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...
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Thursday, June 23, 2011
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...
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...
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
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...
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...
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
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...
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...
Monday, June 20, 2011
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.
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.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
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...
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...)
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...)
Saturday, June 18, 2011
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'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...
Friday, June 17, 2011
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 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...
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
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...
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...
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...
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
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...
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...
Monday, June 13, 2011
"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?
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 arocket 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...
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
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...
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Just Wait Until The Gouverm't Runs Your Doctor's Office
"Mr. Rogers...Follow Me..."
Check out this latest crap that the latest so called "professional" TSA agents at an airport are responsible for..."
A Detroit father said agents with the Transportation Security Administration singled out his special-needs son for a pat-down while the family was headed to Disney World, MyFoxDetroit.com reported, an incident that the TSA admitted was a “case of bad judgment.”
David Mandy said agents at Detroit Metro Airport took his son Drew, 29, and asked him about the padding underneath his pants, which turned out to be adult diapers. Drew, who is severely mentally disabled, had trouble understanding the agents’ orders because his family said he has the mental capacity of a 2-year-old.\
When the father tried to intervene and explain Drew’s disability, he said the two agents said, “Please, sir, we know what we’re doing.”
The agents confiscated a six-inch plastic hammer, something Drew had carried with him for 20 years for comfort. Agents called it a security threat, his father said, adding that they tapped the wall with it and said, “See, it’s hard. It could be used as a weapon.”
I swear I'm at risk of getting myself locked up at an airport before it's all over with if they keep going like this...
Is it just me?
Check out this latest crap that the latest so called "professional" TSA agents at an airport are responsible for..."
A Detroit father said agents with the Transportation Security Administration singled out his special-needs son for a pat-down while the family was headed to Disney World, MyFoxDetroit.com reported, an incident that the TSA admitted was a “case of bad judgment.”
David Mandy said agents at Detroit Metro Airport took his son Drew, 29, and asked him about the padding underneath his pants, which turned out to be adult diapers. Drew, who is severely mentally disabled, had trouble understanding the agents’ orders because his family said he has the mental capacity of a 2-year-old.\
When the father tried to intervene and explain Drew’s disability, he said the two agents said, “Please, sir, we know what we’re doing.”
The agents confiscated a six-inch plastic hammer, something Drew had carried with him for 20 years for comfort. Agents called it a security threat, his father said, adding that they tapped the wall with it and said, “See, it’s hard. It could be used as a weapon.”
I swear I'm at risk of getting myself locked up at an airport before it's all over with if they keep going like this...
Is it just me?
The "Wussification" Of America
Excuse Me While I Stick My Finger In A Light Socket...
I swear that we can't legislate away Darwin's theory of "Survival of the Fittest"...
But our 'Gumment' Schrools keep on trying any way...
Check out this story where a couple of high school brothers were setting record time runs around the track when the idiots what be in charge stopped the race with one lap left because their "lightening detectors went off...
Talk about being stopped in your tracks ...
Joe Rosa, one of the top high school distance runners in the country, appeared to be on his way to breaking the New Jersey state record in the 3,200-meter run with a time worthy of being on the all-time national list when he was literally forced off the track by meet officials with one lap to go due to weather concerns.
Andrew Mills/The Star-Ledger
Meet officials force Joe Rosa off the track due to weather concerns. Rosa had one lap left of what appeared to be a record-breaking run in the 3,200.
Officials with the New Jersey Interscholastic State Athletic Association halted the eight-lap race as Rosa was preparing for his final lap, because lightning had been detected in the area. The meet was being held in Old Bridge, N.J.
NJSIAA officials made it clear: Rules dictate all events are halted and the competitors and fans must immediately leave the area if lightning is detected.
They would have had to pry mybeer Coke out of my hand and arrested me twenty years ago to get me to leave the facility with one lap left in a race.
Today...maybe not so much...
...because I'm too old and tired of arguing with morons to give much of a damn any more...
...but still...
I swear that we can't legislate away Darwin's theory of "Survival of the Fittest"...
But our 'Gumment' Schrools keep on trying any way...
Check out this story where a couple of high school brothers were setting record time runs around the track when the idiots what be in charge stopped the race with one lap left because their "lightening detectors went off...
Talk about being stopped in your tracks ...
Joe Rosa, one of the top high school distance runners in the country, appeared to be on his way to breaking the New Jersey state record in the 3,200-meter run with a time worthy of being on the all-time national list when he was literally forced off the track by meet officials with one lap to go due to weather concerns.
Andrew Mills/The Star-Ledger
Meet officials force Joe Rosa off the track due to weather concerns. Rosa had one lap left of what appeared to be a record-breaking run in the 3,200.
Officials with the New Jersey Interscholastic State Athletic Association halted the eight-lap race as Rosa was preparing for his final lap, because lightning had been detected in the area. The meet was being held in Old Bridge, N.J.
NJSIAA officials made it clear: Rules dictate all events are halted and the competitors and fans must immediately leave the area if lightning is detected.
They would have had to pry my
Today...maybe not so much...
...because I'm too old and tired of arguing with morons to give much of a damn any more...
...but still...
Thursday, June 09, 2011
Not Much Going On Around Here
...At Least Not Worth Talking/Writing About...
I spent another three hours wrestling with homeowners insurance related issues yesterday--trying to get decent pricing coming even close to matching the ridiculous low ball number which the State Farm "insurance adjuster" has thrown at me over a month ago.
It's been all I can do to restrain myself from grabbing hold of the little sucker and doing some "adjusting" of my own on his head and arms.
I'm really tired of wasting my time on such a simple project as this--getting a hail storm damaged roof replaced.
I guess that the main result which has come out of this irritating convoluted process is a vivid reminder of how inane and inept sales people are that are forced to deal with the "public" on a day in day out basis.
I've spent tens of millions of dollars personally/professionally through the years doing complicated industrial design and construction projects and I'm here to tell you that 99% of the idiots which have shown up at my door or that I've talked to on the telephone about replacing a simple roof would be escorted out of my office or kicked off of my job site the second they opened their mouths to utter a broken incorrect sentence if they were trying to sell products/services in the industrial/commercial market.
Not to insult my regular and "drive-by" readers because I know that if you are here longer than five seconds each day that you are by and large of a intelligent conservative bent...
But still...in a "chicken and egg" kind of question...I have to ask this.
I don't know if it's that the people in the consumer sales profession just start out feckless and stupid to begin with...
...or if it's a matter of dealing with the public all day every day--a group (the public) in this country many of which are becoming dumber and dumber on an ongoing basis--which causes them (thesalesmen sales persons) to be and act that way (stupid).
"Stupid is as stupid does" to quote Forrest Gump...but is "Stupid also contagious?"
Any way, I'm pretty much annoyed as heck at the entire process and ready to bring it all to a conclusion shortly. To that end, I finally found a company yesterday and if they can do what they say and get the insurance company to agree with their price, they have the job.
They're the same people that put our next door neighbor's roof on over two weeks ago without any heartburn for Danny.
In other news, I couldn't care less about the Weiner's weiner photo story any more. I've seen the photos over on gawker.com and my philosophy of "if you've seen one prick you've basically seen them all" still applies.
The little bastard should just resign and slither on back home if his wife will let him and let the country and the world and the media get on with worrying about something that really matters in the big picture (no pun intended.)
It's still hotter than a blast furnace and dryer than the Sahara Desert around here in Eastern Tennessee. We're having to water the plants and the garden every day and now the front lawn is starting to dry up and needs to see a sprinkler out on it shortly if we don't get some rain.
Even the Turbo Pup has been sitting inside instead of lounging out on her spot on the deck after about 10 AM each day. You have to wear flip flops because even the pressure treated wood will burn the bottoms of your feet.
I could use about a week on St. Simons Island--where it's ten degrees cooler each day recently--right now to recharge my spirits, but that's pretty much out of the question right now due to funding considerations.
That said, I guess I'll go take a nap for a few hours so I can get up early and plant another load of Tomato and Pepper plants before the thermometer hits 80 degrees.
I trust that you will have a LOVELY day, and regards Y'all...
I spent another three hours wrestling with homeowners insurance related issues yesterday--trying to get decent pricing coming even close to matching the ridiculous low ball number which the State Farm "insurance adjuster" has thrown at me over a month ago.
It's been all I can do to restrain myself from grabbing hold of the little sucker and doing some "adjusting" of my own on his head and arms.
I'm really tired of wasting my time on such a simple project as this--getting a hail storm damaged roof replaced.
I guess that the main result which has come out of this irritating convoluted process is a vivid reminder of how inane and inept sales people are that are forced to deal with the "public" on a day in day out basis.
I've spent tens of millions of dollars personally/professionally through the years doing complicated industrial design and construction projects and I'm here to tell you that 99% of the idiots which have shown up at my door or that I've talked to on the telephone about replacing a simple roof would be escorted out of my office or kicked off of my job site the second they opened their mouths to utter a broken incorrect sentence if they were trying to sell products/services in the industrial/commercial market.
Not to insult my regular and "drive-by" readers because I know that if you are here longer than five seconds each day that you are by and large of a intelligent conservative bent...
But still...in a "chicken and egg" kind of question...I have to ask this.
I don't know if it's that the people in the consumer sales profession just start out feckless and stupid to begin with...
...or if it's a matter of dealing with the public all day every day--a group (the public) in this country many of which are becoming dumber and dumber on an ongoing basis--which causes them (the
"Stupid is as stupid does" to quote Forrest Gump...but is "Stupid also contagious?"
Any way, I'm pretty much annoyed as heck at the entire process and ready to bring it all to a conclusion shortly. To that end, I finally found a company yesterday and if they can do what they say and get the insurance company to agree with their price, they have the job.
They're the same people that put our next door neighbor's roof on over two weeks ago without any heartburn for Danny.
In other news, I couldn't care less about the Weiner's weiner photo story any more. I've seen the photos over on gawker.com and my philosophy of "if you've seen one prick you've basically seen them all" still applies.
The little bastard should just resign and slither on back home if his wife will let him and let the country and the world and the media get on with worrying about something that really matters in the big picture (no pun intended.)
It's still hotter than a blast furnace and dryer than the Sahara Desert around here in Eastern Tennessee. We're having to water the plants and the garden every day and now the front lawn is starting to dry up and needs to see a sprinkler out on it shortly if we don't get some rain.
Even the Turbo Pup has been sitting inside instead of lounging out on her spot on the deck after about 10 AM each day. You have to wear flip flops because even the pressure treated wood will burn the bottoms of your feet.
I could use about a week on St. Simons Island--where it's ten degrees cooler each day recently--right now to recharge my spirits, but that's pretty much out of the question right now due to funding considerations.
That said, I guess I'll go take a nap for a few hours so I can get up early and plant another load of Tomato and Pepper plants before the thermometer hits 80 degrees.
I trust that you will have a LOVELY day, and regards Y'all...
Wednesday, June 08, 2011
...And In Local News...
So I see where the University of By-God Tennessee allowed their so-called "Athletic Director"...some idiot named Mike Hamilton to resign yesterday.
Big Mike gets almost $1,400,000 just to go away after presiding over a string of miscues and miss-steps and hiring and firing of Coaches and recruiting of various and sundry gangster Negro's and White Boys which have made me laugh my ass off at the collective "Student Athletes" and the "Athlitic Programs" here in Knoxtown.
The good news is that I guess that you can't refer to me as a "Tennessee Athletic Supporter" or a "Jock Strap Sniffer In General" or any other term or phraseology generally directed in the direction of people that give a flying shit about sports these days.
At this point in my life, I admit that I really Really REALLY just don't give a damn.
After living through almost 35 years as a Georgia Tech Fan,
and almost 40 years as a Fan of the Braves after Ted Turner bought Channel 17 in Atlanta and put them on Cable TBS...
and living and dieing with Leeman Bennet's Atlanta Falcons featuring Steve Bartkowski and Alfred Jenkins in the mid/late 1970's...
This morning I can't tell you where the Atlanta Braves are in the standings right now.
I laugh my ass off at the fumbling of the current day Falcons franchise with Dog Fighting Quarterbacks and early post season exits during playoff games they should win...
I can't tell you who is where in the NBA playoffs...a sport that starts during the end of one baseball season and doesn't end interminably until the start of the following baseball season...
and the world cup and soccer and polo and Lacrosse and golf and...
AHHHHH...
you can have it all as far as I'm concerned...I just don't have enough of a Damn to give anymore for inane stuff like that in this day in time.
Yet here in Knoxtown in Eastern Tennessee there are more Morons running around living and dieing on a daily basis worrying about "THE VOLS" and calling into Radio Talk Shows talking about "THE VOLS" and spending craploads of time and money worrying about reading about "THE VOLS" in the local newspaper...
when instead they should be worrying about our Country and our Economy and the wild eyed towel headed Islomofascist Jihadists that want to blow us all up.
And then there is this little prick Anthony Weiner who as of quitting time yesterday is still allowed to wander around the halls of the House of Representatives.
Seriously people...
Do we really want little shit heads like this pompous, egotistical liar with a bad case of "little man syndrome" working for us in Washington DC?
Even if you are dumb enough to live in NY City?
(Taking a big breath here boss...)
OK...as you can tell I'm in a quite pissy mood this evening, so I believe that I'll just go now and say "au revoir" Y'all
Monday, June 06, 2011
The Turbo Pup Sends Greetings From Her Pool...
"Come On In...The Water's Great"
That's one fine little dog I got there...don't you agree?
That's one fine little dog I got there...don't you agree?
Sunday, June 05, 2011
My Butt Is So Huge I Break Beds and Chairs
King Kong And I Should Hang Out Together...
So I wrote a really nice posting about the passing of James Arness on Friday. Then for some reason due some combination of Blogger software screw ups and Internet crap the whole thing disappeared before I could post it all, and I was too lazy to try to re-write it.
Then Saturday I managed--low...I ASPIRED-- TO JUST sit around doing virtually nothing all day if you don't count fiddling around on the computer doing some CAD work and working on some PLC software modifications.
The Turbo Pup and Pat and I did manage to wander out in the back yard and pick up a few hours of sunburn on the deck and in the pool.
So any way--back to my posting title--I have these three giant fake leather Office Depot/Staples office chairs sitting around the property, and apparently my giant 250 pound ASS has destroyed all three of them because they spend all of their time slowly sinking down to the lowest height setting and threatening to tip over and spill me and my cocktail into the floor at any given moment.
And these stupid plastic/Plexiglas "chair mats" they sell you are disintegrating in a awful fast manner under the chairs as they collapse under the weight of my blubber.
While I'm at it, Pat was asking why my side of our fancy expensive pillow top "KING SIZED" mattress was all lumpy and bumpy and screwed up, and my answer was?
MY GIANT HEAVY ASS broke IT , DAMMIT!
It totally sucks when just existing in the world wears people and things out at the rate I apparently erode my surroundings.
Is it just me?
So I wrote a really nice posting about the passing of James Arness on Friday. Then for some reason due some combination of Blogger software screw ups and Internet crap the whole thing disappeared before I could post it all, and I was too lazy to try to re-write it.
Then Saturday I managed--low...I ASPIRED-- TO JUST sit around doing virtually nothing all day if you don't count fiddling around on the computer doing some CAD work and working on some PLC software modifications.
The Turbo Pup and Pat and I did manage to wander out in the back yard and pick up a few hours of sunburn on the deck and in the pool.
So any way--back to my posting title--I have these three giant fake leather Office Depot/Staples office chairs sitting around the property, and apparently my giant 250 pound ASS has destroyed all three of them because they spend all of their time slowly sinking down to the lowest height setting and threatening to tip over and spill me and my cocktail into the floor at any given moment.
And these stupid plastic/Plexiglas "chair mats" they sell you are disintegrating in a awful fast manner under the chairs as they collapse under the weight of my blubber.
While I'm at it, Pat was asking why my side of our fancy expensive pillow top "KING SIZED" mattress was all lumpy and bumpy and screwed up, and my answer was?
MY GIANT HEAVY ASS broke IT , DAMMIT!
It totally sucks when just existing in the world wears people and things out at the rate I apparently erode my surroundings.
Is it just me?
