Happy last day of July

Tomorrow is going to be August. Where did July go?

The cat is busy checking things out and woke me up a few minutes before five which is OK.

I have made a few changes and seem to actually be sleeping a little better. For one thing I have pretty much eliminated alcohol in any amounts. I did have two beers and not finish the second at Camp Perry with the Marine team. However that was in the very early evening.

I've also been traveling a lot on family business and have been busy this summer. 

Still, I have cut back on my eating and  seem to have lost a little weight. I should get a little more exercise this summer though. 

All in all things are looking pretty good.

It's rather funny about the Marine teams I see at Perry. I have never seen and enlisted Marine get out of line. The only Marine I saw get out of line several years ago was an officer that couldn't keep his mouth shut. 

Someone once asked me why the Marine team usually gets beaten by the Army Marksmanship Unit.

The AMU is a dedicated full time outfit under the Army Recruiting Command. The shooters are there full time polishing their skills.

The Marine team is really only a very small cadre that has other duties at Quantico and the team is augmented by summer pickups that have done well in the Marine fleet matches.

It's surprising that the marines do as well as they do under those circumstances.

Even the years I don't shoot at Perry I make it a point to go and visit the women of CMP the Marine team and a couple of vendors on commercial row that I have known for years.

Visiting the team reminds me that there are a lot of damned fine young people out there and is sure has changed since the early years after 9-11. For several years after 9-11 visiting the team could be a pretty painful thing when I started playing the who do you know and how is so and so doing. There were a lot of casualties early on. It hurt hearing that one of the guys you met the previous year had been torn up or killed.

What is interesting is the attitudes the service people have. Some are trying to climb the ladder and make a full career out of it. Some are planning on getting out.

I actually heard a pair of sergeants griping because they got promoted which sound odd unless you look at their side of it. One was going to leave after his enlistment expired.

Booth agreed that they would have loved to have the option of being career corporals because they loved being team leaders as opposed to squad leaders or platoon sergeants. I can see this.

However the up or out policy makes it impossible. A person get promoted to Staff Sergeant in ten years or less or they get out. I have very mixed feelings on the policy. Back in my day a GI had 12 years to make Staff Sergeant or it was adios.

A couple of years ago I met a Staff Sergeant armorer that said he'd accept promotion to Gunnery Sergeant but that was it. He wanted no part of being a Master Sergeant because that meant the end of his career as a gunsmith. He liked working with his hands and like many people hates paperwork. Master Sergeants in his field administrate and that wasn't his bag.

I can certainly understand that as I am no King of the Filing Cabinet, either.

Many years ago there were career privates and corporals. I read a book by an old Marine that had been run through boot camp by a pair of corporals that both had over twenty years of service. Corporals were bad dudes back then.

I can see the attitude of the two sergeants. They enjoy running small teams of men because they get to know them well.

I can see why one of the two is getting out. He'd be miserable as a platoon sergeant  filling out forms and training schedules. I hope he does well on the outside.



  




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I ought to write a damned book about my shooting career.

But I should not let it get published until after I am dead and gone.







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Missed one

That sucks


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Yesterday fell apart.

Every time I started something it was interrupted.

Nothing got finished.

Oh, well. Today's a new day.



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Maybe today I will actually take in and complete a project.

It probably won't be outside, though because it is raining.

I might write a couple of letters.

I am behind on things and this might be a good day to catch up, although I have a LOT of things to take care of.

Even though I am off work I am a lot busier than I would be at work. 




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One of these days soon

I am going to write a letter to Vladmir Putin and post it here.

I have found one more good reason we should have peace between us and the Russians.


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The TV is on in the background and a lot of is is crap.

If you are going to make something believable then you ought to have your facts straight.

If an aviator in 1943 was shot down and managed to escape with the help of the underground there was no way in hell they were going to let him fly combat missions again.

Also, flyboys were not trained in espionage and other sneaky stuff. 



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Andrew Carnegie is today's subject.

I went to the local library looking for something a while back and being in the Pittsburgh area, the local library simply made a call downtown and got what I was looking for. The called the Andrew
 Carnegie Library and lo and behold, it had what I wanted.

I am not going to get into the side of Carnegie that was pretty tough on building his empire. I am just going to cover a part of what he did as he grew older and realized he couldn't take it with him.

In his later years Andrew Carnegie gave away entire libraries. Between 1883 and 1929 Carnegie gave away 2509 complete libraries both to the public and to universities.

It was his money to do this with and that's what he did with it. I have no problem with that whatsoever. Not one dime of government money was involved. 

Back then a free library was a lot more than it is today. Old Andrew didn't just give away a pile of books when he gave a library. He gave knowledge. Knowledge is power.

Those libraries were open to the public and anyone that wanted to could use them. Before high school and college became attainable those libraries provided a lot of education for the common man. 

They provided incalculable numbers of self educated people and permitted numerous people to better themselves. Some of whom opened businesses or made pay raises for themselves by being more valuable to their employers. No knowing how many fortunes were made by self educated people.

The libraries also provided countless hours of escape and R&R for a lot of people that decided to escape between the pages of a book.

Oh, yeah. For what it's worth. Self education works.

While I didn't use a Carnegie library, I did get my hands on books to study with and passed the necessary tests to earn my Captain's license without ever going to an academy. Later I learned that I could have gotten all of the books I needed at the Carnegie Library downtown.



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Take a look at the parking lots of ship yards and

look at the vehicles. You'll see an assortment ranging from new and expensive to total crapcans.

A lot of the newer expensive cars in the lot are owned by the shipyard workers. They make pretty decent money and they certainly earn it.

Then take a tour of the workers. If you know what to look for you'll see some real talent, especially the fitters.

The fitters are the guys that take a flat piece of steel and turn it into a twisted. curved shape that fits perfectly into a complex on the vessel that's being built. They fit it into shape, tack weld it and carefully leave the proper gaps between the various pieces for the welders to An awful lot of what they do is by eye and it is damned hard work. They're generally paid well for it.

The fitters are followed by the welders. There are skilled welders that actually weld the pieces together. They are skilled, shipyard certified welders that know their jobs. 

The fitters generally come from the ranks of the welders and the welders are occasionally self taught but most come from apprenticeships, community colleges and other sources. I have met a couple that actually came from the federal program called the Jobs Corp. Most come from community colleges or apprenticeships of one form or another, though.

I've met a couple of motivated souls that started as laborers, found someone to teach them and got themselves certified.

It's one hell of a hot, dirty job and generally the people that do this are paid well for their expertise. These are valuable people.

I met one woman that was there welding and asked her what her tale of woe was. I dryly asked her the usual question of "What's a nice young girl doing in a place like this." It was a particularly hot late July/early August miserably hot and muggy day. The area was heavily littered with dozens and dozens of empty water bottles.

She flipped up her mask and showed me a face that needed a good washing and a few smudges of makeup to be quite pretty. She grinned and told me that she had two kids and was married to a jerk and she was tired of living with him just to get the rent paid.

"I don't need his money anymore. I have my own," she said.

"Marry me and I'll take you away from all of this," I said. My voice was oozing with sarcasm.

"No way in hell!" she chuckled. 

A number of these guys were minorities, some were not and almost to a man they were proud of their skills and their abilities. Some were married, some divorced and it was the same assortment of families and family problems you'd see anywhere else.

Let's go back to the parking lot where there was quite an assortment of vehicles. The bulk of them were fairly new and a little on the expensive side. Many of which were owned by the fitters and welders. Some of them were pretty middle of the road and were owned by the apprentices and low end laborers. The crap cans for the most part were owned by the fitters and welders and were second or even third cars. They drove them back and forth to work so as not to get their good vehicles all dirty on the  way home from work. Any of the married men that do this probably own three cars.
One for the wife, a decent car for himself and a beater to get back and forth to work with. 

The shipyards are not alone but they do serve to show people that you don't need a college degree to make a decent living.







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Guest writer today

I saw this on Facebook and there are no copyright issues I know of. 

I found it to be interesting.

The election of Donald Trump has added to the schism in America greatly and has gotten worse. I will admit that Trump is a crude New York real estate mogul but he really isn't a whole lot of the things he is accused of.

The part that really leaves me scared is that many on the left would cheerfully accept a nuclear war if it meant Trump would be booted out. Be careful of what you ask for. Mike Pence is the Vice President. 

I did not write this, I wish I had.

To all the people who let this election break up families and friends let this sink in I think the last civil conversations we had occurred just days before November 8, 2016. You were supremely confident Hillary Clinton would win the presidential election; you voted for her with glee. As a lifelong Republican, I bit down hard and cast my vote for Donald Trump. Then the unimaginable happened. He won.
And you lost your freaking minds.

I knew you would take the loss hard—and personally—since all of you were super jacked-up to elect the first woman president. But I did not imagine you would become totally deranged, attacking anyone who voted for Trump or supported his presidency as a racist, sexist, misogynistic, homophobic Nazi-sympathizer.

The weirdness started on social media late on Election Night, as it became clear Hillary was going to lose. A few of you actually admitted that you were cradling your sleeping children, weeping, wondering what to tell your kindergartner the next morning about Trump’s victory. It continued over the next several days. Some of you seriously expressed fear about modern-day concentration camps. Despite living a privileged lifestyle, you were suddenly a casualty of the white patriarchy. Your daughters were future victims; your sons were predators-in-waiting. You threatened to leave Facebook because you could no longer enjoy the family photos or vacation posts from people who, once friends, became Literal Hitlers to you on November 8 because they voted for Donald Trump.

I admit I was a little hurt at first. The attacks against us Trump voters were so personal and so vicious that I did not think it could be sustained. I thought maybe you would regain your sanity after some turkey and egg nog.

But you did not. You got worse. And I went from sad to angry to where I am today: Amused.
As the whole charade you have been suckered into over the last 18 months starts to fall apart—that Trump would not survive his presidency; he would be betrayed by his own staff, family, and/or political party; he would destroy the Republican Party; he would be declared mentally ill and removed from office; he would be handcuffed and dragged out of the White House by Robert Mueller for “colluding” with Russia—let me remind you what complete fools you have made of yourselves. Not to mention how you’ve been fooled by the media, the Democratic Party, and your new heroes on the NeverTrump Right.

On November 9, you awoke from a self-induced, eight-year-long political coma to find that White House press secretaries shade the truth and top presidential advisors run political cover for their boss. You were shocked to discover that presidents exaggerate, even lie, on occasion. You became interested for the first time about the travel accommodations, office expenses, and lobbyist pals of administration officials. You started counting how many rounds of golf the president played. You suddenly thought it was fine to mock the first lady now that she wasn’t Michelle Obama. Once you removed your pussy hat after attending the Women’s March, you made fun of Kellyanne Conway’s hair, Sarah Sanders’ weight, Melania Trump’s shoes, Hope Hicks’ death stare; you helped fuel a rumor started by a bottom-feeding author that U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley slept with Donald Trump. You thought it was A-OK that Betsy DeVos was nearly physically assaulted and routinely heckled. You glorified a woman who has sex on camera for a paycheck.

You have learned all kinds of new things that those of us who didn’t willfully ignore politics for the past eight years already knew. For example, we already knew that illegal immigrants were being deported and families were being separated.

Some of your behavior has been kinda cute. It was endearing to watch you become experts on the Logan Act, the Hatch Act, the Second Amendment, the 25th Amendment, and the Emoluments Clause. You developed a new crush on Mitt Romney after calling him a “sexist” for having “binders full of women.” You longed for a redux of the presidency of George W. Bush, a man you once wanted imprisoned for war crimes. Ditto for John McCain. You embraced people like Bill Kristol and David Frum without knowing anything about their histories of shotgunning the Iraq War.

Classified emails shared by Hillary Clinton? Who cares! Devin Nunes wanting to declassify crucial information of the public interest? Traitor!
But your newfound admiration and fealty to law enforcement really has been a fascinating transformation. Wasn’t it just last fall that I saw you loudly supporting professional athletes who were protesting police brutality by kneeling during the national anthem? Remember how you fanboyed a mediocre quarterback for wearing socks that depicted cops as pigs?

But now you sound like paid spokesmen for the Fraternal Order of Police. You insist that any legitimate criticism of the misconduct and possibile criminality that occured at the Justice Department and FBI is an “attack on law enforcement.” While you once opposed the Patriot Act because it might have allowed the federal government to spy on terrorists who were using the local library to learn how to make suitcase bombs, you now fully support the unchecked power of a secret court to look into the phone calls, text messages and emails of an American citizen because he volunteered for the Trump campaign for a few months.
Spying on terrorists, circa 2002: Bad. Spying on Carter Page, circa 2017: The highest form of patriotism.

And that white, male patriarchy that you were convinced would strip away basic rights and silence any opposition after Trump won? That fear has apparently been washed away as you hang on every word uttered by James Comey, John Brennan, and James Clapper. This triumvirate is exhibit “A” of the old-boy network, and represents how the insularity, arrogance, and cover-your-tracks mentality of the white-male power structure still prevails. Yet, instead of rising up against it, you are buying their books, retweeting their Twitter rants and blasting anyone who dares to question their testicular authority. Your pussy hat must be very sad.

But your daily meltdowns about Trump-Russia election collusion have been the most entertaining to observe. After Robert Mueller was appointed as Special Counsel, you were absolutely convinced it would result in Trump’s arrest and/or impeachment. Some of you insisted that Trump wouldn’t last beyond 2017. You quickly swallowed any chum tossed at you by the Trump-hating media on MSNBC, the New York Times and the Washington Post about who was going down next, or who would flip on the president.

For the past year, I have watched you obsess over a rotating cast of characters: Paul Manafort, Donald Trump, Jr., Jared Kushner, Carter Page, Reince Priebus, Jeff Sessions, Michael Flynn, Steve Bannon, Sam Nunberg, and Hope Hicks are just a few of the people you thought would turn on Trump or hasten his political demise. But when those fantasies didn’t come true, you turned to Michael Avenatti and Stormy Daniels for hope and inspiration. It will always be your low point.
Well, I think it will be. Each time I believe you’ve hit bottom, you come up with a new baseline. Perhaps defending the unprecedented use of federal power to spy on political foes then lie about it will the next nail in your credibility coffin.

The next several weeks will be tough for you. I think Americans will learn some very hard truths about what happened in the previous administration and how we purposely have been misled by powerful leaders and the news media. I wish I could see you as a victim here, but you are not. I know you are smart; you chose to support this insurgency with your eyes wide open.

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Actually it's CAPTAIN Piccolo, thank you very much.

The Coast Guard changed the license format some years ago but there is an old certificate type hanging on my wall. The other kind is in my travel bag.

It says: License to U.S. Merchant Marine Officer on it along with the various motor, steam and sail vessels I am authorized to operate. To put a fast point on it, I am Captain Piccolo.

I don't sail as an officer on the authority my license, I sail under the authority of my document as a rating. My choice.

I did not have rich parents with political connections so King's Point was not an option, and neither were any of the state Merchant Marine academies. I earned my license as what is called a 'Hawsepiper'. 

After I moved from Alaska to where there are no commercial fishing jobs I found the opportunity to sail on tugs as an ordinary seaman.

As soon as I got aboard the tug I started scouting around and seeing what I could do to increase my short money wages.

The opportunity was there and I went for it.

In a little less than a year I was no longer an ordinary. I was an Able Seaman with a Tankerman's endorsement and I was off the tugs and onto an oil barge moving oil. My income had more than doubled.

A couple months after that I sat for my Captain's license and became Captain Piccolo. I sailed on my license a couple of times but opted to stay on barges moving oil. It fit me better. There was less stress and it is actually kind of fun and the money is pretty good. I'm reasonably content.

There were six of us that were hired together. Over the years some of us run into one another. Let's look at the six.

Two have left the industry for greener pastures, leaving four of us still sailing. I have done what I am doing so that leaves three to account for. One has done quite well and is running a huge tug for another company, leaving two to account for.

The remaining two are still entry level ordinary seaman that are miserable and behind my back call me a brown noser and a kissass because I have gotten ahead and they have not after more than a quarter century in the industry.

Let's look at those two and look at the difference between us.

On my first trip I spoke with captains and crewmen and found out the options I had in the business. The didn't, being satisfied to watch TV and loaf during their off-watch times.

The captain and mate let me have the run of the books and other publications on the tug and I spent my off watch time with my nose in a book. When the trip ended and I was at the office I wandered in and asked a port captain for some advice and he handed me several books to study and told me there was opportunity. I took the books home with me and studied at the kitchen table.

I also sent out copies of sea time request forms along with an SASE to every single skipper I had ever fished with in Alaska.

Mutt and Jeff were spending their off time at the club putting dollar bills into Bubble's thong or pounding down draught beer at Moe's.

When I returned to work after my three weeks off I returned the books and was handed another pile of books. I was told to keep about half of them. It should be carefully noted that all of this cost me nothing. The port captain said he was glad to help.

After my second tour on the tug I requested a letter of service. When I got home there were several sea service forms waiting me and it was road trip time to the Coast Guard exam office where I sat for and passed my lifeboatman endorsement. I was still an Ordinary but had the hard part of the Able Seaman's test behind me.

Meanwhile Mutt and Jeff were smokin' and jokin' and when they found out I was a Lifeboatman they laughed at me and said I was wasting my time. Meanwhile Bubbles at the club got richer. 

A month later the company opened a tankerman training program for tankerman and I applied but found out I was ineligible because I had not worked there long enough. I asked to take the basic math test saying that the next time the program opened it would save time. They agreed.

I sat down and carefully worked each problem several times and wound up getting 100%. Based on the fact that I was the only person that took the test that maxed it I was granted a waiver and a month later I was in the classroom. Note that I was being paid to attend class.

When I finished the classroom part I went to the Coast Guard exam center and tested not only for tankerman but also for Able Seaman. I had studied for AB on my own at home and during off watch.

I took a battery of tests, did well and now had an AB/Tankerman ticket. and following a couple of training tours I was released and my paycheck instantly doubled. Mutt and Jeff said I was a brown noser and a kiss ass. 

Two months later I arranged all of my sea time and other paperwork and sat for a limited captain's license. I was now Captain Piccolo.

While I only sailed on the license a couple of times I keep it renewed in case I want to use it for something. I sail under the authority of my AB/Tankerman's ticket and I have had a pretty good career.

I found a spot, saw opportunity and took advantage of it.

Mutt and Jeff after over a quarter century are a pair of very bitter men that constantly gripe that it's not fair that they are still chipping paint, mopping floors and cleaning heads. Yet neither of those two have bothered to take advantage of the opportunities open to them.

Meanwhile Bubbles has taken the money they put in her G-string and went to hairdresser school and has since opened her own styling salon. 

I wrote this because someone was pointing out the age old wage disparity situation where the CEO makes a bundle and the lower entry people make very little. 

People with brains and initiative generally don't last very long in entry level jobs. They take the initiative and go places.

People may laugh at working at MacDonald's but it's a lead pipe cinch that many managers and franchise owners started out flipping burgers for peanuts and are now doing pretty well. 









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Did you bring enough gum for everyone?

asked my homeroom teacher when I was in 8th grade.

"Whadda you anyway, some kind of communist off-brand type?" I shot back. "Everyone in this class can go out and rake leaves and make money so they can buy their own gum."

He turned purple and immediately gave me a detention, of course.

When the last student left the room for the busses to go home he looked at me.

"You were 100% right," he said. "And no, I am NOT a communist. I will never again ask a student if he brought enough for everybody. Still, you can't chew gum in class."

He never did that I remember and he let me go right after the last bus pulled out.

I walked out, crossed the street and stuck my thumb out. As luck would have it the person that stopped to pick me up was headed to Scituate Harbor and made a minor course change and dropped me off at the bus stop.

I was there long before the bus got there and walked the last quarter mile.





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Whoops!

Almost missed a day!



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We spend a fortune on special education and nothing

on the talented and truly gifted kids.

It's a shame and in a way by doing so we are reinforcing failure. The slow kids are really not going to do very well no matter what we do or how much we spend on them. It's a plain and simple fact of life. A kid with an IQ of 75 can only do so much. All the money in the world isn't going to change that one iota.

While I am not against having Special Education teachers train these kids to be as good as they can be it's really unfair and simple bad business to hold the truly talented back.

It is the truly talented that are the ones that will find a cure for cancer, open up space, invent a longer lasting low energy light bulb and in general make huge contributions to the planet.

Instead we leave these kids in a classroom held back and bored to tears instead of letting them simply run and go as far as their talents can take them.

A lot of schools have so-called 'Advanced Placement' classes for those that are in, say, the upper 10 or 15% which is fine. However I am not looking at those kids, I am looking at the maybe top 2%, the truly exceptionally sharp youngsters.

These are the kids we should yank out of the traditional school system and let them learn as much as they can and as fast as they can. If some young genius can learn calculus in second grade then let him. Don't hold him or her back! Let them run!

Leaving some truly brainy kid in a normal classroom is a waste. It wastes talent and quite often stifles it. There are probably a quite a number of truly talented kids that get bored and start acting up. Can't say as I blame them. I'm sure that some of them grow so bored they simply drop out of school.

I say that we ought to stop worrying about the slower kids and instead of spending pies of money to prop up individuals that really are not going to go anywhere that we take a little money out of Special Education and plow it into the truly brilliant.

It's a damned good investment that should pay excellent returns as opposed to Special Education that doesn't have nearly the return rate.










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I guess I am just a 128th of an inch to the left of anarchy.

A of of the laws we are subjected to are pure unadulterated bull$hit designed to take money out of our pockets.

A while back they lowered the limit to .08 and found that there was no difference in traffic accidents between the new .08 and the old .10. instead of putting it back they left it at .08. They did this for revenue generation purposes. That's a crock.

Nobody has a right to endanger the public so we do need laws to keep drunks off of the streets. It's fairly inarguable. Drunk drivers kill a lot of people.

Now let's define drunk driving.

The way I see it, drunk driving is just that. You are impaired, behind the wheel of a car in gear with the engine running on a public thoroughfare. You are actually operating a vehicle on the road while being under the influence. Fair enough.

Now let's look at what drunk driving is not.

It is not a person sacked out in the back seat sleeping it off. Actually this tends to create drunk drivers because if one stands to get a DUI for sleeping there he really ought to get the hell out of there and get home where he can sleep with no fear of being arrested.

It is not some guy on a lawn tractor mowing his lawn no matter how drunk he is. He's on private property and is harming nobody. He is only a danger to himself which is none of the government's business. He is creating no clear and present danger to the public.

If two people under the influence are in the cab of a pickup they are not both drunk drivers. There can only be one driver. The other person is a passenger. The passenger is committing no crime. Yet that's the law in one state.

Much of what passes for drunk driving is not. 

The old line of 'keys in the ignition' means little or nothing. It does not prove intent and even intent really means little. A case of someone sleeping in the back seat with the keys in the ignition really is evidence that the person was making a fairly honest effort not to endanger the public. He doesn't need to be arrested. He needs to be left alone so he can get some sleep. Yet in a lot of states he's going to be carted off to the pokey.

While I am using the current DUI laws as an example, a lot of this attitude carries over to other things. Many laws are just used to generate revenue. Seat belt laws are a pretty good example. The public is in no way endangered if someone doesn't want to wear a seat belt. Maybe the driver is, but it ought to be his choice.

If government needs the money than either stop spending (preferable) or honestly raise taxes. 









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Yesterday was a mess.

I was home earlier and in a mean funk. My neighbor had the day off and came by and offered to take me for a tour which I accepted.

We were about 35 miles and stopped for a bit. When we started up there was a loud thunk and voila! A ball joint broke.

He had AAA which wound up saving him a bundle as we needed a tow.

Anyway, it looked pretty grim as neither of us could figure how the driver was going to be able to get the pickup on the flatbed without tearing up everything.

I'll be damned but the driver pulled out a couple of pieces of 2x4s and between that, a floor jack and the way he operated the truck itself he got it on board without a single scratch much less a torn up fender.

It was a joy to watch such a fine craftsman and when he was done I dryly asked him if he had learned how to load damaged vehicles at Harvard. I said I didn't know that Harvard taught such craftsmanship.

He beamed.

Most people  don't see things with the same eye that I do. They don't understand things like weight distribution, friction and the like. A lot of people only know shuffling papers and think that people that do things like run a flatbed are of lower intelligence.

There are not a whole lot of people coming out of college that have the ability to run a piece of machinery that well and we certainly need people like that.

As usual, the 'My son's going to college' set doesn't respect those that decide to make their careers doing skilled things and sometimes look down on those that do.

This country needs fewer woman's dance studies majors and more skilled craftsmen. We have a shortage of vo-tech schools out there. The ones we have range from excellent to dismal.

My guess is the excellent vo-tech schools out there don't spend as much time teaching specific trades as they do craftsmanship.

A craftsman can generally pick up a trade with minimal instruction.

The guy running the flatbed truck could probably pick up a hammer and Skilsaw and do a pretty good job of building himself a halfway decent place to live if he decided to. He understands craftsmanship and understands that a house is simply a bunch of parts that are assembled. He'd probably make a few mistakes along the way but when he was done he'd have a pretty good house to live in.

While a lot of people don't have the aptitude for that kind of work, many do and a lot of these people wind up in college and find themselves deep in hock with a useless degree hanging on their wall.

While we certainly need engineers, scientists, mathematicians and the like, we also need hands on guys that can actually do things. There is nothing wrong whatsoever with someone working with their hands.

We really don't need any dance studies majors or underwater basket weavers, though. 

As for the guy complaining that he couldn't get a job with a Master's in puppetry we can simply say that you can't fix stupid. 








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Hmmm....

So we begin another day.

The deer are out back and have just left having eaten a few things. No problem here. They leave the flowers alone and that makes it fine by me.








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Started the day off chasing DX

to no avail as things are dead now.

DX lately has been spotty because we are on the downside of the solar cycle. Better days are coming.

88888888888888888

Last night I got asked to get a propane bottle filled for a neighbor and I will. She's a good neighbor has always been helpful.

7777777777777777777777777





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Something came up and it occurred to me

that during my lifetime there were still a few surviving Civil War veterans.

I do remember a few Spanish American war vets and quite few WW1 veterans.

Of course, my parents were part of the WW2 generation.

Still, it shows we are not all that far removed from the Civil War as we think. In my lifetime I could have shaken the hand of a Civil War vet.


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Happy Sattiddy.

Weekends mean little to sailors either at sea or ashore.

At sea means a work day, ashore means an off day and it really is as simple as that.



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The motion detectors have

been going on and off for the last few hours until daylight.

It's either the deer of the raccoons.




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The deer

The deer are funny this morning.

There is a doe out there with a pair of fawns and the fawns are like spirited little kids which is what I suppose they are.

It was not too terrible of a winter so the deer fared well. They are pretty well fed and are already pretty fat.





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Right now we have a very confused Democratic party.

The #Justwalkaway movement is beginning to divide the Democratic party which wasn't hard to predict. Eventually SOMEONE had to start something as the Democrats are getting more and more socialist and militant. They are starting to alienate their base.

Most Democrats are not hardened socialists. They do want government to provide more services than the Republicans do but they are not outright socialists. Many of these guys have been working class people with Old School solid working class values that voted Democrat to insure things like Social Security, Unemployment and disability insurance didn't disappear even though Republicans knew to leave it well enough alone.

Many Democrats actually shared moderate Republican values and very possibly didn't realize it.

Over the years here in Pittsburgh I have met any number of Democrats that have constantly stuck up against gun control, and believed in a day's work for a day's pay. For decades I have wondered why they have always voted Democrat.

Truth is I believe it is because they are either too afraid or too lazy to sit down and think about what is going on now. It's much easier to simply trundle down the worn path of least resistance.









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A documentary NOT by Ken Burns.

Every now and then you run into something that is SO ridiculous that it is funny no matter who you are. If you fail to see the humor here then please find a nice bridge and jump.

This sounds like Mel Brooks had something to do with this.

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I saw where Mitch McConnell

got hassled when he went out the other night.

This has already gotten out of hand. The civility is over and it's past time to permit this kind of thing any longer.

Quiet honestly I would simply love to see the 'Bikers for Trump' set pop in out of nowhere, chain whip the troublemakers to a bloody froth and go back to where they came from. That would be nice.

What would be a lot nicer is to see someone like the Secretary of State pull a chain saw out of a duffel bag, fire it up and simply start hacking the assailants up.

As I have aged I have grown less and less tolerant of many forms of stupidity and even less tolerant with people that don't have basic, civil manners. That goes for everybody. Women that stop acting like ladies lose their rights.

The old game of 'Chicks up front!' means nothing to me other than the fact that you just don't have to lead them as much. 









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I just read where some black guy

returned to his hotel room and found a note with a racial slur written on it.

Frankly I am always suspect because most of this stuff eventually proves to be false flag. The complainer if generally the person that created the slight for purposes of getting attention.

Even if this one proves to be true it is really nothing to get to  worked up over. 

It's time people grow up and realize that not everyone is going to like someone and that's the way it is.

Stop whining. 



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WHat are you trying to do?

Years ago I joined the Confederate (now Commemorative) Air Force. I was promptly commissioned as a colonel and went about my business as Colonel Piccolo. This was in the mid to early 80s.

The original CAF was supported by memberships and actually by its founders and a few others with some financial means. It was a casual, ragtag group and to a certain extent financing itself through air shows, donations, memberships and whatever. In the 60s when the group got started a lot of this stuff was still available and to some extent even affordable.

As for the name, it had nothing to do with the Civil war, slavery, succession, hate, or anything else along those lines. The name was really somewhat of a joke. The first time people would hear the name 'Confederate Air force' they would become immediately confused. The Army of the South never had any such thing. There never WAS a Confederate Air Force.

They would feel a little sheepishly amused when the got the details of the CAF and what they did. The name was a pretty good joke for a somewhat ragtag memorial group like that. It did draw a number of grins.

Of course it didn't take long before things got pretty damned expensive and the price of a serviceable P-51 Mustang went well over the $6000 that the original guys paid for it.

In short things got expensive fast and money was needed.

Unfortunately a handful groups had no sense of humor and didn't seem to understand he joke. Other groups, to tell the truth about it, were looking for things to shit on so the name of the CAF gave a number of outright stupid people something to whine about. 

The truth is the only thing the CAF had that the antebellum south would recognize is an affinity for that grand old southern drink called the mint julep.

By the late 90s the costs of running the CAF had soared and outside donations were desperately needed. It was now time to start trying to find some serious corporate sponsorship.

Of course, the crybabies, the stupid and those with no sense of humor looking to destroy things started the beginnings of what was very likely to be some seriously bad publicity for the CAF. This was at the time they were beginning to ask for corporate sponsorship. 

Of course, had any major corporation given the strapped CONFEDERATE Air Force a single dime, the dipshit do-gooders would have piled on to the corporation and raised holy hell.

Clearly survival was at stake here in the long term. Serious money was needed and something had to be done. 

CAF leadership sent opened the books to the membership and carefully explained that a change of name was needed to insure survival of the organization. The membership agreed, the name was changed to the Commemorative Air Force and the group survived.

A while back I ran into a former member that bragged to me that he resigned immediately after the name change and how they should have toughed it out and made their statement and so on and so forth.

I pointed out that changing the name had enabled the CAF to simply survive and that a pile of airplanes rotting away on Rebel Field for lack of money didn't do anybody any good. I told him that the CAF didn't need his annual dues. They needed some real money and unless he was capable of bending over and $hitting Ben Franklins by the bushel that he ought to simply stop whining.

People like him want it all their way and have an all or nothing attitude and all or nothing attitude. They generally wind up with nothing. They also generally don't have very deep pockets.



The CAF did what they had to do. 

One thing for certain is that the official name change really hasn't done a lot. The ragtag spirit is still there. 

















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Keeping solicitors away

There is always a dumbass out there that can't seem to get it.

You can put out a "Go Away!" sign and a couple of replica Claymore mines on your porch and some dumbass will knock and ask, "What does 'Front toward enemy' mean?"

"I means you are going to be incinerated if you don't leave." You reply.

"Oh. Would you like to buy a ute fellowship magazine subscription?"

At this stage it ought to be 100% legal to fire a REAL Claymore at the imbecile because anyone that stupid should be eliminated from the gene pool. 




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When I get time I am going to write Vladmir Putin

to see if we can keep the peace between our nations for at least the rest of my life.

A war would interrupt my supply of Ladas and Voskhod razor blades which I use and that would be a royal pain in the ass.

While I am a loyal American, ya gotta draw the line somewhere and I would be solely tempted to smuggle these blades into the country as I have yet to see an American made blade that works as well as the Russian blades do.  

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$






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Roosevelt and SCOTUS

If we got back to our origins we would not have to sweat the election of justices to the Supreme Court.

Hell, if we went back to our origins even some slob like me would be able to do a good job as a Supreme Court justice.

The job of SCOTUS is basically to look at the laws enacted by Congress and the several states and make sure they fit into the outlines of a Constitution that was written in simple English.

It's not that hard of a job.

The weaponization of SCOTUS for the most part started during the FDR administration because  Roosevelt wanted to play fast and loose with the Constitution. 

There is no legal size for the Supreme Court, it has been nine justices since Day one but that has just been a custom. FDR wanted to pack it because he had several of his programs over ruled. He was talked out of it but he managed to get enough justices replaced over time to enable him to to run loose with the Constitution.

Prior to this SCOTUS wasn't very political. It was just nine old men simply using the Constitution as a guideline. FDR in effect weaponized SCOTUS for his own gain and most presidents since have done the same thing. 

I think it would be a joy to have SCOTUS go back to its roots where it belongs, simply with the duties of reading and enforcing the Constitution.

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More and more I see hate being led by stupidity.

Does anyone out there know what a nuclear war is like?

For what it is worth President Trump has done a pretty good job of steering us well away from one recently yet the haters still gotta hate.

Maybe we DO need a nuclear war to remind people of what one really is. It has been pushing 80 years since we plastered Hiroshima and Nagasaki and a lot of people have poor memories...or none at all.

Still, I know what it entails and want no part of it whatsoever, thank you very much!

Of course the history re writers are going to say it was a dirty trick on the part of the United States and was entirely unnecessary. They seem to forget how many Japanese lives it saved, but I digress.

Suffice to say I want no part of one.

Yet there are those out there that say they would persevere through one if it would mean the removal of Donald Trump from the presidency.

That to me is hate compounded with stupidity.

Maybe we ought to round up a bunch of those and cart them off to Gilligan's Island or someplace and nuke half of them while the other half watches.

The surviving half would then see what a nuclear war is all about and decide that maybe Trump deserves the Nobel Peace prize instead. They would very possibly become Trump's biggest supporters.

Someone on Facebook posted that every so often you ought to get drunk and tell people how you really feel.

I don't need alcohol to do that. I recently ran into someone that hated Trump and pointed out that Trump has quite possibly averted a nuclear war. 

"So?" is the reply I got.

"So not only are you consumed with hate, you're just outright stupid," I said and walked off.

I knew I wasn't getting anywhere because you will never get through to a person so consumed in hate and stupidity.







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So far the Russians make the best razor blades I have tried

Between Ladas and Voshkod they are the best blades I have found yet. Both are made in Russia.

It is one more good reason to keep peace among us. If we go to war the quality of the world's razor blades will drop because instead of making razor blades out of old Navy ships we will have to scrap out our razor blades to make new ships.

I have discovered I am not along as far as returning to a double edged razor goes. A lot of young people have discovered it.

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Where is Moe Howard now that we need him.

Maxine Waters needs a pie in her face and not by some rookie leftover from the newer Stooges movie.

She needs it thrown by someone as talented as the late Moe Howard.

One of the tings about that is the left would have a pretty hard time being too upset about this because it would simply be just too damned funny to see.

It's pretty hard to rant and rave over something when you are laughing yourself silly.



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