After Sandy clouted Puerto Rico a number of hams landed

there to set up little message centers and relay information back to the States. I was on the air when this was going on and relayed five messages to Stateside parents.

All five of them were from children to parents saying they were OK.

Three of them I got directly from Puerto Rico. Another came from a French ham and the fifth came from a Cuban ham. The French ham contacted me on the air and emailed me the message.

Cubans generally take the lead in ham radio relief efforts in the Carribean. They are somewhat legendary in the ham community for a number of reasons. One is the Cuban ham radio guru, one Arnie Coro, callsign CO2KK. The other thing is that while Cuba is not a rich country, Cuban hams are incredibly resourceful at making much of their gear.

In fact some Cuban hams are among the finest baling wire and junk pile artists on the planet. Many of them are outrageously talented and while junk is cheap, talent is truly priceless. If you are not familiar with the term 'baling wire and junk pile artist' it means you are one very, very talented person. It is a compliment of the highest order.

Anyway, a Cuban ham forwarded to me a message from a young woman stuck in Puerto Rico. It consisted of a phone number, her name and that she was OK and not to worry. I told the ham I was on it.

I had already made four phone calls to four sets of parents and given them the good news. This would be number five.

The first four were grateful as hell to get the good news. One man was wary at first until he figured out I was on the up and up. Can't say as I blame him. A lot of vultures take advantage of people that are worrying about loved ones. He was simply being smart.

The fifth call I made a woman answered and as soon as I said I had word from her daughter she demanded to speak with her. I told her it wasn't possible and that the message had been relayed to me. She wanted to know what kind of an operation I was running. She wanted to speak to the station manager. She was surprised when I told her I was the station owner. 

About this time someone snatched the phone from her and asked me what was going on. I told him I was a ham radio operator with a message from his daughter. "Message reads this telephone number Everything OK. Not to worry. Coming home soon. Signature Libby."

I heard him put his hand over the phone receiver and call his wife a 'fu**ing mongoloid'. She did have that one coming.

He started to ask me questions and I told him to listen because I would answer them.

"My name is Piccolo, my amateur radio callsign is KXXXXX. I am in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania right now and I am what is called a ham radio operator. We do things like this as a public service and if you try and reward me I will return it, I said. Also I can not contact your daughter." 

"Now," I continued. "Some plumber from Wisconsin drove to Dover Air base with his portable transceiver on his own nickel and somehow smuggled himself aboard a C-130 headed to Puerto Rico and when he arrived there he set up a primitive message center and started relaying messages from people to their families Stateside. The message you got from me was intercepted by a Cuban ham that passed it onto me. I passed it on to you."

"Can you trust a Cuban?" he asked. "We're still not allowed to go there."

"I'd bet my entire station on it," I replied. "When it comes to humanitarian radio efforts in the Carribean area Cubans are the best in the world. The man responsible for much of the humanitarian ham radio movement in the Carribean is Arnie, Coro, callsign CO2KK. The message is both accurate and real. You can take that to the bank. Incidentally I bet the Cuban was running a small rig with an improvised antenna because Cuba got beat up real bad. He may very well have been sitting atop the wreckage of his own home for all I know."

"Thank you," he said.

In the FWIW department I wish the State Department would patch things up between our government and the Cuban government. The people there I have met on the air are a sampling of what Cuban are like and they're pretty good people if you ask me.

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Last page of my log book.

And it looks like I will be starting a new logbook soon.

One of the things about things like logbooks is that it only means something to me.

I saw on eBay where someone was trying to sell off a collection of QSL cards. Who would want them? They're not transferrable and are someone else's memory.

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

My logbook is closed and the next QSO I make to open the new one WILL be a Cuban. More later.

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Again I am NOT a law-abiding citizen.

I prefer the term moral human being. I would like to think of myself as one.

I don't speed in residential neighborhoods because it's unsafe. I don't give a damn about some stupid speed limit sign. If they took them all down I would still slow down in residential neighborhoods because it's the right thing to do.

Some idiot was griping because their neighbor lets their dog play in the snow for longer than 30 minutes at a time.Instantly someone else pointed out that the dog in question is a malmute, a sled dog. They love cold weather and are bred for it.

"But it's against the law," she protested.

"Laws are for idiots," I shot back. "Always remember that the people that hid Anne Frank were criminals. The people that ratted her out and got her sent to Bergen-Belsen where she died of typhus were upright law-abiding citizens."

"Furthermore if you have ever bought lemonade from a small child's lemonade stand you are a criminal for patronizing a criminal enterprise. Those kids don't get health inspections, business licenses or pay taxes and that makes it a de facto criminal enterprise. Al Capone went to the joint for tax evasion. Same crime the kid commits.  According to the way you think the cops should raid lemonade stands, make the sweet little six year-old girl running it kiss the pavement before they cuff her and stuff her and then impound the entire lemonade stand as evidence."

I suppose the entire thing was a waste of my time because the comprehension skills of some people are pretty minimal. People ought to remind me more often that you can't fix stupid.

  

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Them rich retirees down in Miami pay 12 bucks a pound for this $h*t!

Oh, God! This goes back to the infancy of the Hash. My sister set it up for me as a way to pass time when she had to go to work while I was visiting her and the kids (fair enough)

Anyway I was visiting in New England and we got clouted with a huge snowfall. I was digging my pickup out of the snow and was running the engine to run the heater so I could duck in and warm up. It was one hell of a snowfall.

Anyway, I had much of it dug out and the hood of the pickup uncovered when a cop happened by. He stopped and looked at me and said to me, "I hope you're getting all the snow off of the pickup before you drive it."

"Nope. I'm takin' the snow to Miami with me. Them people down there pay twelve bucks a pound for this $hit!"

He gave me an angry look and drove off.

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At the next sportsman's club meeting I am goint to vote AGAINST accepting the minutes of the last meeting.

Why? Because George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Wayne (hear fife music yet? Or is that just me?).

At every meeting we take the pledge of allegiance to the flag AND we give our pledge AS AMERICANS to save and defend from waste out natural resources. We are an American club.

Now as anyone knows, you can put ten Americans in a room and starve them for a week and at the end of the week ask them when they want to be fed next and get an argument.

The club uses Roberts Rules of Order and after the secretary reads the minutes of the last meeting we vote on accepting the minutes. Every single meeting I have attended they are accepted unanamously.

There's something just plain wrong about something being voted unanamously for so many years.

I think it ought to be fixed.

I think I am going to vote against accepting the secretary's minutes.

Of course I will be outvoted and questioned but it just ain't right to have something voted unanamously for so long.

Actually ALL of the club officers do a remarkable job including the secretary and this has nothing whatsoever to do with outstanding job he does. It's just a matter of principle and keeping things running the American way.

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I am reading where some carjacker got shot in Philly and the parents want the shooter charged.

So someone got shot while trying to carjack someone and got shot.

So what? Sounds like someone deserves a medal for helping clean up the town.

The parents clain ''It's only a car. The owner could have gotten another one."

I don't see the parents out there with their check book offering to replace the other cars their thug son might have stolen for one thing. For another carjackers take cars with threats of violence. Defending one's self is called self defense.

The shooter walks. Not guilty by reason of self defense.

Actually the shooter deserves a medal for stopping the thug because if he had gotten away with stealing that car he'd likely steal another one.

Truth is I blame the parents to a great extent because they think was OK to raise a son that embraced the thug life. Had they raised him differently he would probably been in school trying to make something of himself instead of carjacking some poor bastard.

I really shouldn't say this but if some bereaved parent asked me what I thought of having to bury a child that got shot while robbing someplace I would simply say, "I just LOVE a happy ending."

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I referred to someone as a 'Cheechako'.

and got called a racist.

Cheechako is an old Alaskan term for newcomer.

I explained to the imbicile what a cheechako is and he said he didn't like the sound of it.

I told him to stay the hell out of Alaska because he will not like being a cheechako.

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Mechanics of a tipi.

http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2010/12/couple-pics-from-tipi.html

http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2010/12/couple-pics-from-tipi.html

That link leads to an earlier post showing pictures of the tipi I lived in after I got out of the army. You can use it for reference.

A tipi is an interesting case of solid practical engineering.

A tipi is heated with nothing more or less than an open fire. It works rather well and most people are surprised to find out that a well run tipi is not smoky inside because of some pretty good practical engineering. Let's look at the bottom. You can see that the outside skin is not fastened to the ground. That's because the liner inside the tipi is fastened to the ground. Any winds or drafts that hit the liner are forced up and that creates a pretty good draft to pull the smoke up and out through the smoke hole. It's evidenced in the top two pictures. 

The snow line you see in the top two pictures is where the inside liner ends. It only goes part way up.  

Now lets go to the top picture and the upper part of the tipi and you'll see the smoke flaps. The top part of the flap is controlled by a lodge pole and the bottom part is controled by a rope. You can see the rope on the top photograph. 

The smoke flaps also control the draft and create a mild suction that draws the smoke up and out of the tipi.They are arranged so as to cause a draft. 

The door faces east so for a wind out of the north the north flap would be sticking straight out and the south flap would be peeled back against the tipi itself. Blocking the north wind would create a vacuum on the leeward side of the flap which would help draw the smoke out of the tipi.

There are any number of ways the flap can be adjusted and after a relatively short time it becomes instinctive. Back in the day this was basically woman's work and primitive women became pretty good instinctive engineers.

The system works pretty well at drawing the smoke out of the tipi. It's rather surprising how relatively smoke free the inside of an open fire heated tipi really is.

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Race only matters

to racists.

And that is all I have to say about that.

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Why don't I have a mask on?

I was asked as I was entering a convenience store.

"Because I'm going in there to buy something not rob the place," I replied.

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Laws are generally for stupid people.

Stupid people need laws or they will do stupid things.

Responsible people don't need laws because they act responsibly.

An example would he the 25 mph speed limit in residential neighborhoods. Responsible people automatically slow down to prevent accidents and to keep from running over kids and that sort of thing.

Idiots would race through residential neighborhoods at Mach 3 if there wasn't a posted speed limit.

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I see where Old Ironsides now has a female skipper.

I am going to reasonably assume she was put there because she's competent. Her career history seems to say so from what I read. She seems squared away having just served as XO of a guided missile cruiser. 

I have no problem with this.

What irks me is the Navy has to make a ballyhoo over it. FIRST WOMAN SKIPPER of Old Ironsides!

Big deal. Of course (she might have been fed this) is that she said she represents the woman of the Navy.

I call bull$hit. She represents ALL sailors of the US Navy. Saying one represents a part of an organization is divisive. We already have enough of that going around these days.

This should be considered a basic routine promotion because that's what it is. It should be treated as such.

Unless, of course, there is some kind of political motivation behind the promotion in which case the promotion is bull$hit.

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I suppose I could have gone to Masshole (Mass Maritime)and gotten a degee of some sort.

  I made my career hands on. Non, je ne regrette rein. No regrets. Thank you, Edith for putting it so eloquently.

Still, the opportunity for a formal education was available to me. I could have gon to Massachusetts Maritime and gotten a degree. I simply chose not to. Fact is, I just stumbled into my career. I needed a job, was offered one, took it and rode it out.

Early on I found it agreed with me. I suppose if I knew I would have wound up doing what I do I might have opted for school. 

One of the advantages to being a maritime academy graduate is you have a degree in something useful to fall back on if you want to come ashore. I recently met a kid that's going to the California maritime academy and he has an interesting plan. He's studying oceanography and wants to activate the reserve Navy commission he will get through the academy and be a Navy oceanographer. Sounds reasonable. I imagine the Navy can put his newly acquired skills to work.

Over the years I've had a couple of port captains that were academy grads and they seemed OK. It's a shoreside job and pays the bills. Of the two that come to mind, one went to SUNY Maritime, the other went through the Coast Guard academy. the latter took the port captain job after he retired from the Coasties as an O-5.

Both of these people worked at sea earlier in their careers. They took their degrees ashore, probably because they wanted a normal familly life. 

As I sit here mulling this over I have come to the conclusion that in my case a degree would have been a waste of time. On the other hand, had I gone bust on a physical or had something else change my life along the way I would have had nothing to fall back on.

It's really kind of a wash.

One thing the academies ought to do is offer more than the bachelor's degrees. I believe Maine Maritime has an associate's program but what they also should do is offer a series of shorter courses on basic entry level skills taught by industry veterans. 

About 30 years ago I got tapped out to give a 3 week course to entry level people and I did OK in that I taught them a few things. Later I reported that one of the students was an accident looking for a place to happen and they ought to drop him. They refused, he got hurt and sued and I kept my mouth shut until the Fickle Finger of Fate pointed my way and I quickly pointed out that I had recommended getting rid of him early on and that they had ignored my recommendation.

Still, the course I taught really didn't get cooking until I talked a tug skipper into putting us to work. We fired up the tug and started moving barges and that's when the students really started learning. It became a real world experience. 

One of the things I said often enough is "I taught you how already. Now just do it." 

They'd stop for a second or two and reply, "Oh. OK. I see. THAT'S what you were referring to!" and they'd jump to it like a crackerjack. I got very little "I don't understand" from any of them except for the wannabe accident.

That three week course got about ten or twelve people started. Some of them left the industry early on deciding for a shoreside lifestyle, others stuck with it.

About ten years after I ran the course I ran into one of the guys that was working shoreside. He told me that he has used a number of the small skills I had taught him. 

I think that the maratime academies ought to run a couple of entry level courses for people to learn the fundamentals of both being a deckhand on a tug and a basic hands on tankerman course.

The Seaferer's Union from all accounts runs a pretty good school down in Piney Point, Maryland. I see they have a 38 hour class in running tank barges and have heard some of the course is hands on, loading and pumping water which sound like a pretty good deal.

They also have a basic cadet type program there and crank out some pretty good entry level people.

Back to college. I have done well without a degree and I do not know what I would do if Mr. Peabody stuffed me into the WayBack machine and took me back to the day I graduated high school. 

Right now I'm sitting here with and all's well that ends well attitude but I think that it would have been OK to have a satety net that a degree would have provided.

Incidentally a degree out here is not a guarantee to success. Over the years I have seen a few academy types replaced by people with no college background. In one instance it was a King's Pointer replaced with someone that hadn't finished high school. Still, most of the degree guys out here park their sheepskin at home and come out here and do an excellent job.

As I wind down on my career I still have not made up my mind what I would have done if I stepped out of the WayBack machine on June 6, 1969.

One thing getting a degree would have done is kept people off my back which is something I had to deal with until I was about 40.

One thing. I never drag my family into this blog but this is an exception. It was my wife that got the 'When you going to get your degree' people off of my back.

Back in the 90s the Coasties were still using the old pre WW2 format of keeping licenses and documents seperate. Now all Merchant Marine credentials are together on what looks like a red passport.

Licenses were 8.5x11 certificates and documents were on a wallet sized card, often called a Z-card. The biggest lettering on my actual license read 'US Merchant Marine Officer'. 

The USMMO part has been helpful a couple of times when dealing with a rare pompous idiot hiding behind one of the old uninspected towboat licenses. The USMMO part means it's a license to run an inspected vessel. The old uninspected licenses were pretty much issued to tug skippers early on when licenses became mandatory for tug operation.

I was dealing with a cranky old tug skipper that babbled about his license. I shot back, "MY license says 'US Merchant Marine Officer' on it. Yours doesn't.  Now let's get back to work." Several jaws dropped when I said that and one tug skipper blushed beet red. 

When I first licensed in January of 1991 my wife burned off a couple of copies and handed one to my mother and said, "Here's his degree. It took him more time to get this than it does a bachelor's degree and he will never be without a decent job so long as he keeps it."

Mom had it framed and hung it on the wall somewhere which was fine. What was more important is I never heard another word about getting a degree.

In reality, my license itself has not put a whole lot of money in my pocket. Virtually all of my career has been made with the endorsements on my document, mainly the Person in Charge dangerous liquids and Able Seaman unlimited. endorsements.'

An AB/Tankerman ticket is what has made my my career. The rest my paperwork is additional but good to have because early on someone told me that if I could get a license to drive a battleship then get one because it adds to your resume/portfolio and makes you more employable.

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The best kept secrets of travel are

small airports for connections and departures.

 nmhjuuuuuuuuuuuuu (contribtion of the cat)

Smaller airports are just that, smaller and easier to deal with.

This crew change I opted for flying out of Oakland instead of SFO and we landed at Midway instead of O'Hare.

We hit the Tarmac at Midway a minute or two ahead of schedule and I noted the time. I had to go from the middle of A concourse to the end of the B concourse and it took just under 23 minutes.

Under those circumstances it doesn't get any better than that.

Full disclosure, I flew Southwest and had gotten into the A list for loading. I was the 30th person to board and was in an aisle seat in the 4th row which did save a lot of time.

Still, it was one hell of a lot easier to get around in Midway than it is in O'Hare, Detroit of Minneapolis/St. Paul.

Boarding at Oakland was a lot easier, too. The TSA lines were MUCH shorter and a LOT easier to deal with. I'm TSA precheck and even then it was easier to deal with than it is at a larger airport.

Then again I travel in a safari jacket or and old BDU shirt. I stuff my wallet in a cargo pocket, pull the whole damned thing off and drop it in a tray. When I clear I put it back on again. Simple.

m,bvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvnb hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh (more contributions from Kitty)

The other thing I discovered is Southwest Airlines. 

I'm really not too picky of a flier, really. Just so long as I don't get stuck in the dreaded middle seat and have a place to stow my carry-on I'm a happy camper. I have had horrible luck being stuck in the middle seat.

I'm not one for conspiracy theories but I do believe that the major airlines have a conspiracy to squash Piccolo between two just plain fatties that know each other and don't get along. Besides having to have half my seat taken by them I have to listen to their $hit.

Of course, sometimes they get me to sit next to someone with an emotional support animal that licks my ear all the way across this great nation of ours. Readers know I don't blame the animal.

I wish the pilot would drop below 10,000 feet and let us throw the owner of the hapless animal out the aft hatch. Of course we can't thanks to D.B. Cooper. There is a Coopervane installed on the hatch to keep us from opening it.

I would have cheerfully taken care of the animal and found it a responsible owner when I got off the airplane.

Of course when you are dealing with corporate travel you are generally stuck in the cheap seats and get put in the last boarding group. This practically guarantees that your bag will get pink ticketed and you have to pick it up in the jetway as you get off. You board with all the other beggrs, thieves, hunchbacks, dwarfs and lepers.

It make you want to panhandle the first class passengers. Alms! Alms for the poooor! Alms!

This means you are probably going to miss your connection if you were cutting it close to begin with.

When I'm going home I generally upgrade at least the first half of my flight to get as far forward as I can to insure I don't miss my connection.

Anyway, it's easy to get a decent seat on Southwest. Southwest is yet another secret. They are exceptionally generous.

They have a 2 free bags ship free policy and on top of that their carry-on policy is even more generlous. The industry standard for carry-ons is 21x14x9. Southwest's is 24x18x10. While I do not have a highly trained eye, it's obvious they want my business.

As for the attendants, they are not the slick attendants you find elsewhere. They are down to earth people and I truly respected the way we got the obligatory mask lecture. "Look. You agreed to the mask policy when you bought the ticket. Please show you have a sense of honor by obeying it." It doesn't get any better than that. It's up front. 

Mask debate all you want but it's federal mandate and if you don't like it you have other alternatives. Frankly I don't like it but I did agree to follow it because I agreed to it when I accepted the ticket.

My new M.O. is probably going to be Southwest and small airport connections.

I imagine some of you readers are going to tell me you've known this for years but give me a break. I am an old dog learning some new tricks.

I suppose some of you people know all of this if you are routine travelers but it's gnus to me.

Oh. The cat says "Hi there".

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At the drug store someone asked me where the chap stick is.

"Why? I asked. "You getting ready to prep for a colonoscopy or something?"

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Why don't I look out the window?

 Someone on Nextdoor praised their road crews for their recent snow removal efforts. I have no problem with that.

I asked how things went in my neck of the woods and someone told me to look out of the window. I was at sea at the time.

My reply was that "Because I'm currently at Fort Zindernauf in North Africa where we have just finished repelling a Tuareg attack and getting ready for then to assault the fort again."

Let's see how that one goes.

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Death of a dream.

As you have probably figured out if you are a long time reader of my drivel, I am a sailboat guy.

Over the past couple of weeks I believe I have been watching the death of a dream. It's truly been sad to watch and there's nothing I can do about it.

I have been baby sitting a tank vessel for some time now and across the channel someone tied up a pretty 30is footer up against an unused semi abandoned dock and got off of it.

Now there are a couple of good sized marinas within sight of where I sit and at least one of them had a yard where someone could put a boat like that up in the yard, or 'up on the hard' as sailormen say.

Instead the owner tied it up and bailed out if I am not mistaken. My guess is that he ran out of money somewhere along the line or he'd have put that pretty little boat either in one of the marinas or up on the hard somewhere.

I bought my cruiser, Karen Lee, in Everett, Washington and sailed her to Port Townsend and put her on the hard there and flew back to Kodiak to earn enough money to take her home with me.

It was depressing watching her sink over the period of several days.

The boat is for all practical purposes destroyed.

Of couse some wide-eyed idiot will ask, "Why doesn't he just pump it out? It's exposed at low tide."

Fact is, if he does he's in for a damned expensive overhaul that will take forever. Everything electric or electronic is destroyed and all the wiring will have to be replaced. This includes the starter for the engine which also will need an overhaul.

It will take forever to dry the insides out and every single piece of wood will be watersoaked. Cabinets and veneers will warp as will interior hatches and bulkheads. Even if you park it in Arizona to dry out nothing will ever be the same.

All of the joinery, the hatches, drawers and bulkheads will probably warp and heve to be either reworked ot replaced.

Actually to do it right you'd probably want to gut the entire thing and start with a fiberglass shell and replace everything. 

It would arguably be cheaper simply to buy a different boat on the used market.

It looks to me like the end of someone's dream and that IS sad.

Here's what she looks like at low tide. At high tide you only see her mast. So sad.

 

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Sometimes I like telling people I barely finished grammar school.

It leaves them stunned.

Some fool a while back was running his mouth and I listened for a while and when he was babbling on and on about the need to keep everything around him sterile I told him he was destroying his immune system and leaving himself wide open to things, including  Covid.

While I am not an anti vaxxer I believe a person has a choice if they want one. 

Anyway, I explained how an immune system works and pointed out what happened to a bunch of Jesuits that did missionary work in SE Asia in the years right after WW2. They 'went native' and ate the local food and drank the local waters and promptly got sick as holy hell. Some had to be evacuated but many persevered and recovered after a few months of being deathly ill and many who toughed it out reported not being sick again for as long as they were in the jungle. Some reported not being sick for two decades after they returned stateside.

Anyway after I explained how the immune system works he asked me where I had gone to college. I told him I barely finished grammar school and his jaw fell. He asked me how come I knew so much about immune systems. I told him that when I got interested in something I read up on it.

Then he said he had heard I was a professional mariner and asked me about that. He asked me how I got the proper licenses without going through an accademy. I told him I studied on my own and took the tests. Guys that go that route are called 'Hawsepipers' I explained.

Then he said, "You mean you run a tanker with an 8th grade education?"

"Yeah, what's the problem?" I answered.

He said he didn't understand how a guy that never even finished high school could run a tank vessel.

I pointed out that Dave Thomas, the man that founded Wendy's never finished high school.

That's when I went in for the kill and commented that a man's education generally doesn't really begin until he gets out of school.

I was about 38 when I began this career and managed to get where I am with a handful of borrowed textbooks and some time sitting at the kitchen table. Later on the rules changed a bit and I had to go through a couple of 40 hour classes that the company gladly paid for.

I have never been laid off and I have never missed a day's work unless I took it off on my own. I've made a pretty good paycheck and done rather well for myself. 

It can be rather fun letting people think you barely finished grammar school. It makes it real easy to burn someone's ass.

It REALLY burns teacher's asses when they hear someone that doesn't have a degree makes more than they do. What irks them to no end is when they hear about someone that never finished high school makes more than they do and when you tell them you barely finished grammar school they go off like a skyrocket.

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My New Year's resolution?

It's to stop putting my foot in my mouth. I suppose yours is probably to lose weight, right?

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Someone I ran into at work told me

that at his bank there's a limit to how much cash he can get his hands on without prior notice. I've heard that happens a lot these days.

He said he wanted to buy a brand new to him used pickup he found a deal on. The seller wanted cash.

This is kind of news to me that banks do this these days because about twelve years ago I just wandered in and withdrew about $7500 with no problem when I bought my pickup. I also cashed a check for he remainder.

Today I would not pay cash for such an expensive item because of those damned unconstitutional cash impound laws but I digress. Still, paying cash for big ticket items like that is fun because the sales mangler gets nervous as hell.

He made the arrangements and fortunately enough for him the seller was willing to wait a couple of days after he gave him a deposit to hold the vehicle.

He asked me what I would have done and I said to him, "Seeing how it's your money and you want it now, You shoulda called J.G. Wentworth." He was not impressed.

Anyway, all's well that ends well. About the time his shoes wore out he bought a pickup so he doesn't have to walk home anymore. Fair enough.

Still, it's a little disconcerting to hear you can't just go to the bank and get all your money out in cash on demand.

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Covid has exhausted me.

The other day on a flight from MSP the clown next to me said something to me about Covid. I stole a line I heard somewhere else and snapped at him, "Covid's over! Find another cause! Check with the cool kids and see what''s next!"

"Yeah, well..."

"Yeah, well nothing!" I snapped back. "I'm tired of Covid and I don't want to hear another word about it. Not one word."

He looked at me in a bit of fear. "Have you been vaccinated?" he asked.

" Have you a history of any STDs?" I countered. "Maybe HIV, AIDS, the syph or even maybe a dose of the clap you got in college? How about clamydia? Ever have clamydia?"

"That's none of your business!" he shot back hotly. 

"Nor is my vaccination status any of your business," I shot back. 

"You could make people sick! he said. He was hot.

"You should talk. You've already made me sick. You've given me a headache," I shot back. Besides, vaccinated people can spread it. Ever think of that? Now sit down and watch your damned movie and leave me alone."

I watched 'Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory' all the way to San Francisco and never said another word to him.

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Piccolo's corned beef hash

Which I rarely eat these days because I am too heavy and am in the process of losing weight. Still every so often. I generally open a can but I do not have one. I DO have a can of Argentinian corned beef which is close enough.

Hack up the right amount of boiled potatoes and hack up some onion. You should know how much if you're any kind of cook.

Throw the whole thing in a gallon freezer bag and mix it well and when it's mixed up reach in and grab about half of it and ball it up. Throw the ball into a skillet. It should make a satisfying 'thwap'.

Flatten the ball out in the skillet and let it cook a while and then carefully place a couple of eggs on top and cover. When the eggs are done, the hash is done. Scrape it up and plate it. It should have a nice, crispy bottom to it.

Eat the eggs first and take what's left and slather it with ketchup and you make now enjoy one of the finest cholesterol and fat filled ketchup covered gut bombs man has ever created.

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I just saw where QE2 threw Prince Andrew to the wolves.

It speaks very highly of her.

We'd ALL be better off if everyone was judged by the same standard. It speaks very highly of the Queen Mother to hold her son to the same standards as everyone else. What character!

My guess is that Andrew really thought he would not have to come to task for his misdeeds (assuming he is found guilty in a court of law) and could get away with anything based on his position as a Royal. 

Surprise, Andy! Sucks to be you!

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I admit I am a part of cast iron culture

The bulk of my cooking is done on cast iron and I don't even know if I have a teflon pan tucked away somewhere.

Mostly I use a 10 inch Griswold my wife picked up in college at a garage sale or somewhere. It sure works for me. For baking I have an 8 inch Lodge. It's the perfect size for a package of Jiffy cornbread and does a wonderful job. 

I would imagine if you are a regular reader you don't have to hear me talk about the joys of cast iron cooking. You may be a cast iron person but if you're not you're probably well aware of the cult following cast iron has.

If you are not a cast iron user you should look into it.

Protip: Season cast iron with flaxseed oil. It has a higher smoke point than most other oils. 

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The subject of Hiroshima and Nagasaki came up again

and as usual they were apologists. It's easy to say unless you look at Japan in 1945.

I told them that the bombing saved more japanese lives than it took by a factor of at least 1000. It's true. Schoolgirls were given pointed stick and told to kill the American/British invaders before dying gloriously for the Emperor. The people were being armed as best they could be and being trained. If the Americans and Brits invaded the mainland Japan would probably not exist, or nowhere as close as we know it.

MacArthur, who had an uncanny knack of estimating casualties before and action estimated 1,000,000 US casualties. No estimates I have heard of were made of Japanese casualties. They were damned well going to be a lot higher than that.

Deaths in both cities that were bombed were totaled at about 105,000. To put it into perspective the one night fire bombing of Tokyo killed over 100,000. The fire bombing was non-nuclear and put over a million people out of their homes.

Now had we not bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki we would have pre invasion flattened every city we neared it to soften it up for the infantry and turned it into a smoking pile of ashes.

With armed civilians attacking in addition to whatever troops they had in Japan the GIs would have simply killed everyone they met over the age of about 7 and most likely, as seen earlier in the was in Saipan and Guam, the Japanese parents would have killed their children to prevent them from being taken captive by the Americans and Brits.

It would have been a blood bath of epic genocidal proportions.

The Japanese General Staff were wondering what to do about the (then) Soviets that were invading Manchuria and to at least the Emperor the bombings were the last straw. 

You have to put things into the context of the time things happened to decide what is/was right and wrong. When you look into it the bombings saved a LOT more Japanese lives than they took.

You can say what you will, but there are one hell of a lot of GIs that owe their lives to the bomb. There are also a hell of a lot more than that in Japan that do, too. A LOT more Japanese. A large portion of the Japanese population owe their very existence to the bomb.

In 1989 I was at Arizona in Hawaii and took the tour. A Japanese couple overheard me yakking with a tour guide and were interested in what I had to say. They offered to take me to dinner and I accepted. They wanted to learn more about the war and overheard me telling the guide my father flew B-29s.

I agreed if they promised NOT to take me to an expensive restaurant because I could not dress for such a place. I was there to pick up a sailboat to deliver it to Tacoma and I was traveling somewhat light. In short I was a ragamuffin. That's not a new experience. I spend about 99.87% of my life dressed in work-type clothing still.

When I explained what I have written above I pointed out that it was pretty likely that had the United States been forced to invade that the pair of them would not likely have been born. I also said that the Emperor showed considerable courage and loyalty to the Japanese people by forcing the surrender.

(I seriously doubt our elected officials have the kind of moral courage displayed by Emperor Hirohito)

They looked somewhat stunned when I said that. The husband asked me how I felt about things now and I grinned.

I told him that because it wasn't 1945 anymore we could sit there and enjoy ourselves, enjoy each other and have a nice dinner together instead of trying to hack each other up. I also told them I was glad they were here for me to enjoy.

Meanwhile the apologists that have decided to rewrite history go on making their usual false claims because they don't understand the context of the times.

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Cats are back in stock

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There is this picture on Nextdoor of a chewed up deer.

It's pretty obvious that the coyotes found a sick or weak animal and helped themselves to it. 

Of course some of the people wanted to know what cruel and barbaric human was at the bottom of it. 

My instinct was to answer, "Kids. Probably just the local kids. That's all. Nothing to see here."

Of course half the Karens would have gone off like skyrockets and I'd likely get another time out so I held back.

Sometimes when cops are taking a report from someone they use that to settle a crime victim down. 

"Probably just kids," 

They say that because they don't want to instill fear and panic by letting the person know that the dark forces of evil have penetrated their security and that crimes happen in the best of neighborhoods.

Over the years I have heard people say, "I pay good money to live in this neighborhood to keep things like that from happening!"

For some reason they always give me a dirty look when I tell them to find the realtor and demand a refund.

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One of the things people do that irks the living $hit out of me to no end

involves wiring.

When I bought my sailboat back in about '85 it was about 17 years old and had gone through the installation and removal of a number of electric/electronic items. If course as new items were installed the old wiring was left in place. They'd just cut the ends off and leave the wiring in place. Sometimes they'd simply leave the unservicible unit in place.

Of course there was no reasonably readable color code or anything. Most of the wiring was done using whatever big spool of wire the previous owners had on hand. Of course, ot was all the same color, black.

One day right after I got a hefty payoff for a job I went straight to the auto house and got several small spools of wire in different colors. I did get a big spool of green as it waas to be the negative terminal which would be common to everything electrical/electronic.

When I got back to the boat I disconnected everything and if the unit didn't work I pitched it. Then I went through the entire boat and pulled every single inch of wire in it and one at a time I rewired everything. Every single thing got a new seperate colored wire. I even pulled the mast and rewired the masthead and running light. Every single inch of the boat was rewired.

As I went along I wrote down carefully what was what. The whole thing was a neatly organized project and everything was easy to understand.  Everything worked and had a purpose and there were no unused wires. They were neatly run and fastened in place where they could easily be traced in case somehing went wrong. If a wire corroded internally it could be replaced easily.

There was also a written out chart listing what color was what that I stapled to the inside of the top of the battery box. The battery box top was removable and could be put upside down on a counter or the table instead of having to hunch over to read it. What was also important is there was plenty of room at the bottom of the color code chart to add things as time passed on.

When I was done I showed my handiwork off to a couple of friends of mine with pride and to my surprise I got offered a couple of jobs here and there wiring in things on fishboats. 

But what was more important is that the next time something went wrong it was a snap to repair it.

As time passed I added a couple of things and if it was a case of a direct placement, say I got a new VHF radio I'd simply reuse the wiring because why bother.

If it was a new device such as the updated Loran that displayed in Lat Long and freed me up from having to get charts with the Loran C interpolar lines it got its own seperate colored wire.

One problem with redoing something is that after it's redone people tend to go back into their sloppy ways and mickey mouse things again and eventually wind up at Square One again. It's easier to keep it up as you go along.

One other thing also is that if something becomes outdated and isn't used anymore then get rid of it. This does NOT mean just cutting the wires and pitching the item. It means going through the wiring and removing the now unused wire and simplifying the wiring harness. 

The other thing I did was replace the switch/fuse panel. It was inadequate as there had been things mickey moused since the boat was launched. I added three or four switches which were wired to various devices and on top of that I added four spares, leaving room for growth. I laid it out carefully and took the home made panel ashore for drilling on a drill press. I wanted it perfect and it was.

The panel itself was made of steel instead of aluminum because steel can be painted easily. Once it was drilled out and fitted I carefully spray painted it.  A couple coats of primer and a several coats of the final color. It looked damned good.

What inspired me to write this is I was recently asked to look at the 'wiring locker' of a vessel and saw a huge plate of spaghetti where stuff had been added and added and nothing removed. It was a can of worms and it's well past time that someone go through it and remove a decade's worth of leftover unused leftover units associated unused wall warts and useless doodads and all sorts of crap. I said I wouldn't touch something like that with a ten foot pole until it gets cleaned up and everything in it gets squared away.

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One time when I was flying

 I wanted a damned drink as I was going to crash out the second I got home anyway. It was no big deal.

I explained to the nice lady that I was a nervous flyer and when I was an infant my mother would give me a little bourbon to settle my stomach.

She looked at me in a motherly way even though I was three or more decades older than her and asked, "Your mother gave you a couple of spoonfuls?"

"About a half pint," I replied, seriously. "My mother's Irish."

Her jaw dropped.

We hadn't taken off yet and she explained it was against the rules until we were flying. I thanked her.

The INSTANT we were wheels up she was on her feet like a cat and went straight to my seat and handed me a small bag containing 3 little bottles of Jim Beam and said it was on the airline. 

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One of the most savage things I have ever said.

was while boarding an airplane.

While waiting to board the attendants walked by and came aboard. I overheard a pretty one say something about her mother in Guam. A quick look at her showed soft Asian features. She was really pretty and I knew she was a Chamorro.

Chamorros are the indiginous people of the Mariana Islands and truth is many of the women in the Marianas are awfully pretty.

While boarding I passed her and said to her, "I'll bet you're a Chamorro." and watched her face light up.

She smiled and asked, "How did you know?" 

I decided to turn on the charm and said, "Because Chamorros are the prettiest women in the world." and she blushed slightly and I knew I had completely made her day. I walked past her in the slow moving line.

A few rows up I stopped and stowed my bag and some soy boy behind me said to me, "You're not supposed to talk about someone's ethnicity."

I turned to him and said casually, "Sonny Boy, I'm 70 years old and I bet I get more pu$$y than you."

He stood there agape and didn't know what to say.

The woman seated under the baggage compartment next to me looked up at me and said to me, "You probably do." and then practically died laughing as the kid turned purple with embarrassment.

As for the flight attendant? The first time she walked up the aisle she quietly asked me what I drank. The second time she walked up the aisle she slipped me a nip of bourbon and was very nice to me for the entire flight.

It is an unknown thing that airline attendants can discretly give an occasional drink away and write it off as giving it to a nervous flyer. It's happened to me a more than a few times over the years.

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A candidate for a black eye.

That's funny. I don't care who you are.

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A 72 hour hold in a psychiatric institution

Sounds intriguing. It's beginning to sound like a potential vacation opportunity.

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Some woman was talking about how her mother used to put her to sleep by singing to her.

I told her my dad used to put me to sleep by tossing me ten feet into that air and catching me. After he did that a time or two I'd be out like a light.

"But wouldn't the excitement keep you awake?" she asked.

"We only had eight foot ceilings," I replied.

She looked confused. I wanted to go into gas stoves but I figured I'd just make it confuse her more.

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Another idiot.

I had to listen to the usual speil about saving gasoline and not warming my car up in cold weather to save energy and protecct the atmosphere and yada yada yada.

I replied that while my car warms up I keep myself warm by standing next to the tire fire burning in my driveway.

Actually from a practical standpoint you often do have to warm a vehicle up enough to get the defroster to defrost the windshield or it's simply not safe to drive.

Then again, I suppose I could install a block heater but that's just using energy from another source.

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There are two kinds of turkey bacon.

One of them is that crap made out of turkey meat that they do something to to pass it off as bacon.

The other kind shows up at Thanksgiving. It's the real pork bacon you put on top a turkey to keep it moist when you roast it. This is the kind of turkey bacon I like to eat.

Kudos to my nephew. He covers his turkey with a full pound of bacon. Of course this is not as good of a deal as it sounds. That's because every time I try and pinch a piece he whacks me in the hand with a spatula or big spoon.

Some things in life never change.

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This story pops up every couple of years.

Even though it's a rerun it never fails to make me laugh.

I think the reason the 'He fell off a curb' was put on the official report  is most likely the cop that took the report was repeating what he was told by the four Marines. He was probably trying not to wet his pants laughing. Cops are not stupid.

Anyone that has been in the service knows that slipping off a curb or falling down a flight of stairs causes a lot more injuries to military members than it does to the civilian populace. Stairs, curbstones and similar things are very dangerous places, especially for recaltricent service members.

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I most certainly am NOT a law abiding citizen and never have been.

The government can kiss my a$$.

If a law if fair and just I obey it.

It it is tyrannical I break it. 

Heinlein was spot on and put into words what I have done my whole life. 

I have said this before and I will say it again. Lately it has come to my attention that the more tyrannical the government is getting the less liklihood I have of dying of natural causes.

*******************************

In other news, only in America.

I was looking for sweet and sour sauce and an Asian was standing there. I think he was doing guard duty on the cart and his wife was getting something. In desperation I asked him if he knew where the sweet and sour sauce was.

"How the hell am I supposed to know? I don't eat that slop! I may have been born in Korea but I was adopted as an infant by an Irish family and grew up on corned beef and cabbage!"

Only in America.

On top of that this was in the San Francisco Bay area and the guy had a perfect 'corner of toity toid street and toid abenoo' New Jersey accent!

I met him again at the egg section and we looked at all of the wonderful California compliant eggs. I said to him, "I don't really care how they treat the damned chickens. They could haul them out of their cages and beat them twice a day for all I care. I really don't even care if they feed them petroleum by products."

"Yeah," he said. "California compliant yolks break about half the time when you fry them."

He's right. They do.

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A lot of people have no context of the times.

I was wearing my blood chit jacket to travel in a while ago and at MSP airport a Chinese/American woman in her 20s asked me if she could photograph it and I let her.

I asked her if she could translate it and she said, "Maybe a couple of the characters." I told her to take the picture to her parents and get a good translation.

Her English was perfect and totally unaccented and I imagine she's at least second or third generation but she actually could read a few of the characters. She was confused as to why there was a Taiwanese flag on it and I told her that it had been the Mainland Chinese flag until 1949 and the blood chit was dated 1940. In about 1949 Taiwan had taken over the Mainland flag.

She looked confused and I told her to read her history and she might learn a thing or two. I gave her a rough translation of the chit and she asked me what the reward for saving a pilot was. I told her I believe it was $500 USD and she said it wasn't very much money.

I pointed out that in 1940 the average price of a house Stateside was about $2000 and that in pre-war China $500 was enough to retire on for life. She looked somewhat confused.

Actually any Chinese she had in her had long been diluted away. She was Chinese in heritage only. She was just another dumb American as far as I could see. She seemed to know little about her heritage.

Still, that happened at MSP and in my experience on the West Coast I've had positive comments from Chinese Americans that know exactly what the blood chit says. I was surprised she was unaware, actually. I think she was a local going somewhere.

She's not alone. There are a lot of people that don't understand the context of the time in question. I saw some dumb kid looking at a picture of a mid 1800s train belching smoke that asked why the EPA didn't shut them down.

Then again I heard a teacher say that the Americans lost the Battle of Lexington but clobbered the British on their march back to Boston by hiding behind billboards and phone poles. Go figure.

Then again I once explained to someone that George Washington's white horse was really light grey and everyone thought it was white because that's what it looked like on the news on the old black and white televisions. They took it hook, line and sinker.

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