One of the things I have not done in decades is to

go off on a drunk.

None of this have a few cocktails stuff, but an old fashioned Old School rip-snorting bender.

Plastered by 10AM and carry it of for about two or three days and be as sick as a dog for a few days after.

I feel like doing it, but I am old and wise enough to know that being sick as a dog for a couple of days afterward isn't worth it.

Then again, I may have to find out if it IS worth it.

The above is bullshit, as I have no intention of doing that, but it is about the way I feel right now.

I just want to say the hell with it and crawl into a bottle.


my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

I now have high speed internet and that is a good thing.

Having suffered with dial up all these years I can sure see the difference.


my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

I am getting tired with big corporations using heroin

dealers lines to suck you in.

One of the things about having grown up in the sixties is that I survived the sixties. In fact, there is an old saying that if you remember the sixties, you were not there.

Guess what?

I suvived the sixties and I remember them well.

And one of the things I remember is the old skag dealer line: Have some, it's free.

Or at least at a cut rate.

I am gettingf sick and tired of dealing with the phone/cable/Internet companies that are trying to play me for some kind of sucker with the 'cheap introductory rates'.

Bundle your phone/internet/TV bill for $6.25/month for the first six months.

Then, like the low-life skag dealer that sees the Jones in you eyes and the snot running down your nose, he tells you that your habit is now $600/day.

No thanks.

Howzabout this?

Howzabout you charge me a fair rate from day one and keep it that way until I decide that I no longer need your service.

Howzabout instead of trying to make a quick buck, you go into business for the long haul and serve the public.

Betcha you'll do a lot better over the long haul.

Unless, of course, you are trying to steal a pile of cash and split to Rio and spend the rest of your days surrounded by bimbos in bikinis and high heels sitting on the beach.

Then you can go steal someone else's.

P.T. Barnum was right, but I am not one of the people he was referring to.

A couple of days ago I went and bought glasses. I was looking at a fairly expensive pair of frames and the tech looked at me and as an aside told me that a certain pair of bargain frames were the same ones but just didn't have the blessing of some nancy boy from Paris's name on them.

I saved a couple of bucks.

She made a couple of bucks a little down the road because I intend to go back there.

Then again, maybe good old PT Barnum WAS right. There's a sucker born every minute.

I'll admit it. I'm a sucker for good treatment.


my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

One of the things that has not changed for GIs is

cocoa powder issued in MREs.

A GI I met at Camp Perry last summer gave me a couple of MREs which went straight into my seabag and stayed there until I returned from duty in the Gulf of Mexico.

This morning curiosity overwhelmed me and I was looking at the cocoa beveage powder that most of us tossed aside back in the day. Back then I would often make it because unlike most of the guys, I carried a lightweight primus stove during field problems.

Anyway, I got out an old canteen cup and heated wwater and put the water into the bag, shook it and poured the results into a coffee cup.

It was just as terrible now as it was back in the days when we weree still eating up the last of the WW2/Korea rations.

Actually, it wasn't ALL that bad put into the proper perspective.

If you were in a restaurant and bought a cup, you would be incensed. However, if you were sitting in a muddy hole somewhere in sloppy weather and a buddy handed you a warm cup of it, you'd probably be grateful.

In one respect, it is sort of cool seeing that something hasn't changed since my day, but in another respect it sucks because the troops deserve better.

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There are three lines coming into the house, phone, cable TV and electricity. Soon there will be four as I am scheduled for high speed internet installation.

I went with FIOS because I just got the word that Verizon is doing away with DSL soon and as usual, the dirty bastards are not giving the public a 'heads up'.

I heard that they will sell DSL until the day before they remove it with little or no warning.

When that happens a lot of people will be forced to either find another ISP or switch to FIOS. Of course, being the easiest thing to do and feeling back to the wall, they will accept FIOS. What horseshit!

I hope someone sues the pants off of the bastards.

The only reason I went with FIOS is because some Verizon employee had the courtesy to tip me off.

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In other news, I think I am going to add to the butler's blog from time to time.
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I just looked at Tokies cremains and it has been a little over five years since the little guy passed away.

Time flies, yet there is hardly a day that goes by that I don't think about the little guy for a few minutes and smile when I think of some of the mischief we got into together.

I guess it won't be all that long until I get to hook up with him again at Rainbow bridge.

I miss the little guy.

There are instructions to slip the box of his cremains into my body bag and we will be buried at sea together by the United States Navy.

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my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

Who in the name of Sam Hill was Sam Hill, anyway?

Actually Sam Hill was some guy in CT that ran for some political office a whole bunch of times. I Googled it once and maybe I should again to refresh the details.

One of the things I have learned to do a long time ago when someone uses the "Who in the name of Sam Hill do you think you are" line is to stop them cold by asking them "Who is Sam Hill, anyway?".

It generally stops them cold.

Once years aago I was in for a pretty good chewing out and the boss started in with the Sam Hill business and when I asked him, he sidetracked and forgot to ream me out.

When he realized that I had sidetracked him he was too embarrassed to chase me down and beat on my ears.


I just heard that the produce manager is trying to find out why the cucumbers had stickers on them thaat read: For Rectal Use Only.

Hmmmm.

my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

The shortest distance between two

points is a straight line unless you are talking about going to the booby hatch. If that is the case, then the shortest distance is someone that is trying to save you from yourself.

There is nothing so maddening than someone that thinks that you are doing something wrong and steps in and screws up the entire detail.

Take the annual 'run the mower out of gas before you store it' job.

I took a piece of string and tied that stupid safety bail handle down after I had finished mowing the lawn and left it in the driveway.

Along came someone and untied the string, shutting the mower down before the gas had run out of it.

I was fortunate because I checked the tank so I could simply start it up and start to continue where I left off. I had no intention of standing next to the damned thing for a half-hour as I had better things to do like sit on my ass somewhere and goof off.

Fat chance.

Someone shut it down again.

Of course I had to hang around while the damned thing ran until I ran out of gas which took forever and a day. During which the person that shut me down came by and told me how they saved me gas and made things safe by removing the string and told me how I shouldn't override safety devices.

Of course, I politely explained to this poor misguided soul what I was doing and got a safety llecture in return and about how I should make the world safe for his children.

I told him simply to teach his children to leave other peoples stuff alone, fired the damned thing up and taped the bail handle and explained tht an old man that owned a baseball bat was a hell of a lot more dangerous than an unattended lawn mower.

I think he understood that because when I returned the mower was out of gas.

As usual a twenty minute job had takem me all afternoon.

my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

A pretty good day to die.

I just got back in from a round of errands.

En route I took a wrong turn and picked a driveway at random to turn around it.

The idiot that owned thee place took exception and came running out and started making an issue out of it.

I listened to him with the exagerated courtesy that some bored thug might give a police officer, sort of like Lee Marvin might do in one of his movies. The Wild One comes to mind. Marvin played a bit part in it.

When the idiot realized I was paying him no mind, he accused me of being a smart ass, and I confessed that I most certainly was.

Then I suggested that maybe he had better things to do rather than stay up all hours guarding his driveway from the odd lost motorist using it as a place to simply turn around.

He got huffy.

This is a 35 year old mouth breather and in terrible shape.

I decided to keep my cool and teach a little school.

"Sonny," I said. "I am a fifty-nine year old man and I'm in a lot better shape than you. I come from a short lived family, all of whom have died before they turned 55. I am on borrowed time and have just gotten my affairs in order. I can now die in peace."

"It is my desire, I continued calmly, "To die in handcuffs of a heart attack in the back seat of a police car on the way to jail having taught someone like you both a few manners and given him a sense of what is getting upset over."

Then I looked up and around for a few seconds and then looked him in the eye and gave him a warm smile.

"It looks like a good day for me to die," I said.

It took a couple seconds for it to sink in and he turned ashen and took a step back.

With that, I slipped the clutch, backed into the street and with him still looking at me agape, I drove off.

I hope my little lesson sunk in.




my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

I hate small engines.

I am getting ready for the Annual Chip-a-thon in the back yard.

This is the one time a year I go into the way-back and level all of the growth of the pasy year. Weeds, suckers, poison ivy,small children hiding in the bushes, it all gets ground up with an old lawn mower.

Personally, I have no problems with my lawn mower because at the end of the season I run it out of gas and when the regular gas runs out I stuff a good shot of starting fluid in the tank and run it on that until it runs out.

That way the next season the carburator isn't gummed up with stale gasoline.

Of course, I am one of a very few on the face of the planet Earth that does this, even though everyone and their cousin says they do but just seems to forget come mid October.

The small engine shop makes a fortune on that kind of stupidity.

Anyway, the old lawn mower I used to use cratered last year aafter a couple of seasons of major abuse. Mowere are not designed to cut down old growth timber, but if you are patient you can chew up, say a 3/4 inch sapling.

This means I generally have a spare mower, a Craigslist $20 special booting around for this purpose.

I just got a freebie from someone and I know the valves, pistons, etc work because I just got it started on starting ether, telling me that someone put the damned thing away back at the turn of the century with gas in the tank.

When I opened the seacock on the bottom of the bowl, varnih in the form of old gas oozed out.

I knew I had to clean out the carburator and that means the logistics get set in place.

Tools: Check.
Spare gas: check.
Starting fluid: 5 cans. Check.
Colemman fuel: check

Next comes the Chinese puzzle of taking the pleostone era machine apart and a mass of stuck parts and God knows what else. We'll see.

As I write, I have the carb off and it is soaking in a mixture of Coleman fuel and starting ether.The float valve seems to be working OK and I still taste a touch of gasoline in my mouth from where I blew into the fuel line to test the float valve.

I hope this is the last year I have to use a lawn mower in the way-back, but a brush hog costs a fortune.

Then again, I have a guy down the street that is getting too old to use his and has made sounds about selling it cheap.

As soon as I get this mower running I am going to go down the street and check into it.

Maybe if I''m lucky he's feeling a little more poorly today and I can get a deal and a good machine for the Annual Chip-a-thon.

Of course, I'd just bet the jerk put the thing away a couple of seasons ago with gas still in the tank.




my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

I woke up early ansd I guess that is a good thing.

My morning coffee tastes pretty good and I am enjoying it in my bedroom as I write this.

Last tour I put on a couple pounds and I decided that instead of gently losing them, it's back on the diet and crash them off.

This, of course, means that everyone and their cousin will invite me to dinner on the night they are serving that all time favorite cholesterol and carb filled greasy gut bomb, one serving of which is an instant 12 pounds and three inches on the waist.

I just got lucky twice.

I have been invited to a Jim Beam steak dinner by a Marine.

This is a good deal because Marines understand a number of things.

They understand weight control and drunk drining tickets, both of which are mortal sins in thee Corps.

I'll probably be fed about five puonds of steak and a salad, both of which are permitted in my diet. There will be a before dinner cocktail, which is OK because after that a decision will be made; either stop drinking or crash on the couch.

Of course, a couple of hours before he called, I had just put my last piece of venison in the crock pot, and at first I almost refused the invite so as not to waste the last of my venison. Then I remembered something else about crock pot venison.

It's better the second time around.

I just turned off the crock pot and when it cools down in a while it'll go into the refrigerator.

Sounds like a win/win deal.



In other Gnus.

One of the older guys down the street isn't doing too well and is starting to get rid of stuff, which sucks for him but might be a good deal for me.

His shed houses a number of machines, several of which I can use.

The machines are probably in pretty good shape as they have been in a shed unused for several years. Of course, I'll probably have to ungum carburators, which is generally pretty easy with starting ether.

One of the drawbacks to old machinery, though, is the availability of parts.

It's like getting a fifty year old 'barn car' with 5000 miles on it for cheap.

It may be a good deal on the outside, but you can bet your ass every part you need to maintain it is going to have to be ordered and will be expensive.

I guess what I'll do with the stuff if I decide to take it is simply use it until it craps out and then toss it or Craigslist it cheap.

Yesterday my Brother in law gave me an old lawn mower that I planned to destroy by using in the backyard to knock the weeds down, and a couple hours later I got offered a deal on the neighbors brush hog. Go figure.If I get the brush hog, I'll probably use the mower for touching up rough areas in the upper yard.


More gnus.

Yesterday I saw an old school '32 three window coupe hot rod. It was pretty neat and the owner/builder had busted his tail building it from scratch.

You don't see very many old school hot rods these days, yet there is one thing I have noticed about the ones I have seen recently that is wierd.

Most of them now are being built with automatic transmissions, which makes little sense as old school hot rods were traditionally built with four-speed gearboxes back in the day.

I don't know why they are putting automatics in them these days.

The engine, however, was totally mechanical with one minor exception and that is electronic ignition. As a guy that has hunched over the hood in the rain with a screwdriver and a matchbook cover more times than I can remember, I take his point.

I guess he has it registered somehow as to be exempt from emission inspection.

It was a joy listening to the old-school beast light off and the rumbling of the engine with a race cam in it. The Cherry bomb mufflers sounded good, too.

By the way, it's been a long time since I have seen a set of headers that can be uncapped so as to be able to bypass the muffler.

It's been too long since I have heard someone say, "Let's uncap the headers and head down to Thunder Alley".

Hell, under the right conditions, I'd volunteer to be the race starter. Give me the flashlight.

Ready!

GO!!




Oh, yeah. My hair is too short for a DA and jellyroll, but I suppose I could still roll a pack of Luckies up in my T-shirt sleeve.












my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

I am already busy as all hell

and dealing with insurance companies is a nuisance.

When this hash I am in the middle of is over and done with, I will post the goings ons and the mechanics of it to make it easier for anyone that ever has to deal with such a mess.


my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

One of the things I have gotten used to is the cell

phone and the aggravation that goes with it.

During the first year or so, I would get angry with the damned things and simply throw them over the side.

I haven't done that in well over a year, and I am now wondering why as I write this.

The old ones were pretty cheap and I could afford to.

The new ones are not so cheap, yet they still have a knack of aggravating me.

I suppose the reason I have learned to curb my temper with the damned things is because I can no longer afford the luxury of sendiing one to Davy Jones locker anymore.


my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

It is 0630 and I have been up for about an hour

and I feel pretty good this morning.

My system seems to have returned to normal, which is good. All it has taken is a good night's sleep and a good meal.

I keep saying that it doesn't take much, and that is true enough.

One of the things I have noticed over the years is that I generally live better than most people under different conditions. The flight from Atlanta to Philly is a pretty good example.

The airplane was under-loaded and there were quite a number of empty seats on it, yet I had managed to be assigned a center seat with a persoon on either side.

I looked around and saw an entiree row that was empty and the second they closed the doors, I went straight for it and grabbed the center seat and buckled up so that there was a seat belt across my middle fairly snugly when I sprawled out across the three seats. I fell asleep instantly and I guess they must have decided to leave me alone for takeoff because I don't remember it, which is good. I must have slept well for a little more than an hour.

It astonishes me as to how many people will not get up and take advantage of a good situation like that and will stay in their assigned seats no matter what.

There are a lot of people that, being stuck between two stinky old winos will sit there and not say a word.

While I am not of the ilk to start a July Fourth fistfight over something as petty as aseat assignment, I certainly will take advantage of an empty row on a flight with no reservations.

Over the years I have found that there is nothing whatsoever with taking comfort where you find it. One does not have to practice being miserably, because that comes as natural as breathing does so you might as well be comfortable when you can.

Who knows?

Maybe the next flight I will be stuffed in between two real overweight people for six or eight hours like a sardine, so I might just as well be comfortable when I can.


my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

When I went through TSA the ohter day one of the

inspectors noticed I had one of thost things you plug into an electrical outlet that gives you three outllets. I forgot what they are called.

He looked curious and asked me why I was carrying it, which is fair enough.

I explained that in places like airports that there are limited places to plug in cell phone chargers and laptops and that the outlets are often occupied.

He thought that was pretty cool and said he was going to get one for when he traveled.

If you have one of those little devices you can get to share an outlet an outlet and the guy that got there first really can't complain. After all, he can still use the outlet without interference.

I have carried one for a while and generally people are pretty good about sharing the outlet IF you can make it work without interfering with the person that has already staked it out.

Most people are pretty good about sharing an outlet in places like airports and I have done that a few times without complaint.

One time, and only once, I met a jerk who didn't want to share.

I simply unpluged him and pluged his cord into the splitter, plugged mine into the splitter and plugged it into the socket and told him to simply go about his business. He bellyached until I asked him how he wanted to handle the problem that didn't exist except for in his own mind.

I told him we could either settle it so he could no longer chew food or we could call a cop, his choice. Pick one, his choice.

It was a real lose situation for him and he bellyached that he had business to take care of on his laptop, so I simply told him to take care of it. After all, he had power.

When he grumbled some more, I told him that we ought to call a cop and held up my cell phone.

I guess he wasn't totally stupid. I think he realized that the cop would make us BOTH unplug and leave, so he caved in.

Everyone else actulaay seemed glad to share with me because I wasn't going to cause them any grief.

I guess most people like the man with the plan and once in a blue moon I am.

I wish I was more often, though.








my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

The fastest way to recieve a phone call on a cell phone

is to be talking to someone else.

Thee whole process is a hassle because generally the person you are talking to does not understand that the person calling is further up the needs chain then they are.

For example, you can get a call from someone that wants to tell you something very important, such as what color tie Sweeney wore to church last Sunday and then you get a call on call waiting that you recognize as number of the person from the state that is going to explain to you how to pick up the quarter-billion dollars you just won in the lottery.

Whenyoutryandquicklyexplainthatyouwillcallback because you have to take care of this the person either wants to try finish the call or gets upset.

Never fails.

This has happened to me three times in the last 2 hours and this is my first day home.

This is the day I want to chill and decompress and do NOTHING.

Fat chance that will ever happen because the instant I arrive home everyone except Neighbor Bob wants a piece of me.

Neighbor Bob seems to get it, though. When he called he just wanted to make sure that I didn't need a case of beer, and that if I did, he'd snag me one.

That I can easily live with.

Incidentally, the first interrupted call was Neighbor Bob's. When he heard I had something on call waiting, he just snapped 'call me back when you're done.' and hung up.

I wish more people were like Neighbor Bob in that respect.

By the way, the tie Sweeney wore to church was one of those old hand painted ones from the 40s that was about a foot wide and had a hula girl painted on it.He's about 90 now and quite a character.



my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

The longest part of the tour has started.

it is 0730 and the relief crew is due here at about noon after which I go for a nice plane ride, which I really don't care for anymore. I used to love to fly and I still do, but not comercially. The TSA hassle is not worth it.

Anyway, the last watch seems to take more time than the rest of the entire tour did.

I think what I am going to do is overnight in Philly before I leave because leaving Philly for home in the evening will meaan I have to deal with dragging ass all the way home sleepless and a 0400 arrival which sucks bigtime.

Better to wake up and leave with some sleep under my belt.

One thing I generally don't get, which is common for seamen is a disease called 'channel fever'. It generally hits a guy when he is close to getting off and going home and the symptoms are an inability to sleep. I suppose some hifalutin' shrink had some sort of anxiety related name on it of some sort.

Still, I have been on a 6 on/off watch system for 2 weeks now and that really meand that I am not going to be 100% when I get off.

The cure, of course, is a double shot of brandy and a good night's sleep on a decent schedule like sacking out and waking up at a reasonable hour to get back on a shoreside schedule.

Anyway, it is now 0815 and noon is a light-year away.

One other thing: Airport food isn't the best fare in the world, either.
my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

Another day goes on and I am closer to going home

which is a good deal.

I have a lot to do when I get home, thanks to some damned fool that plowed into me when I was up in Massachusetts.

I have to get the truck fixed and I doubt that the body shop will be able to do it inside of the time I have off. This means I have to drive the damned Miata to work and that is a very long haul for the little car.

I will be as sore as all hell when I arrive at work and I will also be damned sore when I arrive home after the tour. Then again, when I get off it will be sometime in mid October, when the ait in Pennsylvania is clear and crisp and I will have an enjoyable ride home through the mountains, so I suppose all is not lost. I'll take my time going home and make several stops.

There is a bed and breakfast along the route and it might be a pretty good place to stop off at because the tavern there serves a pretty good buffalo burger and if there is any meat I like better than buffalo, I do not know what it is.

ALso at home there are a couple of rooms to paint and I intend to knock those out most riki-tik. Last winter there was some ice dam damage and the living room ceiling got heavily water damaged. I've repaired it, but it needs a couple of coats of paint.

There are also a couple of books for me to read evenings and there is also a fresh, unopened bottle of Laphroaig single malt waiting for me to give the taste test to.

I guess I will be pretty busy as far as things go when I get home.

It's sure been a quiet summer here at work and summer was sort of depressing after the initial rush of getting a new roof on the house. The depressing part is that I did not get my annuals planted because there wass discussion regarding the planting of perrenials and that got put off one day at a time. Next year I'm planting marigolds and petunias and the hell with what plans anyone else has.

I also have to get glasses which is no really big deal, except that I an hoping I do not need a new prescription because procrastination has kept me from going and I wonder if the script is outdated. Probably. We'll see.

I used to have a lot of free time, but that was then and now things are there to do and there is a winter to get ready for and if this winter is even nearly half as bad as ast winter, then I am in for a lot of work.

I swear, if I won the lottery or something I would have 2 homes, one of which would be somewhere waarm. I hate winters with a passion, which is a change. I used to love winter.

One thing, though, we need a winter trip up the Hudson River after it ices up to scrape the barnacles off the hull of this slab. The Gulf of Mexico has really fouled the bottom.

As soon as deer season opens I have to see if I can get one of the guys to snag me a good sized chunk of venison to feed me over the winter. Although I eat a lot of fish, I do need some serious red meat every so often and although beef satisfies, it is nowhere near as good for the system as venison.

Although when deer season comes around I am apt to go out a couple of times, the chances of me getting a deer are pretty slim as I have not yet been able to get one to jump into the bed of my pickup and let me shoot it and I am getting too old(or maybe smart) to shoot one and have to drag it five miles to my truck. Also the pickup I own doesn't have a rifle rest built in to the driver's side window, either.

Nope, I guess I'm going to have to get one of the young guys to fix me up with a hindquarter or maybe, if I get lucky, a backstrap or two.

I screwed up this last summer and forgot to buy a snow blower and now the prices on Craigslist are going up and up. I was hoping to snag a fairly new 110 volt electric start for cheap, but it's now too late. All I can do is pray we don't get hit hard again this winter.

All in all, I am going to be pretty busy for a while.



my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

I just checked my schedule and it looks

like I am going to be home for Halloween which is a pretty good deal because I give out candy to the kids and Hot Buttered Rum to the accompanying gownups.

Now there is always one person out there that is going to try and ruin things for everyone else. That parucular someone will start caterwallering about how I am setting a bad example for children by giving away the Hot Buttered Rums to the adults.

This year I have a very short list of likely candidates and they are going to have a pretty sore ear on All Saints Day the morning thay wake up from the ear beating they are going to get from me. The person that complains is going to get to see something live and in person that none of you readers have seen, with the exception of maybe my kid sister.

Two years ago it was a circus in my garage and I almost got to referee a pretty good catfight, but I think that that is unlikely to happen this again. The woman that wanted to tear her a new one probably won't be out with her kids this year because they have started to grow up a bit.

This year I think that if Claris shows up again I am going to be on my own and it ain't gonna be very pretty. She's gonna get thrown out on here ass, plain and simple.

People like that are the reason life isn't a lot more fun.

These do-gooders think that they know what is good for everyone else so they make sure that they push their crap on everyone else and ruin everything in their path.

This year Claris is going to find out what is good for her. She's going to find out that trying to impose her way of life on someone else isn't really a very good idea.

If she tries to go the route involving the system, she is going to find out something else.

I am a trained guerilla fighter. I cheat.

She is also going to find out that I have a pretty good support system in the neighborhood, too.






my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

Today is going to be a long day and so is tomorrow

so I have deemed that a good breakfast is in order.

Right now I am cooking a huge dinner sized steak and I'll toss a couple of fried eggs on top of it to boot.

As usual, when it rains, it pours.

I have a lot to do today and that is that. I won't have time for lunch or other stuff, so a good breakfast is essential today.

I amaze myself for being an old man in that I can still eat like a teenager when the need arises.

Happy day after International talk like a pirate Day. I had fun yesterday.


my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

One of the languages I am fairly fluent in

is military acronymms and terms.

A while back I was yakking away with an Army Sergeant First Class of Military Police regarding a few of his interesting experiences in Iraq.

One of the subjects that came up was the role of women and it was interesting to note that he told me his faavorite patrol partner was a farm girl from the midwest somewhere. Apparently this woman had paid attention during the martial arts classes the Army gives its military policemen.

Anyway, I asked the sergeant, "Big girl?"

"Yes," said the sergeant, "Actually she cleans up pretty good...Uh... the term 'cleans up means..."

"Sergeant," I interrupted, "I'm pretty fluent in Army creole. I know exactly what you mean by that term.It is not disrespectful. It simply means that she can be reasonably attractive when she gets into civvies.Please carry on."

His face lit up and he went on and explained that the reason he liked having her as a partner is because she was both capable and female.

He occasionally used her to do his 'light work' because he understood Arabic culture.

Every so often the two of them would come across either an Al Quida-type suspect or someone that was outright rude and needed a comuppence. Generally these were Arabic males between about 18 and, say, 35.

The good sergeant would speak to the suspect and if he lipped off, he would shake his head and walkoff and hook his thumb while telling his female partner to take care of the light work.

It would only take the woman a couple of seconds to make the guy kiss the dirt and cry out in shame and pain.

This was especially effective if the incident took place where a lot of people could see it because the guy who was now on his belly with his face in the dirt would be quite humiliated at being publicly taken down by a mere woman.

It was an interesting way of doing things and seems to make sense. When you take a guy like that down in such a way you generally knock the starch out of him and generally he is likely to think twice before he does something stupid again. It also give him a healthy respect for the Military Police, and that is a good thing.

I popped the idea on him about throwing together an all female rifle battalion and turning them loose in Afghanistan with all the supporting arms they could possibly need. He said he has thought about that idea off and on for some time and can't quite make up his mind about it, although he said he was probably against it, all things considered.

We agreed that it would be a humiliation to the Al Quida forces to be stomped by women, and thet they would lose a lot of respect, but there are other considerations to take into account. Still, in that context, we both agreed it was worth at least some consideration if only for the psycological aspect alone.

I asked him if there would be a shortage of volunteers among the female ranks of the Army to enter the ranks of the Infantry and he grinned and said he didn't think so.

All in all, it was an interesting conversation and I think I broke the ice simply because I'm fairly fluent in what Tom Wolfe once referred to as Army Creole.




my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

Tomorrow is International talk like a pirate Day,

which seems like a good thing to me.

For me it is a paid holiday in that I work on it, and therefore will be getting paid for it, which is OK by me.

This is about the dopiest holiday I can think of, and for me it is a holiday because it is listed as such on the company calendar. Someone well up the food chain likes pirate things and has a pretty good sense of humor, so I guess he decreed that it be added to the company calendar.

Still, though, some of the dopiest things in the world can be the most satisfying.

Years ago I had an employer that paid a few holidays, which was a lot more than I expected from such a small fly-by-night company consisting of two or three employees. I remember July 4th was one of them, but Christmas and New Year's were not. The man had an interesting outlook on religious holidays and that was fine by me. It was his company, and not mine.

This was before International talk like a pirate Day had been invented.

I'd just bet that if it existed that he very well might have made it some sort of paid holiday just for the sake of plain old being different and difficult. He was that kind of guy.

Actually, I liked him. People like that entertain me and make me laugh.

Then again, the part of life in Alaska I found that was so amusing was the number of crackpots that were up there trying out half-baked ideas, many of which revolved around catching fish...but not all of them

I once worked for a skipper that wanted to take his boat and head to Nome and set up some kind of 'suck up the sand from the bottom of the surf line and wash any gold he picked up in the sand' system. He described the system he had devised and it was really fascinating. I had a pretty good idea that it would work all right becasue it was fairly simple, and simple generally works.

My thought was that the problem would lie in simply locating a sandy bottom to use the sucker-uppper on, but he had already done his homework and knew which parts of the beach off of Nome had sandy bottoms suitable for his little invention.

I actually offered to go with him on that venture because it sounded interesting, but it came when I was leaving town on my sailboat so I never found out what happened. I hope he did it and I hope he made out.

While catching fish can be good money, there is a certain style to making your fortune by finding gold.

Personally, given my druthers, I would rather make two million finding gold than make three miillion catching fish.

Job satisfaction is important to me, which, I suppose, has a lot to do with why I am out here being a sailor rather than being home every night. I like it. There is a pretty smug, satisfied look on my face when someone asks me what I do for a living and I tell them I am a sailor.

Anyway, this is turning into a ramble, which is fun sometimes even though probably make no sense.

Neither does International talk like a pirate Day, but it's still enjoyable.

Enjoy.


my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

Yes, the picture in my profile really is me.

It wasn't taken all that long ago.

I wasn't defending the woman behind me, as nobady was going to do her any kind of harm.

I was defending the rights of a homeless cat that is not in the picture.

Some teenagger had been tormenting him and I gave the little yard-ape a boot in the ass and sent him tumbling. When his indignant father asked me how I would do against someone my own size, I handed him a sword and drew mine.

He decided that maybe this wasn't a good idea and I leter found out that when he got his kid home, he beat the little bastards ass.

After things settled down, the woman in the picture took the cat home and has had her as a pet since.

Don't you just love stories with a happy ending?





One other thing. The reason I don't have a pencil thin moustache is because if I did, I would not look like the swashbuckler thar I am.

I would look like a little Italian organ grinder.

Check it out. You'll agree.










my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

The most comments I have ever had was on my recent post

the other day about how I want my country back.

Interesting. There must be a lot of other people that feel the same way I do.

This past July fourth a couple of us old goaats struck a blow for liberty. It was as illegal as hell, and if I was caught there probably been hell to pay.

It started in June at a rifle match full of retired old guys and a couple of youngsters that had just gotten out of school. There was a lad there of about fifteen years with his grandfather and he was asking me how it was back in the day

I spoke a little about kids hunting and fishing and doing things and reminisced about the time I spread eagled out over a pile of brush in a pickup to keep it from being blown out of the bed.

The youngsters graandfather pointed out that i woulden't be able to do that these days with all the safety rules presently in place.

Another old guy said that it was a shame that today's kids would never know about riding in the back of a pickup on a summer's night.

"Just sneak them out into the country and do it," I said. If you are careful, nobody will be the wiser."

They both admitted they didn't own pickups.

My mouth got away from me. "Call me around the fourth of July," I said, pointing at my pickup.

I'll be a sonuvabitch, the night I got home from sea, I got a call asking me if the deal was still on.

I am good for my word. I told him to call the other guy I had been shooting with and he did. The second man called me and the three of us met and planned a nice little clandestine opeeration over beers on my porch. It was agreed that the parents would be aware of what was going to take place. I wass't going to add that to an already potentially long list of charges.

The following evening, well out of town, the two old duffers met me along with a total of six of their grandkids and they clambered into the bed of my pickup. One of the two grandfathers parked his car and hopped in with me. The other grandfather fllew 'chase plane' in case anything went wrong.

The signal he gave the kids was that if he turned his interior light on, they were all to duck dowwn beneath the level of the bed.

We took off and started through the country roads and the kids acted very well. They had been told that they were going to have a once in a lifetime experience and if anyone got out of line, they would be put straight into the chase car and that would be that.

It was a joy to be driving through farm country just after the sun had set and the laughter and squeals of delight were a joy to hear. I have no kids of my own and once in a while it's nice to hear them have fun because it takes me back to my wonderful boyhood.

The kids truly enjoyed the sights and the smells and the wind whistling past them, and i was glad for that.

Then we returned and the grandfathers took their kids home and swung by and the three of us struck another blow for liberty.

We had a drink on my porch and yakked for a while about how good it was to be able to share a little piece of our childhoods with a half-dozen of today's kids.

We're thinking of doing it again next summer.



my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

There are a few things that can be used to date a

person, or at least see if they have the same kind of background that you do.

I recently posted a poll in a certain website asking what a person shoud do with a 1960s B-52 aircraft survival kit.

62% of the respondents answered that you take it to Vegas for a weekend.

Several of them quoted the contents by heart.


Survival kit contents check. In them you'll find:

- One forty-five caliber automatic
- Two boxes of ammunition
- Four days' concentrated emergency rations
- One drug issue containing antibiotics, morphine,
vitamin pills, pep pills, sleeping pills, tranquilizer pills
- One miniature combination Russian phrase book and Bible
- One hundred dollars in rubles
- One hundred dollars in gold
- Nine packs of chewing gum
- One issue of prophylactics
- Three lipsticks
- Three pair of nylon stockings.

"Shoot, a fella could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all of that stuff."


Of course, the question was a reference to the movie "Dr. Strangelove" where Major Kong is headed off to war on a mission to bomb the Russiand. It is a classic of the early sixties.

Most of the guys that picked up on my tongue in cheek question were older, but it was refreshing to see that a number of the respondents were fairly young.









my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

One thing I have seen in this world are dreamers.

While I was living on and cruising my sailboat in my thirties, there were a lot of people that I would run into that wold ask me questions about my lifestyle and how I was going about it.

I would tell them simply to buy a boat and just start doing it, if that was their dream.

Of course, they would generally tell me that they were saving up for a sixty-five footer so they could 'do it right'.

When I would hear the sixty-five footer line, I knew then and there that I was having my time wasted because there was no way in hell they were going to come up with that kind of money in their lifetime.

My boat, Karen Lee, was a 24 foot, 7 inch Sailstar Corsair, also commonly referred to as a Bristol 25. Built in 1969, she was a full keeled cruiser that displaced 5820 pounds. I bought her in Everett, Washington and learned how to sail by bringing her up the Inside Passage and crossing the Gulf of Alaska to Kodiak.

She didn't cost a whole hell of a lot, and the same model boat is still out there on the used market for a hell of a lot less than I paid for her back in the day.

She cost me $8750 and I managed to save that money over a period of time by living rent free and living off of things I could get for free in Kodiak. I had to survive on venison, halibut, king crab, salmon and shrimp. Poor baby.

I outfitted her in Port Townsend, WA and two of us sailed her north, leaving P.T. on D-day and arriving in Kodiak in early-mid September. My sailing partner was a bush pilot/fisherman that went with me simply for the adventure.

It was a trip I will never forget because we were obviously in no hurrry and had a ball. We left with an exceptionally small amount of money and bartered and wheeled and dealed our way up the inside passage on no particular schedule.

We worked, lived, loafed and cruised up the inside passage, crossed the Gulf of Alaska, had a ball and one hell of an interesting adventure. We improvised, made do, traded, bartered, worked odd jobs as they came along and

All this took place while the pipe dreamers sat on their asses and ran their mouths about what they were going to do when 'it all came together'.

It wasn't the sixty-five footer all of the pipe dreamers spoke of, it was a puddle-jumper that I had turned from a weekend cruiser to a blue-water long haul cruising sailboat for peanuts, a lot of trading, scrounging and a lot of sweat and work.

Over the years a lot of people have wondered why I seem to have so many adventure tales to tell. The reason is simply that I when I found something that interested me, I simply went out and did it.

Sure, I was swimming upstream and I certainly took the road less traveled, and a lot of people looked at me like I was an odd duck, but it has been twenty-five years since I bought Karen Lee and sailed her like a madman. I sold her two decades ago and I have my memories.

Two bucks to a stale Krispy Kreme says that the pipe dreamers waiting for their ship to come in are still sitting at the bar somewhere waiting for it all to come together.



my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

I want my goddamned country back.

and I want it now.



I'm sick and tired of supporting every lousy low-life that's either too stupid or lazy to get off their ass ad take care of themselves. I'm tired of every single forn of misbehavior being diagnosed as a disease and legitimized.



I want the cure for the so-called disease that leads to poor behavior administered. The best one I can think of is fear. Fear of pain works, fear of incarceration works, too.



I'm tired of realizing that I had better arrange my furniture so that if someone tries to steal my TV and trips over my coffee table I can be sued,



I want to got back to a world where if someone is in my house with no business being there I can shoot him dead and have the police cart the body off and compliment me on my marksmanship.



I want to be able to go to the funeral of a dead GI without having to look over my shoulder to see if someone is going to arrive and make a mockery of it.



I want to return to a world where the Muslim community wouldn't even think of doing something as tasteless as building a mosque near Ground Zero.



I want the Westboro Baptist Church to burn down.



I want to be able to have the Muslim down the street join the Jew up the street and have a dinner or drinks or something on my porch and watch a fire and we complain about how old we are getting.



I want to go back to a country where we are not burying our children in their teens because I am tired of seeing GIs return in a box.



I'm tired of everyone stuffing their religion, sex, color, creed, national origin in my face or making some kind of statement. To the feminazi that told me she can hold her own door, excuse me for mistaking you as being a member of the human race.



I want my country back and I want it now.



I want kids of all faiths to be able to pray in school.



I want to hear kids pledge allegiance to the flag again.



I want a return to manners and basic civility. I want to hear words like 'please' and 'thank you' and 'excuse me'.



I want the streets safe, or at least the right to protect myself without having to spend my life savings to stay out of jail if I do have to defend myself against some savage that doesn't belong on the planet, anyway.



I want the damned government out of my bedroom, my house, my neighborhood and out of my life.



I damned well don't want to be told I can't chew gum unless I brought enough for everyone else. I'll share my gum with who I choose to, if anyone at all. It's my gum.



I'm damned well tired of listening to some imbicile play the race card.



I want the gay community to simply go about their business in a quiet and decent way. I'm tired of having anyone's sexuality thrust in my face.



I want to have the black guy six doors down, you know him, he's the guy that came home from work last winter and saw me busting my ass and helped me get my pickup out of the snowbank., to feel like he can stop by and have a cold one on my porch.



I want the United States Navy to shell the ports that pirates work out of if the host country won't try and stop them.



I want this idiot we call a president OUT of the oval office.



I want every single illegal immigrant out of the country and I want them out NOW!

I want to see Jesse Jackson get a real job and I want to watch Al Sharpton get beset upon by an angry mob.


I want to be able to have a life and be able to retire without the damned government taking my hard earned money and giving it to someone else that hasn't lifted a finger to take care of themselves. At this rate I won't be able to retire until I' m 104 years old.



I want to see neighborhoods clean themselves up by simply not tolorating crime and making it so hard for criminals that they leave.



I want to see the police cart off the real criminal and not the honest Joe that tried to protect his home and property.



I want to see a president like Ronald Reagan back in office because I just KNOW he won't tolorate any little banana republic trying to push us around.



I want to see the entire crew of the Sea Shepherd arrested, tried and convicted of piracy.



I want PETA to go away and leave me to my steak dinner.



I want people that go looking for trouble to find more than they were bargaining for.



I want boys to dress like boys instead of looking like little convicts.



I want men to dress like men instead of like damned teenagers.



I want girls to dress like girls instead of little sluts.



I want women to dress like women instead of trying to look like they're still 19 years old. Theres a quiet dignity to an older woman that i do not see enough of.

I want to be able to throw a couple kids in the back of a pickup and take them for a ride on a sultry evening without having the child protection people wanting to throw me in jail. I got to ride in the back of a pickup as a kid and it's a memory that ought to be passed on.

I want the woman I got stuck behind ai line at Wal Mart to start wearing a burka.

I want parents who have their kid caught red-handed in a stolen car full of drugs with a stolen .357 in his belt to ask themselves where they went wrong instead of looking there saying that their kid didn't do anything wrong.

I want my country back.




























I want to be able to





my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

I am of the mind to post some of the totally whacked

out stuff I was a part of in my twenties and early thirties when I lived in Alasks.

The reason I don't is because anyone that reads about it will 100% believe I am making the stories up.

When I first came to work here I told a few of the guys that asked me about it some of the things I saw during my 20s and early 30 in Alaska when I lived there. Nobody believed ma and a few went so far as to call me an out and out liar.

A couple of years later I met a guy I knew from the old days and the pair of us sat on the pipeline of a tank barge reminiscing. A couple of the guys I worked with listened in and were dumbfounded.

Word went through the fleet. "He wasn't making that stuff up!" was repeated numerous times.

Some of it is just plain out and out insanity makes no sense until you think about the people that I was with.

Most of them honestly had figured that there was no way in hell they were ever going to see thirty and so they threw ant sembelence of caution to the wind. Many of them were right. They never made it to thirty.

There was a motley crew of Vietnam vets there, and some had seen extensive action and I would imagine there ware more than one suffering from 'survivor's guilt' and I would have to say that post-traumatic stress syndrne was somewhat common.

There was also one guy I knew that had fought at Cassino during WW2 and he told me once that after that fight he felt that the entire rest of his life had been gravy.

The non veteran population also had a large group of just plain wild devil may care guys, some pretty decent, some out and out low-lifes.

It was an insane mixture and putting a group like that on one island with an opportunity to make good money, bars open 21 hours a day, an ample supply of drugs and with minimal police supervision was a sure recipe for chaos and bedlam.

Emotions over some things ran pretty high and there was more than one murder there. As I think back on it, I am surprised I wasn't shot for some of the stunts I pulled.

I'm going to think about it a while before I post any of this stuff here, but maybe I will.

We'll see.



my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

Someone recently asked me if I had ever been sued

Yes I have, but at the time I had the luxury of being so damned poor I couldn't even have paid attention.

About 30 years ago when I was starting my commercial fishing phase I did a little job on the south side of a guys rickety old house. There was a rotten deck made of pallets and other junk on the north side.

When he came home, the deck on the north side collapsed on him and he busted his leg. He tried to pass this off by saying that the vibration of my nailers and other tools had weakened the deck, which was a crock and handed it off to an attorney.

Of course, when he spoke with the attorney, he painted this picture that I was some kind of corporation like Morrison-Knudson and that I had pretty deep pockets.

The truth is that I was living in a camper trailer along what was then called Cannery Row.

My total assets were a rotten '62 Dodge 1/2 ton pickup, a few tools, a dilapidated trailer and a bag of laundry.

That was IT. Period.

When I was notified that i was beiing sued, I mulled it over for a couple of days and then called his attorney to explain that I was going to defend myself and that I wanted to settle out of court the following day. He scheduled me an appointment.

Then I put a set of clean clothes in my friends van and told him what I had in mind. He said he wasn't going to miss this for the world.

The next day, I fired up the pickup, hooked up the trailer and headed to the attorneys office, stopping en route to hand my friend my wallet and gave him the plan.

I parked in his lot, and grabbed my duffel bag of dirty laundry and walked in to his office.

He sat behind his desk triumphantly waaiting for me to write him a check of some sort.

To his astonishment, I pulled the title of the truck out of my pocket, signed it and put it on his desk. Next I emptied out the duffel bag and took off every stich of what I was wearing and dropped it on the floor.

"There. You got it all," I said.

Then I marched out of his office stark raving naked and the instant i got outside, my pal handed me a GI blanket to cover my nakedness, we hopped into his van and took off straight to the nearest bar.

I dressed in the van and walked into the bar where my pal shot his mouth off and told everyone what I had just done. Just about everyone in the place bought me a beer.

I was just finishing my first brew of what turned out to be a long night when the lawyers secreatary walked in and told me that her boss wante me to take my stuff out of his parking lot.

I had the barkeep put the beer sitting on the bar on ice for me and told everyone I would be right back.

When I got to the lawyers office, I saw my dirty laundry had been dumped into the bed of the truck and that the title was on the dashboard so I fired the old beast up and roared back down to the bar and parked the rig in an out of the way place where it stayed for several days.

For the next week I was unable to buy myself a single beer and I never heard one single word from that attorney ever again.

You can't take blood out of a stone.


my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

Someone pointed out to me that Hollywood

has never made a movie where a large corperation is the good guy.

There is always some kind of deal where the corporate bosses are chasing some whistle-blower or another. Either that or they are cooking paperwork to stiff some poor bastard that is suing them for poisoning him.

I'm certainly not saying these things do not happen, they do. There are a number of ruthless corporate types that simply ought to be forced to live under a bridge for a while to atone for their sins.

Still, there is another side to American corporations that ought to be mentioned here to keep things fair.

For one thing, they provide quite a bit of employment and put a lot of meat and potatoes on a lot of tables.

For another thing, many of them donate huge amounts to various charities, hence putting back into the community. I would not even try guess how much money they put back into the country, but I'd bet it is in the billions.

While I am not saying in any way that corporations are saints, it bears mentioning that the system reallly isn't all that bad, either.



my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

If there are any jihadists out there with nothing to do,

you might just do the pair of us a little favor.

The Westboro Baptist church just burned a couple of Qurans.

If you care to pay them a little visit, that is fine by me. You would be doing a lot of us a big favor.

I might even give you a few buck toward a ticket to Kansas.


my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

One of the things that is frustrating now

is that we are anchored in a fringe internet area.

Pages have to be refreshed, sometimes several times to get them to download and getting a window to open can take several minutes. It is a pain in the neck.

Still, I have to be grateful.

At least I can keep this blog going.


my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

Today is the anniversary of 9-11 and for the past few weeks

I have seen quite a few fine examples of how stupid the entire human race is.

The stupidity in no way is entirely one sided.

Over the past several weeks I have heard the raging contraversey over buillding a mosque near the ground zero site.

What were these people thinking, anyway?

It's as tasteless as putting a nazi headquarters next to a holocaust museum. You simply KNOW you are going to piss people off.

I also point a finger at the Imans that should have been shouting from the rooftops that they and their parishioners had no part whatsoever in the suiciide attacks on the WTC. There should have been a rash of muslims buying up every single US flag in town.

But they stayed silent.

Let's let the muslims take a rest here because I want to address the stupidity of the so-called Christian community and their recent rash of stupidity.

The recent rash of Koran burnings is a prime example.

This is nothing more than a bunch of out and out baiting and just plain looking for trouble.

Do you think the troops are stupid enough to do things like that?

I doubt it, although there is always some idiot in uniform that managed to sneak in because someone somewhere along the line forgot to administer him an IQ test, but he's the exception.

The Vietnam war had a number of incidents of First Class stupidity on the part of the GIs. A single shot coming from a village would often mean that the Zippos came out and the village would get torched.

This would mean that people that had no real interest in WHO ran Vietnam would immediately decide that they were not going to side with the dirty bastars that had just burned them out, and I can't blame them a whit. I'd probably have joind the VC, myself if it had happened to me.

I think the troops have learned from the stupidity of their fathers.

A face to face report with a Marine Gunnery Sergeant seems to make me think that at least some people have learned.

A report I got some time ago from the good Gunny told me that someone can at least use their head. This tells me that the good Gunny has AT LEAST half a brain, and it is very likely he has more than that.

One of our patrols was wandering through the streets of a city in Iraq. There was an old lady and her grandson that wanted to cross the street. It was SOP at the time NOT to let people cross in the middle of a patrol, but the platoon sergeant saw the woman and looked at the Gunny.

He nodded and the platoon sergeant told a young Marine to help the old woman across the strreet, which the young Marine did, treating the woman kindly.

This was just a random act of kindness.

Two days later, the grandson saw the patrol again and saw they were getting ready to turn down a street. He stopped the patrol and pointed at something.

The Gunny diverted the patrol and called in the engineers.

The engineers got the cell towers shut down for a brief time and wound up disarming a pretty good sized IED that would have probably walloped the patrol and caused a number of casualties.

Do you think the kid would have tipped off the Marines if they had just burned a Koran?

I sorta doubt it.

Now let's look at one aspect of Marine mentality.

First of all, there are a lot of people in the middle east that believe that in order to join the US Marine Corps the prospective member has to kill and eat a relative.

(I can hear the voice of Sam Eliot saying "Dad. It's what's for dinner.")

Of course, I don't hear a whole lt of Marines denying it, and I wouldn't deny it either if I was a Marine.

Marines have an unofficial policy of "Best friend, worst enemy."

They don't go baiting the locals, they work with them and help them as best they can so long as they behave themselves. Marines do not go looking for trouble. They let trouble find them.

If you do not want their friendship, that is OK, too. They will cheerfully oblige you by destroying you by using whatever tools they have at hand. Then they willl simply leave you there to rot.

It is simply the choice given to those in their area of operations.

Best friend, worst enemy.

A lot of the people out there that seem to be baiting people and looking for trouble ought to take a prety close look at the way the Marines do business.

Of course, most of these instigators seem to think that kindness is a sign of weakness, but they do not really think.

Look at the Marines. They are probably some of the kindest people in existance.

The few that are stupid enough to mistake the kindness of Marines as weakness generally are not able to make the same mistake twice.

You might want to look at the Marines for guidance before you go and do something stupid.








my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

today is 9-11

On 9-11-01 I was at home when I got a call to turn on the TV.

I was aghast.

Then I saw the second building go down live.

My wife was there with a friend of hers and I sat there for a few minutes in shock and then went down into the basement and cried my eyes out because I knew that it wasn't going to be long before our young people started getting chewed up somewhere.

On the morning of 9-13 I shot a service rifle match and did pretty well. That afternoon I started a six month unsuccessful campaign to get back into the service.

I figure it was only fair,, as what we have been doing to our young people since the beginning of time isn't fair.

I was hoping that maybe some dumb kid could get to sit this one out.

It's been a long nine years and as usual, a lot of Americans forget.

I won't forget.




my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

I am thinking of staying away from the news for a while

because I am sick and tired of watching mean and petty stupidity.


my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

I just got a phone call from a pesron I called about

an hour or so ago.

He had apparently tried to get someone else, but hit the wrong number on his cell phone and got me instead.

He profusely apologized and explained that he was trying to call someone else and had gotten confused as to who was who on the numbers his cell phone had captured.

I instantly knew what had happened to this man because it has happened to me a number of times. It gets confusing sometimes when you are using a cell phone alll the time.

I told him to take off the mask because he ain't the Lone Ranger.

He chuckled and sounded relieved.

Betcha he takes good care of me when I call him next.


my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

One of the things I happened to have picked up on

is the way the Indian Navy recently handled a group of pirates.

They intercepted their boat, disarmed them and released them after making sure they had sufficient fuel to reach ther home port.

That wass very nice of the Indian Navy and should serve as a wonderful example of decency and compassion.

I think that if I was the Indian commanding offficer that I would have done the same thing, but with one small change.

I would have then waited until I got ashore and sold the cylinder heads from the pirate vessel on Craigslist and put the money in the crews morale fund.




On a related note, some people have complained that many of the prisoners in Gitmo have been there too long and should be released.

I agree.

These people have been there long enough and should be repatriated and returned to their native countries with the dignity and respect they deserve.

They should be comfortably loaded into a C-130 via the rear loading ramp, and taken to their respective nations and be discharged from the aircraft onto their native soil.

After that, the airplane should be permitted to land, refuel and return to base.



my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

I am getting cranky today about a lot of things

I just read where the Marines booted a gang of pirates off of a German ship and arrested them.

How come they did that?

Why didn't they simply make them walk the plank of keelhaul them or something befitting a pirate?

On the same thread, I saw that one person suggested breaking out the USS Iowa for use in ending the vile practice of piracy.

The USS Iowa is a World War 2 battleship that has 16 inch old-school guns on it. These guns are ideal for shoreside bombardment.

The discouragement of piracy is a fairly simple concept.

You simply find out which ports the pirates are running out of and flatten it with 16 inch gunfire.

After doing that a couple of times, the local governments get the idea that they ought to start policing themselves.

As disgusted as I have been recently, I think this just might be the way to go,



my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

We are back to square one.

Now the Muslims in New York are telling us that if they DO decide to move the mosque, there will be violence.

The idiots in Gainsville are stirring up more shit and it's gonna come to a head soon.

John Wayne once said, "Ill settle it...with Winchesters."

Not really a bad idea. They ought to let both sides settle their differences with Winchesters.

Then jail the survivors.



my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

The GPS in my pickup now reads that

i went home at 567 miles per hour, or you would think.

There is a spot on it where it records the maximum speed that you have been in the vehicle.

Of course, that is a challenge to somepeople that are speed demons, and I have listened to a few of them use their GPS units to prove they have been such and such a speed and I shake my head because it is more stupidity in life.

So I decided to shut these two guys up once and for all.

Now, an automotive GPS has a battery in it that will hold a charge for quite some time, so I charged mine up and turned it off and stuffed it into my carry-on when I got on the airplane to go to work.

As soon as I cleared TSA, I put it in my shirt pocket and clambered aboard the airplane and settled down until we reached cruisine speed. Then I turned it on and amused myself.

It was fun watching the streets below us fly by at the rate of about 8 or 10 miles a minute.

When we descended I shut it off and put it in my bag.

The next time I see those two granola bars, I am going to watch their jaws drop down to their belly buttons when I click mine on and say, " Five sixty seven miles per hour! Beat this, Guys!"

I may be too old to out run they youngsters, but I can sure out think them.

my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

One of the things that is a pain of owning a Gobook

is that it is not mainstream and parts are a gold plated SOB to find.

Other than that, it's a joy.

During crew change, some of the guys were paranoid about their laptops because of having to pass them across from the crewboat to the tug. I had no such worries, as this old thing can take a pretty good beating and still work. It isn't bad at all when you think about it.

Of course, some of the gys are gamers and such and for that sort of thing one needs a lot of high tech stuff, but if all you do is a little web surfing and writing like I do, you simply do not need the speed, memory and capacity.

It wasn't all that long ago I had a pentium 1 laptop and it seemed to be just as fast as the one I have today if I used a good input for the ISP.

Dial up has always been slow, but when I used the library's facilities, the little pentium 1 was pretty fast.

Of course, anyone that read this and is mesmerized by all of the new tech will think that we are talking about the stone age. Maybe I am, but still one has to look at their tools and be objective about what they are using them for.

All I want my machine to do is to surf the web, do email and generally give me a platform for writing and keeping up with my corrospondence. That's all.

When I say that to someone, they start babbling about how I can't play this or that game and that I'll never be able to keep up with those downloading movies or stealing music from someone or other things along these lines.

Generally when they start babbling along these lines, I recommend them to an EENT clinic so they can get their hearing fixed. When they tell me they can hear all right, I then suggest that they go back to school to learn to use the English language properly.

Anger ensues, but that isn't my problem. I can't help it if someone doesn't listen. I do not game.

This is the same type of mentality that insists that I ought to have power windows in my pickup or else I can not drive it across town.

SURPRISE! There was once a time when cars had no windows at all, and the human race managed to get where they were going. They just had to dress a little warmer in the winter.

Of course, over the years I have had to upgrade, but mainly because the infastructure seems to require that I do. ISPs and such will no longer service old technology. Also, the people that write programs realize that they now have bigger hard drives to play with and tend not to share files to make them wirk like they did years ago. Software people can be a little more sloppy.

When Bill Gates came out with the 456mb hard drive years ago he commented that it was more than people could use in a lifetime, and when you think about it, the way they wrote programs then he was probably right.

For what I use a computer for, I suppose I could just as well get by on the old Pentium 1 laptop I bought years ago for a hundred bucks.

Then again, this newfangled combat laptop isn't too shabby, either.

On the other hand, I am not in charge of the calculations used for the space shuttle, either.






my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

This morning at the motel the clerk and I started

yakking and she brought up a perfectly valid point.

There is simply no more plain old bad behavior anymore.

She explained to me that now everything is considered a disease and that when something is a disease that it becomes legitimate.

When I asked her for a cure for the disease that causes this poor behavior syndrome she went into a lengthy explaination of counseling and behavior modification and thousands of dollars worth of the various types of therapies.

I then asked her what type of therapy she uses on her children and she smirked and told me she uses a good old fashioned spanking.

Go figure.

I suggested that for older people that a cup of gasoline thrown into their faces followed by a flick of the Bic of a simple baseball bat beating might be an effective cure and she enthusiastically agreed.

She was a pretty black woman with a couple of kids and was working her ass off to help her husband raise them right.

Contrary to what some peaople say, we are NOT all children of God.

There are simply some people on the planet that have no business being here.


my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

Back to the alt mines

I arrived back in Philly to catch a plane and compliments of a drunk driver I encountered on the way , I arrrived in Philly driving a very smashed up pickup.It's pretty torn up.

Someday I will post the tale of woe regarding the accident.

Thankfully no injuries.

The only good thing I have to say about that is that the cop that responded to my call told me not to worry as he had written her a huge ticket and was waiting a female officer to arrive, presumably to cart her off for a weekend retreat in the local pokey.

That is all I have to say about that, except that she would have been a cherished visitor on 'The Jerry Springer Show". Of course, she talked her way into jail, as I think if she was halfway decent, the cop probably would have cut her a break.

I had to pull a pretty dirty trick to shut her up before the cop arrived.

While I never outright said I was the Chief of Police of a nearby town, I sure as hell insinuated it. It wasn't QUITE a ase of impersonating an officer.

THAT got her attention.

She shut up and sat in her car, which is all I wanted her to do.

The cop spoke to me first and I warned him about her mouth. When she started to talk to the cop, he turned and gave me a grateful look for the warning. When I told him how I had shut her up, he chuckled and told me simply that I did what I had to do.

All in all, I was pretty grateful for the cop.


my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

Yesterday I was ordered to give a command

performance at the party of a six-year old.

Miss Lillian, my grand neice was having a birthday party that included a couple hours of pony rides.

She wanted me to come as a cowboy, which was a snap for me. I simply showed up dressed like Slim Pickens in the western outfit I mentioned earlier.

Fifteen small children and the corrosponding number of mothes showed up for this festive event.

One of the things about young mothers is that they do not really understand children at all, and neither do automakers. They used to.

Back in the day they made seats out of vinal which is easy to messes related to childhood off of. You simply changed into a bathing suit, went to the firehouse, parked, opened all four doors and borrowed a fire hose and hosed the car out. A whole slew of slobber, blood, mud, spilled ice cream and the odd French fry would be washed out in just a couple of minutes.

Then you would drive home and park the car in the sun with the doors open for a while until it dried out. Pretty straightforward and simple, when you think about it a while.

Anyway, the mothers didn't really think about what to look out for.

There was a real scummy, nasty little pond near the pony riding arena and the kids made a beeline for it, which is to be expected. The first place you look for when a kid turns up missing is the nearest body of water because the moon draws water and the water draws kids.

Of course, it became my duty to watch the kids at the pond, and I took my responsibiity seriously, but I guess the mothers didn't look at who I was being responsible to.

I was responsible to the kids and made damned good and sure they had a good time because if one of the mothers had taken charge, there would have been hell to pay and the kids would have had a rotten time.

Of course, they got wet and some of them got pretty scummy, especially the kids that sat down in the mud. They got dirty and some of them found a jar or a can and took samples of the scummy water to take home. One kid caught a frog, of course and the frog got away.

It was badlam and chaos and as you can imagine some of the mothers were not too pleased to see their darling kids after about a half hour of genuine kid fun. I heard more than one mother gripe about how the car seat was going to have to be cleaned.

A couple of the mothers looked at me with daggers in their eyes and I returned the look with the amused smile of a wizened old man that knows children better than they do.

When I was their age, I was the first born grandchild and my grandparents expected me to be a nice little gentleman. They took me to Filene's and bought me Little Lord Fauntlroy suits and things like that.

Wrong move. I was a young fishing community wildman.

After a couple of those got torn up(something my father, a very wise man, predicted) the Lord Fauntlroy clothes were put aside for church and, on the advice of Dear Old Dad, I was them more or less permanently outfited in blue denim and flannel shirts.

Of course, since the pussification of the American male started, there are now damned few men around with the common sense my father had in raising children, especially boys. The men these days are about as bad a the women when it comes to letting kids have fun.

The mothers I dealt with were still in the Lord Fauntlroy stage,as for most of them this was their first kid and they seemed not to have figured it out yet.

Putting an old man in charge of a group of six-year olds is something a young mother will cringe at, but not all of the mothers were on their first child.

One or two of the mothers were in their late thirties and had more than one kid. These women seemed to take it in stride. Although they didn't have vinal seats in their car, they were ready with a couple of towels or a blanket of some sort.

These mothers seemed to appreciate the simple fact that I was there to make sure nobody got hurt.

It'll take a while, but over time most of these young mothers will probably learn.

Then again, the way men seem to have been pussified, maybe the women won't learn.

Time will tell.

Anyway, I had fun watching six-year olds be six=year olds.

More important, I LET six-year olds be six-year olds.


my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

This has been a pretty wild trip to visit my sister.

I left home and ran to upper New York state where I spent a night with the only friend I have managed to stay in touch with from the street where I grew up.

From there I ran for Boston and spent forty five minutes with an old High School classmate and arrived at my sisters where I was put straight to work helping her move for the next day ana a half which is why I came here.

Tomorrow at 10 I am scheduled to meet up with a pair of cousins I have not seen since I was probably thirteen or fourteen. From there it is to a yacht clup for a day sail with my sister and her boyfriend.

Short, fast, and hard.

I wish I had two weeks and the Miata here, but such is life.

Wish in one hand.....




my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

I am on the road and am practicing my blog via WiFi

One ot the little things about being a blogger like me is that you have tto learn to use what you can to get things going.

I am not a techie, so this is pretty neat using a WiFi spot to post this.

Whatever.

I might add to this later.



my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

A lesson I learned has paid off.

This is going to be a long day and I decided a couple cups of joe were not going to cut it.

I had an invasion breakfast.

Steak and a bunch of eggs.

This time I carefully checked the fork I fished out of the sink and examined it closely.

The first bite of my delicious breakfast did NOT taste like cat food.

See? you CAN teach an old dog new tricks.




my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/