One of the bills Trump signed is the right to try law.

It's well past time it was enacted.

It used to be that the only people that got to try experimental medicine on a life threatening disease had to leave the country.

The case that comes to mind first was Steve McQueen. He went to Mexico to try Laetrile which was supposed to be an experimental cancer drug. His cancer was said to be incurable. It was. The Mexican Laetrile didn't work. He died anyway but much to his credit, he tried. As a result we learned one more thing that didn't cure his cancer.

The fact that he died anyway is immaterial. we all die. McQueen had to leave the country to try his experimental cure. I suppose if I were in his shoes with a disease like the incurable cancer he had I would have tried it, too. What did he have to lose? He could have only gained.

I also saw a few people try to get cured of fatal diseases and of the several that tried the non-western medical cures, one of them survived. It was several years ago and I don't recall all the details but the woman followed the Chinese doctor's instructions to a T.

Maybe it was $hit house luck. Who knows. Still, she took a different route and beat something that was incurable at the time.

The point of all this is that now with the right to try law we now don't have to leave the country to use something unapproved.

Of course I am an Old School Libertarian and as far as I am concerned if you want to try and cure leprosy with moonshine then have at it. It's your life and you have every right to try what ever medication you want. For that matter for what ever reason you want (including recreation) but that is just me.

I have never been able to figure out how the government managed to grab the authority to tell us how we have to and what we have to use to cure our afflictions. I figure it's our own choice.

Of course I know very little about the medications available and prefer to consult a doctor but that's me.

I do know an old Marine that told me his corpsman used to quietly schlep him about 4 ounces of bourbon after a fire fight to settle him down when he had the after action shakes. I asked him if he suffered nightmares and he said it was a very rare occurrence.

PTSD is a strange thing. There is no telling who will suffer from it and who won't. The jury is still out on that one. Still, I suppose it didn't hurt.

The bottom line is that we got a choice returned to us that never should have been taken away from us to begin with.







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I just saw where some idiot elected official

wants to make it a law where people have to remove extended trailer hitches when not actively towing a trailer.

My guess is that he was wandering around with his head up his ass looking at his smart phone and passed closely to a parked pickup and barked his shin on one.

Now he wants to pass a law about trailer hitches.

Why?

My guess is that someone saw it and did exactly what he was supposed to. He laughed like hell, Ha! Ha! He barked his shin on a trailer hitch! 

If he was stupid enough to be walking around with his head up his ass he deserves what he got. It's his problem. Not ours.

Now he wants to make his problem everyone else's.

Socialism. Shared misery.


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I have posted a couple of things I recall from my days in Alaska and

One is the time I missed getting murdered.

One night I was out having a few and a certain lady caught my eye. I knew little about her but did make my availability known.

So did another guy. She chose him and they left.

I don't know who said what to who but the guy that got lucky suddenly got unlucky. Her boyfriend murdered him in his own bed.

She was not in my bed so I survived.

From not getting lucky I got damned lucky.

Let's leave it at that.



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Well, we feel....

I had to deal with this 'we feel' crap from a Social Justice Warrior a bit ago and it was ridiculous. 

Me: "We? We? We? You got a mouse in your pocket? Let's get this right. YOU feel. That's Why-Oh-Ewe. You. I don't feel a thing."

Him: Stutter. Hem. Haw. wide eyed look.

Me: "Personally I don't give a damn how YOU feel. If you feel like you have been kicked in the balls or have a brain blistering hangover it's no skin off my nose. You can be dying from pancreatic cancer for all I care. I feel pretty good, though in case you're interested."

That pretty much ended it.







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Do people even know what a tax return is? Do they really understand what a big return check actually means?

I'm sure most of you readers do because if you read my bullshit you are probably somewhat literate or at least semi-literate. The latter in this day and age seems good enough to get by with so let's leave it at that.

Anyway, a perfect tax return is ZERO. Yes, zero. You pay nothing in, you get nothing back. That is actually how it would work in a perfect world.

Let's say you are a ditch digger and work 40 hours a week with no days off except for your 2 week vacation. Of course you don't work during your vacation. You foolishly squander it taking your wife and kids to Disneyland instead of wisely spending your entire vacation at the strip club getting bombed out of your mind but I digress.

You work 8 hours a day digging a ditch for five days a week. That's fifty weeks per year at forty hours per week. You never get sick so you lose no time. They give no holidays so you work them. There is never any overtime nor do you get sent home early. At the end of the year you have worked a total of 2000 hours.

You have no 401K, you don't deal with banks and save your money in a fruit jar you hide under a loose floorboard therefore have no interest income or any other form of taxable income.

At the end of the year if your employer has taken the proper amount of money for income tax out of your check you will neither owe Uncle Sam any money at all, nor will he owe you anything. You're square.

All this being said, it's not really a perfect world. Uncle actually has the employer take out a little extra every week and your refund comes when you settle up and get the difference between what has been taken and what is owed Uncle Sam.

It is a refund for the extra money Uncle Sam has collected from you. It was and still is your money. Uncle Sam is simply giving you YOUR money back. If they had taken out more of your money you would have gotten more of your own money back in the form of a bigger refund. Had they taken out less you would have had a smaller refund.

Just because your refund was bigger doesn't mean you paid less in taxes. It means that they took out more money to begin with. A smaller refund means they took out less.

None of this has any real bearing on what your actual tax is/was.

To compare what you paid to previous years look at what you made last year and what you paid in taxes last tax year. Compare it to what you just paid. If your gross net income figures are about the same it should be fairly obvious. 

If not do the math to see the percentages.

I wrote this because I met an idiot that says that his taxes went up based on the fact that his refund was lower this year. I told him they took less out and he had a hard time figuring that out.

When I tried to explain to him that the government was giving him back his own money he couldn't understand it was his because it came to him as a government check. At first I thought that he was so stupid he ought to be euthanized but I thought twice. If we euthanized everyone that was that stupid it would mean a genocide of such epic proportions that the Holocaust would be dwarfed in comparison. 





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Holy smoke!

A company I did business with some time ago and very seldom bothered me with a string of useless emails just sent me and email asking me if I wanted to stay subscribed.

They also said that I didn't have to unsubscribe, simply delete the email and they would no longer contact me.

For that I will put them in the back of my mind.

Gadsden and Culpepper, if I ever need another flag or banner of any sort I am going to look you up first!




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Looking back on the Richmond rally I wonder

not only how big it really was. Northam and company say 22,000 but I know it was bigger than that.

What I wonder about is how many people didn't show after they sent out all sorts of fear threats of possible violence.

I'll admit I had a lot of fear and trepidation showing up at such a large armed rally. I just knew inside the likelihood of things turning sour. One agitator could have turned it into a real horror show. A panicky cop could have really created havoc.

Yet they pulled it off.

What I would love to know is how any people would have shown up had the clowns in the capitol building not sent threats of violence out. Possibly double or even triple.

888888888888888888888

I do remember one idiot of a cop that was telling people to remove their magazines. The guys would pull them out, walk five or six steps and reinsert them. 

I was unarmed and when the guy in front of me was told to do this he looked at me. "Take it out," I said and then for the benefit of the cop I said to the kid, "If we have to start shooting policemen today you'll have plenty of time to reload."

Of course the cop turned purple but was smart enough not to say anything. His partners yanked him aside and talked to him.

The kid yanked his magazine and a couple of steps later I told him to reinsert it.

Actually what the cop was doing was outright dangerous. Most of the guys had a loaded mag in the well, a round in the chamber and the safety on. If left alone that combination is safe enough. It's when you start fooling around with things that you run into trouble. Sometimes it is best to leave well enough alone.


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We have gotten to the point where many of our elected officials have forgotten

that they are supposed to work for us. Now they seem to think that we work for them.

Ousting them through the voting process never seems to do a whole lot of good because it becomes a case of 'meet the new boss, same as the old boss'.

Maybe if we physically oust some of them at a state level they may get the idea.

Actually there really are a few that want to serve but they get tainted by the rest.





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Most idiots out there don't even begin to understand the Bill of Rights.

The rights covered in the bill are God given.

Let's look at the 3rd Amendment.

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

It strikes me that a homeowner really should not have to worry about soldiers arbitrarily walking into someone's house and demanding that the homeowners move into the basement and give their rooms to some soldier or soldiers. 

It's simply not right and there is no excuse for it at least in peace time. During war an emergency may arise and maybe things have to be done but it guarantees that there will be limits to it and probably compensation.

Still it is a God Given right not to have to quarter anyone whatsoever in one's home against one's will.

Of course most idiots think that these rights are given to them by a kind and beneficent government. They're not. They are simple basic human rights given to us by God.

The Bill of Rights simply recognizes these rights and says that the government promises not to infringe upon them.







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I want to speak to the manager

A couple of days ago I posted about trouncing on some little Karen that wanted to speak to the manager at a local Walmart. She thought she was special and could break the rules and decided to go up the chain.

Now a manager is what he is. He is nothing less than a store manager and nothing more, either. In short he's just another working stiff that has been hired to run a store. I'm sure it's a halfway decent job and all but he's only the guy in charge of one store.

One of these days when I am retired and have time I am seriously thinking of seeing how far up the chain I can get with a petty complaint. Manager, my ass! I want to speak to the CEO!

I'm sure there is a hierarchy in chain stores. There's a store manager, a regional manager and so on up the chain to the point where one has to fly to Benton, Arkansas to get to speak to the bigger bosses.

I wonder how far up the chain I can get.

While we're on the subject, I wonder how far up the federal government chain of command that someone could get.

When I was in the service we had the right to take a complaint up the chain of command. Squad leader, First Sergeant, battery commander, battalion commander, regimental commander all the way up to the President. Of course one never really got very far. The furthest up the chain of command I ever saw someone take anything was to battalion level. The guy that did this eventually wished he'd not even brought thee issue in question up.

Still, it might be fun to take a complaint up the corporate chain as far as one could get. If you get it up far enough it possible (but not too likely) that they would buy you a new car or something just to make you go away.

On the other hand, I imagine if you tried this with the Clinton Foundation that Hillary would simply have you whacked but I digress.

Still, it would be interesting to see how far up you could go to register a complaint that the breakfast sandwich you pair $2 for out of the heated cabinet wasn't warm enough to suit you.

I would imagine that back int he day when Sam Wall was still alive a guy could get to talk to him and if you played your cards right he's probably offer to take you bird hunting.

Still, I'm fairly sure I could do better than some idiot Karen that wanted to speak to the manager. I could probably get up the chain to at least some regional manager or something.

Tune in when I retire and need something interesting to do.





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I am getting sick and tired of the crap the Democrats are trying to do to us.

Talk about trying to stuff a ballot box!

In New York the governor has ordered that illegal immigrants are to be issued driver's licenses and that a DL is same-same to a voter registration card. 

What bullshit!

Of course as angry as I am there are a lot of people more upset than I am. They are called legal immigrants. They are the poor slobs that entered the country the proper way and have to wait for five years until they become naturalized in order to vote.

It is well past time we require five things from voters.

1. Ya gotta be alive. 
2. Ya gotta be a citizen
3. Ya gotta register
4. Ya gotta show an ID
5. Ya can only vote ONCE.

That's not too much to ask for.

Actually in my world there would be another requirement. 

You have to be useful and have performed a couple of years of service of some sort, not necessarily military. It's hardly right to let some low life drink beer all day on the taxpayer's nickel and then go and vote.

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Yesterday I got a little testy.

I was in line a the market and behind a damned Karen type that started a beef with the cashier over an expired coupon. Of course she escalated and wanted to speak to the manager.

I hate people like that. Her plan was most likely to create such a stink they'd cave in to her just to get rid of her. In addition to that she would likely report thee cashier as being rude. The cashier was an old woman that likely was supplementing Social Security. She was in a position where she was unable to defend herself. 

I decided I to help the poor woman out. I was going to get involved. I leaned forward and spoke to the insufferable bitch.

"The manager's name is Ray Charleston. I've known him for years. Want his cell number?"

She took the bait and when she started dialing I looked at the cashier and said I had forgotten an item and would be right back. I took off fast. I had given her MY cell number.

My phone started ringing and I caught it on the third ring. I was out of earshot from her and I could see her. I answered the phone.

"Ray Charleston," I snapped.

She started in immediately babbling on about how the cashier had been rude to her and wouldn't take her coupon and on and on. I let her run on a bit and then brought her up short.

"I see you. We have you on camera. You're that miserable c*** at register four that abused my cashier over an out of date coupon. I want you to leave and leave now. You can pay for your merchandise or leave it. I don't care. Just leave. If I have to come out and throw you out I am going to have you arrested for trespassing."

It was wonderful watching her go into shock. Her few items had already been rung up. She paid and left like a shot. It was like Lucifer himself was chasing her.

I returned to my cart and started putting my stuff on the conveyor. The cashier looked at me. "The manager's name isn't Ray Charleston," she said.

"I know," I answered. "It's the first name I could make up."

"That was YOUR cell number you gave her!" she said, wide eyed. "What did you tell her?"

I laughed. "You don't want to know. Let's just say I didn't want her to get you into trouble so I was unkind."

I thought that poor old woman behind the register was going to wet her pants laughing.






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I just saw where Bloomberg got clobbered my Warren

which I find fairly amusing. 

Let's look at the minority vote for a second.

Trump has probably done more for minorities than any president in my lifetime as far as employment goes. Minority unemployment is now at an all time low.

Bloomberg is has commented that the police don't stop and frisk minority people often enough and frisk whites too often.

Interesting. If you were a minority who would you vote for? The guy that got you a job or the guy that wants the police to pester you every ten minutes?



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Pitcairn Island confirmed

I came home to a nice QSL card from Pitcairn Island in my mailbox. It confirms the log entry of Pitcairn Island in my ham radio log book.

I should count up all of my DX entities because I do believe I am over 220 now

VP6R. It was a DXpedition to Pitcairn. The lone ham there went Silent Key a while back so a DXpedition put it on the air again for a few days.

I am damned glad I got Navassa Island a while back as that only goes on the air about every 20 years.



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It' been a couple of days without a post

I have been extra busy but now I will have time.



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Most people have never figured out how the Constitution really works or what it is.

It is nothing more than a promise from the government that they will limit their authority.

We already have the rights listed in the Bill of Rights.  They are God  given, period.

For example you have the right to worship as you see fit or even not worship if you want. 

The Bill of rights is a promise that the government will permit you to do so without interference.

You have a right to not have troops barge in on you and make your home into theirs, for example. Of course this may change in time of war but the government has to pay you fair compensation for your trouble. Fourth Amendment says the government can't do this.

In short the Bill of Rights is simply a list of what the government can't do to you.

As far as the goings on around the country regarding Amendment Two and other things it's all a bunch of shenanigans on the part of the government.  

I have no duty to obey this crap.

Let's face it. There was a time I supported our elected officials but that day is fast fading. Many of them have neither my respect, my loyalty or my obedience. They can feel free to utilize the mistletoe I have clipped to my shirt tail. 

The RKBA was given to us as a basic human right and the government promised to not interfere.

What has happened in several states is when one party gets into power that declare it a mandate to run roughshod over us. 

It's well past time for a lot of people to run roughshod over  a bunch of elected officials for taking away our God given rights. Incidentally this not only applies to the RKBA. They have gone after parts of the First Amendment and others.  


Incidentally a number of liberal candidates have threatened conservatives and gun owners with the Guilloti F-15 jets and even nuclear bombs over the past year. 

In short threats have been made by either elected officials or candidates for private office and that's just plain wrong.

Joe Biden said an AK 47 is useless against an F-15 and he's right about that. What he fails to understand is you do not try shoot down a fighter jet aircraft with a rifle. 

You use it to shoot the tyrant that tries to send jet aircraft after members of the American public. That's fair and reasonable.



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I am rapidly getting sick and tired of everyone trying to get me

To load, download, upload, sideload or splitload their damned app.

Or worse yet, get their special little card.

If I signed up for 10% of the crap I have been offered my wallet would be a foot thick and my computer would need a monster external hard drive.

And for what?

For nothing I can see that is to my advantage.

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It is morally wrong

to be nice to telemarketers.


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I see where Loco Lizzy Warrenand Shotgun Joe Biden

are both claiming that former president Obama has endorsed them.

Typical.

Obama has endorsed neither of these two imbeciles.

He HAS endorsed Bloomberg which leads to another interesting question.

How much did Bloomberg give Obama for the endorsement?


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Busy

very busy


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The day is beginning and I am up to greet it and welcome it in.

which kind of sucks because I would rather be in bed right now.




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A friend of mine asked me for help building a rifle

And of course you know I can't refuse that one.

What he wants is a beater rifle or what is also commonly called a truck or trunk gun. This is an inexpensive but reliable rifle that the owner can afford to have get beat up, broken or even lost. If it gets little rusty or scratched up it is no big deal.

He settled for a simple kit gun he bought on line rather inexpensively. It contains all the parts necessary to build a simple rifle except for the lower receiver which is a serial numbered item and has to come from a licensed dealer. He already has the lower that was part of a project that never came to fruition.

Actually the kit comes with everything except a lower receiver,  rear sight, magazine and a sling.

Anyway I am in the process of trying to scrape up a couple of magazines, a rear sight and a sling right now to help him out.

It's been some time since I built a firearm from parts before. Over the years I have built a couple of 1911 pistols,  an M-14 I built from a barreled receiver, a couple of Garands from barreled receivers and served as moral support for a couple of AR builds. Still, it's been quite a while.

With the likelihood of various bans looming in the future it is probably a good idea to snag a couple of ARs to put aside because I do see a bad period coming up on the horizon.  

That's what I would do if I were a few years younger.







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I remember a while back when some small town PD

posted a picture on Facebook one of their officers with some kind of a bazooka anti tank weapon aiming it out onto a piece of road and reminded the townspeople that they ought to slow down there.

It WAS pretty funny and it actually served a purpose which was to remind the locals that they should keep their speed down.

Personally I chuckled and thought highly of a chief that had such a good sense of humor but a lot of other people didn't. My guess is the complainers were out of towners.

I bet most of the locals grinned when they saw the picture. I'm sure the officer in the picture was a rather popular local policeman. Generally when someone poses a picture like that they pick someone that everyone knows as being a good guy or at least a halfway decent sort. 

Anyway, a bunch of crybbies, snowflakes, whiners and do-gooders carried on and moaned, wailed and gnashed their teeth screaming that the police had no right to shoot at passing cars with a damned bazooka.  

It was actually funny reading the comments they made.

Again, Ron White is proved correct again. You can't fix stupid.

I suppose that maybe they do have a point, though. Someone told me Russian police cars sometimes carry RPGs to end chases. They very well may but you have to realize that the very snowflakes that were appalled at the thought of a cop with a bazooka are the very people that want to switch our government over to socialism and  bring that sort of thing on



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What a joke! Lowe's sucks for this one

Get a free prize for filling out our survey.

Well, OK. Let's see how this plays out.

So I fill out the survey and go see what prize I am eligible for and presto! There's a list of so-called free prizes but they nail you for shipping and handling.

Some freebie!

Lowe's, you suck! 



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Uno de los dias

There are days when these posts write themselves and days I am sitting here blank minded. This is one of those times.

As I look around I see that I have an awful lot of things running off of USB plugs to the point where I an going to get one of those splitters you plug into the wall and get a half dozen USB outlets. It makes sense.

It's somewhat surprising how much stuff is now charged and run off of USB outlets but on the other hand it isn't. It seems like most electronics today run off of low voltage. I bet that todays televisions even take house current and reduce it to a much lower voltage but I may be wrong here.

Still, laptop chargers reduce household AC to a much lower voltage. Then you have cell phones, tablets and a bunch of other things that require a USB plug or some sort of wall wart. Not a whole lot other than lights and things with motors run directly off of 110 VAC anymore.

It would be interesting to try and imagine when 110 VAC is going to become obsolete. 



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I am slowly getting used to typing on a smaller keyboard

which is pretty cool.

Instead of the thick combat laptops I have hauled around for years I am running with  Kindle Fire 10 with a Fintie keyboard and a Kindle cover that goes with the keyboard.

It's a halfway decent portable rig and because I fly a lot more often it's not a pain in the ass to take to work with me. It comes out of my pack going through TSA and goes back in it afterwards. 

The jury is still out on how rugged it is, though. It is also not as versatile as a Toughbook, though. This is fairly primitive compared to a real laptop.

Still, it is what it is and it works for me...at least for now. 





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I just read an interesting thread on the quality of AR 15s

which confirmed what I got crucified for a few years back.

I once said that they are all pretty good because anyone putting together junk would be out of business in short order.

Anyway a former employee of one of the bigger (now defunct) companies let the cat out of the bag. The now defunct company got bought up a while back by a bigger company.

The former employee went on to say that the basic parts were basically traded around to practically all of the other companies. He pointe out that none of the companies built all 120 parts of an AR on premises. They built some but not all of them and outsourced what they didn't make.

In short, with very few exceptions virtually all ARs made are built with numerous non in-house parts. The expensive makers in most cases use whatever they can get their hands on that basically pass speifications. In this day and age most do.

So what is the difference between a top shelf rifle and a run of the mill rifle? Most of the time It's the roll mark on the lower receiver. That's all. 

Of course, there are a number of custom builders out there that build competition rifles and things are a little different. They may use a better barrel and/or float tube. They might put in a specialty trigger but they generally use the same parts out there that everyone else uses.

I guess it's the same for custom homes. Custom homes all pretty much use the same basic dimensional lumber for framing and building. The sheetrock is the same.

What's different are the trims, appliances, cabinets and the non structural parts coupled with the design and layout.

I build both tract and custom homes decades ago and discovered this.

I am not in the least bit surprised it applied to AR15 rifles.

Unless you are getting a gun from a custom shop they are all pretty much the same.





To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY

I had a hard time catching the SOTU address last night, I only caught

part of it.

Still, the little I did catch was amazing. He's grown since he was elected and is doing an excellent job when you consider what he has been up against.

When I get time I am going to write a long post about what is going to happen if he isn't re-elected.

When he leaves, either in 2021 0r 2025 it will likely be the end of the Republic as we we know it.

It bothers me to see what we have become and where we are headed. 




To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY

I am going to write a damned bok when I retire

about life in Seattle in the 2020s.

It will most likely be a real horror story. I visited Seattle recently and it is NOT the same place I wandered in and out of in the early to mid 80s. Frankly Seattle sucks.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Over the years people have asked me why I don't talk about what I do for a living although sometimes I do but in the broadest of terms. Someone asked me about that recently.

The reason is simple. I work here and as long as I am working for someone I will not say anything about them either way in print. 

I have no sympathy for anyone that bad mouths their employer on Facebook and gets in trouble for it. It really speaks poorly of someone to bad mouth their boss publicly. Besides if he/she is so awful then why don't you go somewhere else?

In the privacy of one's living room over beers is another story entirely, though but the rules are that it stays there.



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Once upon a time

I think I'll tell a fairy tale today instead of a sea story.

If I were to tell a sea story I would not begin with "Once upon a time'. I would begin with 'Now this here ain't no shit'.





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I wonder what's coming next

Every day I get up and it's something different to deal with even though it looks like the same thing.

Something comes along and makes the day at least interesting. Recently I had a pretty sorry 36 hour period but it was at least interesting.

It's funny how many guys gravitate to the old 'Most interesting Man in the World' beer ads because a lot of us guys fear boredom more than a bad day.

The Interesting man ads drew us in pretty much for that reason. He was at least interesting


To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY

I recently had a flight cancelled on me

by Alaska Airlines and they sent me some ubersecret code number for $200 off of my next Alaska Airlines flight.

Smartass I am I emailed them back asking if I could trade it for lap dances at the Great Alaskan Bush Company.

Stay tuned to find out.


To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY