through another Saturday night tonight watching Food network and other "late night TV programming" and all of the ignorant mindless commercials are about to drive me crazy.

First they have the "Snuggy" cheep Fleece/Flanel Rug/Comfortor/Blanket commercial all winter, and now they have the "Pajama Jeans" commerials selling denim patterened spandex to fat chix and other people which are prone to watching late night tele-info-commercials.

So I did a little Googling and a little Photo Shop work and just now I came up with what I--your lovely and talented blog writer--thought I would look like if I bought all of the stuff advertized on late night Cable:

Here I are...

(Somebody feel free to beat me within inches of my life and put me out of my misery if you will...)

It's Muffaletta Time!

Please Pass The Olive Salad...


I've been screwing around working my way back through my giant stack of recipes--original and printed from the Internet--which currently occupy two FOUR INCH thick three ring binders in my office.

One binder is sort of organized by both style and/or meat base, and the other is punched and bound but is wildly out of order still.

I actually want to double or triple cross reference the recipes by the categories of country of national origin i.e. Moroccan or German or Greek, then by food style like Soup or Salad or Appetizer or Main Course or Desert, and finally by the basic ingredients i.e. chicken or Beef or Pork or Seafood, etc.

There's a really good cookbook buried in there I was going to call "The Redneck Gourmet" and I actually got positive feedback from a publisher in Chattanooga about Six years ago...but they said I needed to do some more editing and add some killer professional photos of my food in order for them to consider publishing at their expense.

Of course with my crazy life and wild eyed lack of focus the project fell on the back burner and the website has basically been ignored since then and other than gaining about 25 pounds cooking for myself and Pat and the Turbo Pup the cookbook has been relegated to "the back burner" so to speak.

Every now and again I get all crazy and have a "do you remember when I made blaa blaa blaa __________ (insert any one of the dozens of dishes I've mastered here)" and this past week it's been the Italian/New Orleans classic deli sandwich Muffaletta.

Needless to say I started wanting one for dinner tonight but didn't get home in time to put everything together, so now in between fiddling around testing some new PLC software I'm making up a giant batch of Olive Salad to marinade overnight so we can have Muffaletta for dinner Sunday Night.

I hear my olive salad calling...Regards Y'All...

I'm Getting A Little Loopie here Boss...

Telephone & E-Mail Induced Insanity...


I swear that somewhere this week in some as yet-undisclosed location a bunch of people that either owe me money or should have been doing stuff I've asked them to do or that I've been trying to sell new things to had a meeting and when it was all over with they decided to call me on June 16th.

Seriously, my telephone(s)--Cell and VoIP--rang more yesterday (and possibly the day before) than they have in total in the past MONTH.

Everyone and Anyone wants me to talk to them.

And many of them need me to just do thus and such and so and so so that they can do whatever.

And I'm apparently on the critical path of every SINGLE ENDEAVOR after sitting around here for much of the past month picking my nose and hummimg under my breath while screwing around waiting for people to call and answer a stream of e-mails I've been sending out to prod things along and prevent a couple of fire drills from developing.

And YOU KNOW WHAT?

Now almost everyone is real interested in the things I've been worrying about--SOLO i.e. ALONE all by my Lonesome--and it's up to me to now jump through a sequence of "flaming hoops" to meet the newly imposed deadlines.

So now you will have to excuse me while I dunk my head and possibly some other body parts in some buckets of ice water and make a plan covering how I'm going to do everything which now needs to be done in the next two weeks on the Calendar.

Someone send up a flare if you don't hear back from me by next Tuesday...

I'm "Anemometerless"?

Suffering From Weather Forecasting Withdrawal Syndrome...


My regular readers probably remember that seven weeks ago today the Turbo Pup Compound was bombarded with not one but two massive hail storms which came through within a couple of hours of each other. (We had another exciting afternoon today with severe storms all around us and a couple more inches of rain coming down.)

Besides beating most of the little "gravelly thingies" off of the shingles on my roof, the earlier hail also made mince meat out of my freshly planted garden and destroyed a bird feeder and finally...

IT BROKE THE ANEMOMETER ON MY WIRELESS BACK YARD WEATHER STATION.

Seriously, it broke two of the three little "wind cups" off of the body of the weather vane telling me the wind speed and direction.  Since that day I've been blind to what the wind is doing unless I actually walk outside and stick a moistened finger into the air stream.

So any way, I went to the trouble doing the original installation to design and build a 20' tall mast for the weather station components including a relative humidity sensor, a digital thermometer, and a self clearing rain gauge module, and although the rest of the system still works I don't want to abandon the wind speed measurement capability because that singular function is probably the most interesting thing it tells me unless we get 4 inches of rain in 15 minutes some day.

For some weird reason the manufacturer sells all of the replacement components...EXCEPT the anemometer... so I guess that later this summer I'm going to be forced to buy another entire system from them to replace the Hail damaged component.

If I hold out and play my cards right I have a birthday coming up in September--Pat gave me the existing system as a present for Christmas a few years ago--and now I have my eye on a similar upgraded compatible system by the same manufacturer which will work in parallel with the existing components and will allow me to connect the incoming data stream to one of my spare laptop computers.

Before you know it I wouldn't be surprised if representatives of NASA and NOAA could be stopping by my house and Jim Cantori with the Weather Channel would come calling to get free copies of my local weather data base and interview me on "Storm Stories" some evening.

Until then, I have to go now and continue my shopping and weather metrics system design efforts...Y'all have a LOVELY day now...If you will...

Seasonal Synapse Based Funk

Having A Hard Time Mentally These Days...


There's a crap load of stuff out there in my life that needs tending to right now, but circumstances are keeping me sequestered here in Eastern Tennessee for the moment while a good deal of the things needing doing are situated elsewhere on the planet.

For instance, my Mom's having minor surgery later today and I'm not able to make a trip to Lower Alabama to supervise and lend moral support, and there's other things which could probably benefit from my attention but the realities of cost and geographic location prevent me from doing anything but extending my good wishes long distance.

I hate to admit that I find it difficult bearing the responsibility of being the second oldest male on my Father's side of the Family Tree these days. 

It's hard to just sit by and watch people doing stuff by themselves when my Father or Grandfather or Uncle would normally rush to the scene and take charge of the proceedings.

I guess that at least it doesn't reflect entirely negatively on me that I don't at least consider my situation, but my ability to respond in a positive manner over the past few years is a bit depressing.

I think I smell my pasta sauce burning, so I have to go now and feed my face.

Regards Y'all...

1000 Days

Get Ready If You Live On The Atlantic Or Gulf Coast...


So I'm sitting here this morning trying to finish up some technical crap with one hand and eyeball while watching my live streaming cable TV feed on my computer with my other eye--this time tuned to the NBC owned hysterical "Weather Channel"--and I noticed that they mentioned that it has been over 1000 days since we had a land falling Hurricane here in the US.

Pretty cool...Huh?

Almost three whole years without a hurricane on shore in the good old US of A.

Not unprecedented...but still...

And of course the sniveling, booger eating, tree hugging, Kumbaya singing, tye died Global Warming idiots absolutely hate this kind of weather pattern because it does not fit the template which they are trying to use to force our government to pass legislation taking more of our money and giving it to the United Nations and other ill conceived causes working against "climate change."

...and Further...if it wasn't for the current real estate bust...

...it would also be three years where people would have been flocking to the shores between Dolphin Island, Alabama and Apalachicola, Florida and on around through Cedar Key...down past Sannibell and Captiva and Port Charlotte and Boca Grande and Key West and then north toward the Outer banks of North Carolina buying houses and condos laying within a few hundred yards of the high tide line.

BUT DO YOU REALLY KNOW WHAT THAT STATISTIC PROBABLY MEANS?

I guarandamntee you that this season--sometime most likely out there in late July or August and most definitely in September--Mother Nature will likely deliver to the wild eyed "Owl Gore Man Made Global Warming Alarmists" some ample News fodder so they can stand around in front of TV cameras and microphones blubbering stuff like this...

"we was totally surprised that that there ocean jumped up and flooded out our trailer while the wind blew down our satellite dish and took the roof off of grandma's double wide next door..."

I say that the past three years are just normal years on the calendar, just like the years in the mid late 1990's with Hurricane Opal and the mid 2000's with Katrina were also normal years with "above average" tropical activity.

Hear me now and Understand me later if you must...

Heat energy will constantly and endlessly re-distribute itself in our atmosphere...whether it is local phenomena like Thunderstorms/Hail/tornadoes or Tropical Depressions/Storms/Hurricanes.

And if you want to stay away from all of that kind of crap...MOVE TO ALASKA AND RISK FREEZING TO DEATH.

Otherwise, shut the heck up and deal with the prospects.

And now if you will excuse me I have to go now and continue planning my Hurricane Tour 2011 beach trip...

Regards Y'all...

"Pizza Eureka!"

Another "Small Step Giant Leap For Mankind" Made In My Humble Kitchen...


As I've written many times before here on this blog and over on my much neglected cooking blog, The Redneck Gourmet, I spend a good deal of time attempting to master the art of cooking Pizza in a home oven.

It's been slow progress over the past ten years.

First there were the issues of the design and consistency of the dough.

Then later I moved off of a metal Pizza Pan in favor of a Pizza stone--today owning two very well seasoned stones.

And then toppings and sauce and so on have been areas of interest through the ages of experimentation, and now with my efforts approaching something in the numbers...a guestimate of around 400 to 500 crusts later...the actual progress has slowed to a snails pace.

That said, that doesn't mean things are bad around here on Pizza night in my household, because the actual QUALITY of my home made Pizzas--dough/crust and sauce--I'd put up against almost any Pizzaria found anywhere in the country.

I guarandamntee you that 9 out of 10 of my Pizza efforts yield a Pizza Pie better than anything made by Pizza Hut and Dominoes and Pappa Johns and most of the local pizza houses in your area...

EXCEPT...

when it comes to really thin crust Pizza in general and when the restaurant kitchen is running a real wood fired pizza oven.

You see, by cooking a pizza in a real pizza oven they are able to attain temperatures between 700 and 800 degrees Fahrenheit, while in my home oven I'm only able to get up to between 500 and 550 degrees F, and that temperature limitation makes all of the difference in the world when it comes to getting the right "crispy crunch" on Pizza Crust.

So any way, I cooked a standard crust Pizza last Thursday Night, and as usual we had a little less than half of it left over.

Then Sunday night I was going to re-heat the left over which had been wrapped tightly in aluminum foil sitting in the fridge since, when I got a wild hair and decided to make a quick test Pizza with a rapid dough rise and attempt another thin crust experiment.

I normally let my dough proof for over two hours including a small batch pre-rise starter ( see my recipe here ), but on this effort I just tossed the yeast into some warm water, let it foam up, then mixed it all together with the salt and white pepper and the rest of the flour and stepped back from the process while "nature took its course."

In the mean time I was Googling around for some ideas on getting my Pizza stone pre-heated in the oven at 550 degrees F while being able to roll out the dough and put the pizza together on another stone or pan, then somehow sliding the finished pizza off onto the hot stone in the oven...without using a Pizza Peal. (I'm buying a wooden Pizza Peal--or paddle--as we speak.)

In the process I tripped over this couples' web site called "Cookography.com" where they told me something I had never thought of in cooking Pizza.

PARCHMENT PAPER.

I knew that bakers used parchment paper in spring form pans and on cookie sheets to keep things from sticking while cooking in the oven, but I never thought about the idea of using the stuff under a pizza crust before.

So any way, I finished up my pizza with a quick hour rise, tossed and wrestled the dough around and rolled it out real thin, then I built the pizza on a stone on top of a wide sheet of parchment paper cut to size while my other stone sat in the oven at 550 degrees F getting smoking hot.

Then with Pat's assistance I picked up the Pizza stone with the raw pizza on top and moved it over to the smoking hot stone sitting on the bottom rack of the oven and grabbed the edges of the parchment paper and the Pizza slid right off into place on the hot stone.

Then you know what we had only TEN MINUTES LATER?

The BEST DANG CRISPY THIN CRUST PIZZA that's ever come out of my kitchen.

I'm SERIOUS.

I'm tempted to cook Pizza every day for the next month...but I can't...

...because I ran out of yeast in that effort (I usually only buy three to six packs at a time to keep them fresh.)

So later tomorrow I'm heading back to the grocery store for more yeast and possibly some different flour.

Rumor has it that the King Arthur Blue Bread Flour like I'm using for my thick crust is inferior to plain King Arthur Red Multipurpose Flour for thin Pizza crust because of the differences in gluten content and the amount of moisture it will hold...but that detail is beyond the scope of this discussion and you need to catch up with me if you want to start arguing things like Gluten while making Pizza.

Regardless, I really think that I'm on to something here with the Parchment paper idea supporting a good thin crust pizza in a 550 degree F oven.  Now I have to cook it another half dozen times in the name of science to prove my theory.

Feel free to stop by about 7 PM tomorrow night for a sample...and so much for losing weight this summer I guess, you know?

The Wussification Of America--Part Deaux

They've Even Screwed Up The Soapbox Derby Races?


Have I ever mentioned that way back in the summer of 1968 I gained my first and only experience as a winning race car driver?

That's true.

That year I won 3rd place in the local Soapbox Derby Races conducted by our Cub Scout troop down in Ozark, Alabama.

Two of my idols at that time were Richard Petty who had won the 1967 "Grand National" (later called the Winston Cup and now called the Sprint Cup) and Mario Andrette who won the Indianapolis 500 race the following year.

And in between wanting to be a brain surgeon, a fry cook, and a rocket scientist astronaut, with the Soapbox Derby it was a good deal easier to design and build a race car powered by something free--GRAVITY--and our town had such an event annually.

All you had to do was pay your entry fee which included the two "regulation" round steel axles and four "official approved" spoked rubber tires, and EVERYTHING ELSE WAS UP TO YOU (AND YOUR DAD.)

So we paid our fee and dragged the tires and axles home.

Then Dad got out his ruler and pencil and we measured my butt and my head and my legs and my arms and the design for a custom car took shape on paper.

Then after a trip to the local hardware store/lumber yard (there was no Home Depot or even Ace hardware back then in Lower Alabama) we came home with a couple of sheets of plywood, some 2x4's and screws and nails and commandeered the garage.

Our new 1968 Chevy Nomad Station Wagon was relegated to the driveway while we made sawdust and epoxy resin fumes inside, and a couple of weeks later we rolled out our "Richard Petty Blue" colored Race Car.

It had real "STP Oil Treatment" decals and my custom stenciled number (I think that it was #2) on the tail fin. (Yes my car had a tail fin in addition to a real hand laid fiberglass hood and nose cone.)

The details are a little fuzzy since all of this happened 43 years ago now, but on a Saturday morning we loaded my car and my other racing stuff (tools and "3 in 1 oil" and powdered graphite "lubricant") and headed over to the entry street of my school--the "recently constructed Harry N. Mixon Elementary."

There were twenty or twenty five other entrants that year, and after much "heeing and hawing" and final fine tuning of the racing machines and other mandatory "pomp and circumstance" the racing began...in two car heats based on a random drawing of positions, and when it was all said and done...

four or five races later I was the driver in the third place car.

The guy that beat me...my neighbor little George Dennis who was a year younger and 25 pounds lighter, won first place so I can't complain.

I have to admit that I took more pride in the effort, accomplishments, and achievement associated with that event--THE SOAPBOX DERBY--for YEARS afterwards than I have in many...MANY...many more profitable things I've done later in life.

Fast forward today...

YOU KNOW WHAT THEY'VE DONE?

The freaking snivelling, booger eating, tie died, patchouli stinking politically correct Liberals have totally screwed up the Soapbox Derby just like NASCAR has converted their races into generic events featuring cars which all look alike except under the hood and in regard to their paint colors.

First back in the 1980's they demanded that the girls get to race.

FINE.

If they can win bring them on.

Look at the Indy 500 and NASCAR today...and look at the success of women and "minorities" given an equal playing field and the realities of actually having to hold on to the steering wheel going 200 MPH for three or four hours.

THEY CAN'T DO IT IN SPITE OF OUR SOCIETY'S BEST EFFORTS TO ALLOW THEM TO WIN!

And now apparently this politically correct "societal engineering experiment" has been extended to the Soapbox Derby.

I was asleep at the Helm and not paying attention, but I am incensed at the prospects...

Now apparently they have decided that it is unfair that I had an aptitude at age 8 to scratch build model airplanes which fly and had a Army Test Pilot Father that could help me design and build a car to fit my body that could be competitive.

Nooo0000...'taint fair because so many of today's "chirrun" in today's world don't have fathers at home and their mother's and their mothers' "significant others" aren't injuneers...

"WE GOT TO LEVEL THE PLAYING FIELD...dammit"

So you know what the "All American Soapbox Derby" demands today?

You can't get out your pencil.

You can't get out your tape measure.

You can't get out your paper and calculator.

NoooooOOOOOOOO Sireeee.

You can't design and build your own car with hand stenciled letters and tail fins and custom hand laid fiberglass hoods and nose cones.

YOU HAVE TO SPEND MONEY AND BUY A STANDARD...

OFFICIAL SOAPBOX DERBY CAR K I T.

To the tune of between $500 and $650 delivered.

You can't even paint the basic kit...you have to buy it pre colored...other children might feel inferior if you show up with a custom "Richard Petty Blue" paint job with air brushed and pin stripped flames.

And even on the fancier kit there are a crap load of rules and regulations.

And in the instruction they say you can build the basic kit in 4 to 6 hours.

The fancy kit?

A little more time but still...we spent a couple of WEEKs designing and building our car's (there was actually a second car the next year that only placed fifth--out of the trophy standings)

Sorry Ladies and Gentlemen, but I think that they've organized and legislated the original concepts and intentions out of this process just like all the Liberal "do-gooders" do with everything else they get their stinking hands on the past quarter/half century.

What happened to the ideas of originality and innovation and competition?

It's not about people's FEELINGS...PARENTS OR Child's.
It's about the realities of competition and winning, in my considered Redneck opinion.

No wonder so many of today's kids not only can't read and write and do basic math...

...but they also don't understand how to really be creative and make something better that is worth getting paid to construct. 

Just showing up at work is only a quarter of the process...you have to actually PRODUCE SOMETHING which is worth more to your company than they pay you in order to justfy keeping you employed.

So many people...especially UNION morons and Government Employees...don't understand that fundamental concept.
I swear Ladies and Gentlemen...we get exactly what we ask for these days when we ask for it.

We're currently raising by and large a generation of mindless, limp wristed, pansy assed government educated IDIOTS unable to think and fend for themselves because of things like this...letting the rules cause shear luck to determine the outcome of what should be a technical endeavor.

This is exactly why as of this summer with the final Shuttle launch the US will be unable to launch a Human Being into Space...and it's just a crying freaking shame.


I'm sorry, but I have to go now before my head explodes...