A pretty good sea story about running aground.

We were running light barge down the Hudson once when some jerk in a sailboat decided at the lastminute to make a tack across our bow. We were running hooked up, meaning all ahead full.

It was the mate's watch and he was actually a very competent mate although a bit too serious minded for my taste but that was OK. Competence first.

Anyway, he backed down hard and for no apparent reason a face wire parted. (Later determined to be a manufacturing flaw). When the first wire parted all the energy transferred to the other wire which let go. A nanosecond later there were two pistol shots as the poly Dacron safety wires parted.

We were adrift at about 10 knots!

I was on deck in a flash, stark raving naked and soaking wet as I had been in the shower and heard the first face wire part.

I saw the sailboat going down our port side inches away from us so I knew there was no injury or casualty. Thank God.

Instead I saw a panic stricken idiot babbling about how sailboats have the right of way and I shot back "Read the Rules of the Road, asshole! They don't in a narrow channel!"

Anyway, the mate was pretty cool about it as he hooked back up and started to swing past out starboard side. At this time my mate jumped on deck and was actually clothed carrying a jacket which he donned.

"Grab his lines and let me get dressed," I said to him and headed for the house. I had a pair of coveralls and topsiders on in a heartbeat and returned while running and putting on a jacket. It was pretty cold at the time.

By this time the port side was aground and we hauled the tug's lines on deck and made them fast, dropping the eye over a deck cleat. 

The mate skillfully pulled us off the beach and we continued heading at a slow bell downriver. By this time the captain was in the wheelhouse observing everything.

My mate and I made a check in the voids and tanks for damage, None noted. I went below and instantly logged the incident. There was a good reason I logged it without checking with the skipper. I knew how the game was played.

A few minutes later the skipper came aboard and asked, "Do you see any reason why this has to be reported?" I told him that while I had already logged it, that nobody had bothered looking in my log for years and the likelihood of anyone looking in the log were slim to none.

"Eee-yeah...I suppose we can let this one slide," he said.

When he left my mate was in a dither about not reporting it and I flat out told him that he was not responsible for anything. I had logged it, and reporting it to the office was entirely the skipper's responsibility. There was no way he would be responsible for anything. He stood there and brooded.

The mate and I returned to the galley and maybe twenty minutes later the radio went off and it was a quick statement from the tug skipper asking me to meet him on deck. I said "Wilco" and came out alongside the tug. The skipper had the wheelhouse window open.

"I thought about it," he said, "And figured I'd better report it to the office. I said no damage."

"That's what I logged," I said. "I found no damage whatsoever."

"Good."

I went back to the house and ate lunch and the mate went out on deck to check things. About eight or ten minutes my phone rang. It was my port captain wanting to know what happened. 

"Got a call from the mate, huh? After the skipper called you?"

"Yeah," he replied automatically and then wished he hadn't given me that answer. "What's that all about?"

"Ever see that cartoon about 6 guys in a rubber raft with about 3 feet of tugboat mast above the surface as the tug is headed toward Davy Jones' Locker? Remember the caption? "Do we have to report this?"

"Yeah," he chuckled.

"Then you know how the game is played. You've probably played it yourself. First you have to get your story straight and think a few minutes. Then you realize you may get away with it for a while but eventually someone will say something and it gets back to the office. Reality sets in and you make the phone call. Whole process generally takes 30 minutes to about an hour or so. You know the drill. I just waited it out because if I called there would be permanent bad blood between the tug and barge forever. If push came to shove I'd probably make the call to cover myself though. That's a given."

While I was talking with my port captain it occurred to me that my mate knew his ass had been covered and that all he was trying to do was rack up brownie points at someone else's expense...including mine. I knew that if he could get a fifty cent a week raise by selling me into slavery in Egypt I'd be speaking Arabic. The bastard wanted my captaincy and didn't care how he got it.

Of course if he did get a captaincy he'd become a tyrant and not be able to keep a crew.

I told the tug skipper that he was lucky he called when he did and spilled the beans. The skipper and the entire crew wanted to pound the hell out of him but I headed them off and promised to take care of it. I knew that evaluations were due the next week and I had already started my mate's. 

I headed back and filled his out and was 100% honest about it. I said he was skillful, attentive, willing to work and all the usual crap except for trustworthiness which I gave him a zero. Under comments I wrote "This man lacks integrity. He is a troublemaker and a sneak. I want him off here."

When I asked him to sign it he refused so I wrote refused in the signature box. After that I made a copy. I put the copy in the barge's outgoing mail box and the original in the tug's outgoing mail after I had written 'original' in the corner.

A couple of days before crew change someone from the office dropped my while we were loading and he took the mail from both of us.

When crew change came around I grabbed the newly generated mail and went into the office to turn it in. My port captain spotted me and called me over. He handed me the evaluation I had written up and asked me why I thought the man was a snake. I pointed to the corner that I had written 'original' on and aske him if he had gotten the one that was a copy. He hadn't.

"That's because he filched it out of our mailbox and made it go away," I said. "I rest my case."

"I'll get him out of there," he replied.

When I returned to duty three weeks later he was gone. While his replacement wasn't quite as talented, he was pretty good and knew how the game was played. At least I could trust him.

The old mate was reassigned and wound up working for a couple more tours. Word was out on him and he wasn't trusted by most people. A couple of months later he went to work somewhere else, supposedly for more money. Later I found out that the company he worked for paid a little less but paid travel expenses so I figured he probably was about fifty bucks a tour ahead. Big deal.

 

  

 

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Working on a sea story post

Time to reflect on some career things.

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An open letter to a fairly new nurse.

I spoke with your dad and he told me you were working in an emergency room now. Straight out of the frying pan and into the fire. My guess is it's probably a good place for you. It's probably a damned good place for you to get to see it all and have to learn to deal with things and think on your feet.

I heard you feel inadequate because you missed out on a certain training class. Don't be. I ran into a couple of RNs at Sheetz and mentioned this and they both said you probably didn't miss much.

Fact is, the services take a kid fresh out of school and run him through about 16 weeks of training and send him to an infantry unit and he becomes the platoon doc and deals with it. Here he is 18 or 19 years old and he's dealing with everything between a cold and traumatic amputation. These guys generally do just fine. 

It should be noted that they often deal with some of these injuries while under fire.

Over the years I've run into a number of nurses that served in Vietnam and to a woman they all said it was the high point of their careers. Some of them extended their tours, others came home and returned to their 'specialty', peds, geriatrics, OR, whatever. A number of them left their specialty because they felt they had skills that would make a difference and went back to the Emergency Room and made their careers there.

The woman up the street up the street flew 'dust offs' as a flying nurse. When I first moved in I'd watch her come home smiling with satisfaction most days, but other days in a bloody flight suit with the 10,000 yard stare. That's when I knew she had a really rough day.

One time I saw her come home in a soaking wet flight suit and knew she'd had a rough day. Still, she had a satisfied look on her face.

The next day she'd be up and running at about 2800 feet per second off to stand by to fly again. She was basically an ER nurse but her ER was often on-scene at a traffic accident out in the weather.

When she wasn't dealing with on-scene medicine she was flying to assist a patient being taken to another hospital to see a specialist.

Let's talk about medicos in general. None of the people in medicine are miracle workers. They just arrange for the miracle to occur. 

When I was in 5th grade I broke a leg and it was a particularly nasty break. It was set by a Doctor Kilfoyle, who was six days older than dirt and a true craftsman. He could have easily retired a few years earlier but he loved his work. 

After he set it he showed my dad the x-rays and was really proud of his work. He said, "I love arranging miracles and now we'll get to watch one as his body heals itself."

That stuck with me. Medicos don't perform miracles. They simply do the best they can to arrange the miracle to occur.

Get that in your head. You can't perform miracles. And another thing is that you can't win them all. All you can do is to try and arrange a miracle and sometimes it is not to be. 

About 20 year ago I broke a foot and the hospital sent me to a sports clinic when they looked at the x-ray. The first doctor I saw was fairly young and full of himself and pissed me off. He was talking about sports and after several times of telling him I had no interest in sports I asked him if there was an EENT clinic in the compound and he asked me why I wanted to know. "So you can get your fuckin' ears fixed. I hate sports."

He got uppity and told me he was an orthopedic surgeon and I snapped back that my neighbor was an auto mechanic and the only difference is he, the doctor, washed his hands after he took a piss and my neighbor, the mechanic, washed his hands before he took a piss. He stormed out.

A few minutes later an older guy walked in with a shit eating grin and asked me if I had told his associate the difference between a mechanic and a surgeon. I told him I had.

He laughed and told me that he had been a mechanic once and I was spot on. He also took me into his confidence and told me he was a high school dropout that had gotten drafted and was sent to Fort Sam to be trained as a medic because he tested high.

Later in Vietnam he patched up someone that had been torn up with what he had to work with including pieces of stainless steel safety wire and had him evacuated. While one doctor at the MASH unit wanted him courts-martialed, the senior doctor saw talent and had him pulled from his unit and had him work with him in the OR for a while. 

He went from being a private to becoming an orthopedic surgeon compliments of the army and had retired as a colonel. He was an interesting man. When my foot was set and casted he said something Dr Kilfoyle has said years earlier. "Now the miracle will happen."

While you were growing up I saw you were a kind, respectful, youngster, wide-eyed, somewhat shy and full of ideals. I knew you were one of those special kids that would grow up and try to make a difference. 

The only thing that you don't have is confidence in yourself. I saw that in you while you were growing up. SURPRISE! I have confidence in you and won't give up on you even if you give up on yourself. You can easily do this.  

When Cully and I would sit in my driveway drinking beer occasionally he would tell me you were one of the kids that spoke to him and made him feel like a human being instead of part of the woodwork. He knew you were special.

When your mother told me you wanted to go to nursing school she said she was surprised. I wasn't. You're one of those people that wants to make a difference. It speaks highly of you. Don't lose your ideals or you will lose a very important part of yourself.

While we're on the subject of making a difference, that ER is a damned good spot to make a difference. You're generally the first point of contact someone makes that needs medical care.

The Emergency room can be a wonderful education on life if you pay attention. You will see the miracles of birth and death, and practically everything in between. Most likely you already have. Learn to embrace it. Every life has a beginning, a middle and an end. 

Mine is rapidly coming to an end with no regrets. You still have plenty of time to make a difference. You may not realize if but one of the nurses I spoke with that told me to tell you not to worry about missing the training told me that most of what you will be doing there can be handled by a motivated kid that was run through Ft. Sam. I believe her.

You'll see a lot of life. You will see a 45 YO man in a panic over a small cut and another dark humored person carrying a traumatically amputated foot in his hand come hopping in singing "Always look on the bright side of life". 

My advice to you is to simply follow your instincts and training and do the best you can. I expect you will do just this after you get used to things. I know you'll be successful.

Keep you chin up and hang in there. You may surprise yourself and decide to make your career in the ER because it'll keep you busy.

Don't brood on any mistakes you make. YOU are not a miracle worker. You are a human being and the last time I checked, so am I and we both make mistakes.

Do swing by for a few minutes the next time you're in town.

 

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The sign in front of the Mustang Ranch said "Closed for business.

Beat it."

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They grew up on me.

I made this post in 2010:  https://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2010/11/something-pretty-neat-happened-to-me.html  It's a fairly short read.

The girl in it was  three at the time and afterwards for years she always had a hug for me. She was 'My Sweetie' and every time I saw the little girl her in the yard she'd light up and I'd wander over for a big hug.

About two or three years ago when I wandered into the neighborhood swimming pool area looking for someone she spotted me and charged over soaking wet and gave me a big hug. I was flattered to no end. What old man gets hugs from 13 year old girls?

Her brother, five years older at about the age of ten would occasionally watch Kitty when I went somewhere for a day or two. By the time he was twelve he had complete charge of the Piccolo manse when I was gone to sea for three weeks at a time.  

I think he was twelve when Kitty got sick and he never bothered to tell me about it until I got home. That was because he took care of it. Somehow he had gotten a vet to make a house call and treated Kitty which I kind of found and still find rather astonishing. 

Later I found out the vet was a family connection and when I chased him down to compensate him we settled for a bottle of Dewar's.

Over time his responsibilities increased and when I'd come home from sea I generally came home to a recently mowed lawn and always to a happy Kitty. 

Seeing he was now living with three women I'd sometimes have him over for 'guy food' and whip us some ribs or my world famous chili-like substance. We still do that when he's in the area. Currently he's at Embry-Riddle as a junior and always seems to find some time to drop in on me when he's home. As an old man I'm flattered that a college kid would drop in on me.

He helped me move a couch a while back and while we were tooling along I told him about the time I was put up for the Legion of Honor by the Foreign Legion for shooting 38 A-rabs off he back of a camel.

"Let's see," he replied. The average camel can hold 500 pounds divided by 30 equals an average weight of each A-rab of 13.15789473 pounds.

What do you expect from an Embry-Riddle Aerospace engineering major? 

He's already got a job lined up and when he graduates and heads off to work out of state I am really going to miss him.

There's a middle daughter in the family and for some reason or another I never did connect well with her. I attribute that probably to timing. She considers me as a family friend. She's a pretty good kid and is doing well at a college not too far away.

Back to my sweetie who is now sixteen.

Her brother was doing some work for me a couple months ago and grabbed her to help with some cleanup. Over our lunch break I got to talk to her for the first time in a long while and I was astonished at how she'd turned into a confident young woman.

She's what I would have referred to back in the day as a 'cool chick' and I really enjoyed talking with her. I was tempted to invite her over for lunch but I suppose it's not cool for an old man to invite a teenaged girl over.

I hope when the weather breaks I can meet her walking up the street and chat with her in the safety of the driveway or maybe someplace in public.

It's a wonderful experience getting to chat with a youngster I have known since she was a three year-old.

Her parents should be proud of the job they did on her.

Actually they did pretty damned good on all three of them.

=======================

I have another project coming up about someone else I got to watch growing up that's just entered the medical field. 

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Just finished a pretty good book,

12 O'clock High which was made into a pretty good movie with Gregory Peck and a 60s TV series that I thought was pretty cool but I recently saw a few reruns and they sucked in the historically accurate department right down the the cigarettes they smoked. 

Back in the day they smoked Luckies and Camels...NOT 100 mm extra lengths that didn't come out until the '60s. Filters didn't show up in any numbers until about 1950 and didn't become popular until the early 60s.

Also shot down evadees and POW camp escapees were grounded  upon return to American control. Yet a lot of the TV characters that were shot down and made if back went back into the air upon return.

I had been looking for a copy of the book for decades off and on and found it on Kindle for three or four bucks.

It's a pretty good read and I'm glad I found it.

If you're interested check it out.

As usual it's better than the movie and a LOT better than the TV series.

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Did you wake up in a pile of rubble with corpses laying around you?

If you didn't than shut the hell up and don't complain because a lot of people somewhere have. Count your blessings.

Merry Christmas.

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Merry Christmas Eve.

Christmas is a hard holiday for me.

This one won't be too bad as I spent the day today fixing a few things for the wife and put together a fire pit for her.

Doing things for someone else keeps me out of the dumps over the holidays.

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Behind every teenage fad or social justice campaign

is some fat guy in a suit with a big cigar getting richer.

Follow the money.

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An answer to Emily's recent comment.

As most readers know I have no real animosity towards the LGBTQ community whatsoever. My attitude has simply been ''Go in peace'' which is fair enough. 

In fact I really don't judge people as a group but rather as a bunch of individuals. I deal with people on a case by case basis.

I do have a TG nephew and as I have thought it over time and again over the past few years I think that in his particular case transgendering was probably a pretty good idea. He truly sucked at being a chick. As a female he was a real pain in the a$$. He had every whiny little girl way habit there was. He was a whiny little annoyance. Now he's a pretty good guy to have a beer with. I enjoy his company.

I mentioned this to another nephew and he laughed and commented "It's probably the first time he's been comfortable in his own skin." He was probably right.

Still, much to his credit he waited before making the change until his brain was fully developed which was a wise choice. You can't go back on a lot of these procedures and it is a case of having to do it right the first time.

Personally I think that any doctor that performs any type of TG surgery or treatment that can't be easily undone on anyone under the age of 21 belongs in jail and have his license pulled. The brain hasn't fully developed yet and should be before anything that can't be undone should be performed.

The overwhelming majority of the straight community don't really hold anything against the LGBTQ community on a personal basis and I'm one of them. My libertarian attitude towards people of good will is go in peace. If you dig through umpteen years of my posts you will see my go in peace attitude show through.

As for gay marriage? Frankly I think the government should get out of the marriage business and instead provide civil unions for any couple that wants one. Marriage should be a religious institution. Wanna get married? Go see the preacher and if he wants to marry you he will. If he doesn't want to then find a preacher that will or go without. It's not fair to force someone to perform a religious rite on someone whose religion prohibits it. There are more than enough preachers who will.

Same goes for things like wedding cakes. If a baker doesn't want to bake you a wedding cake then go find someone else. You don't have a right to force someone to go against their religious beliefs.  After all, it's their business and not yours. You wouldn't want someone to tell you how to run your business. 

Groomers do not belong in schools. It is NOT OK to have drag queens read to children and promote an LGBTQ lifestyle in schools. For that matter don't push the straight lifestyle on them, either.

Just leave the kids alone and let nature run its course and as individuals they'll figure out who they are. Kids have figured out who they are since Day One and that hasn't changed. They don't need a bunch of advocates charging in and confusing them. Leave them the hell alone.

Over the past few years I've discussed the general attitude toward the average straight working stiff and the LGBTQ community and almost to a man they have pretty much agreed that they carry no animosity to LGBTQ people on a personal individual basis. Most of us don't give a person's sexuality a second thought. You are what you are.

It's the LGBTQ organizers we have a problem with.

Virtually everyone I have talked to is sick and tired of the parades and other ways and having your sexuality thrown in our faces. We don't have straight pride parades or things of that nature. In fact I daresay if the straight community did decide to hold a straight pride parade the accusations of homophobia and other carrying on would be epic.  

Fair is fair. If it's OK to have a gay pride parade then it's fair to have a straight pride parade. Same holds true for the racial issue. If it's OK for Al Sharpton to lead a parade then it's OK for David Duke to lead a parade.

We're also sick and tired of having things rubbed in our faces by so-called woke companies using various figures to endorse their products. Many of us speak with our wallets as the Bud Light people and others have found out the expensive way.

The overwhelming majority of us bear no real animosity to LGBTQ individuals but most of us don't care for the self-appointed leadership of the community pushing their agenda.

In fact after the Pulse nightclub shooting a number of the LGBTQ community members reached out to the shooting community asking where they could get training in the lawful use of firearms for self-defense and a large number of shooters welcomed them aboard and offered them instruction. It was interesting to watch the good old boys show the gay community some kindness and compassion by offering to help teach them to defend themselves.

That in itself says a lot when a bunch of redneck gun nuts offer to help out the very people that many of them would have routinely bashed about 20 years ago.

Personally I'm on the list of potential instructors for Operation Blazing Sword and many years ago I offered to help the Pink Pistols out if they needed any.

At a pro 2nd Amendment some gay guy asked me to hold his sign while he answered the call of nature. The sign read 'gun rights are gay rights' and I was happy to do so. Someone took my picture while I was standing next to someone holding a sign that read 'armed fags don't get bashed'. Constitutional rights apply to all citizens. Fair enough.

From what I have gathered the so-called $hit stirring leadership of the LGBTQ has found a way to make a buck on it somehow or another. They NEED homophobia just like people like Al Sharpton need racism.

If racism disappears overnight then Al Sharpton's gonna have to go to work at the car wash. If homophobia disappears then the LGBTQ 'leadership' is going to be competing for Al's job at the Suds-a-Matic over on 8th Street and you can bet they don't want THAT to happen!

If you want to call me a bigot, a racist or homophobic because I hold everyone to the same standards and treat everyone equally than have at it.

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The Acme Catalog and stupidity.

Someone I met told me about stupidity and the Acme Catalog.

The Acme Catalog is (supposedly) where the Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies/and others characters (most notably Wile E. Coyote) get their stuff. It was printed sometime around 2006 and is now pretty much a classic collectors item.

It's a spoof catalog selling the usual anvils, oversized bear traps, gigantic magnets, iron birdseed, ray guns and all sorts of cartoon stuff. Need a quick oversized crate of TNT and a blasting machine? The catalog's got it. How about a huge hole to put on a barn wall? They got it. 

The guy told me he had gotten lucky and found a copy on eBay through a Goodwill store for $10. It arrived in his mailbox just before he had to go to a doctor's appointment so he took it with him.

In the doctor's office someone asked what he was reading so he handed it the the man who asked. Little did he know he had handed it to a real idiot who quickly thumbed through it and started babbling how it was against the law to sell ray guns to the public, and TNT without a permit and so on and so forth. Apparently he got all worked up. 

He told me that an old woman spoke up and told him it was a spoof catalog and set him straight. 

People like that are proof that P.T. Barnum knew what he was talking about.

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New phone. First thoughts.

A while back I bought a Samsung A-12 for about $125. It finally started acting up so it was time to replace it. Off to Wallyworld as I have been a Straight Talk customer for years and years. 

Straight Talk has been reasonably priced and flawless so I just run with it. YMMV.

Anyway, the Wallyworlds in my area have a team of subcontractors that man the phone departments at odd times. The regular employees can sell you a phone but you're on your own setting them up. 

I had figured on spending about $150 or so on a replacement and told the subcontractor what I did and what I needed in a phone and to my surprise, she showed me a $100 model instead. I took her word for it and wound up with an A-14 which is basically an upgraded model of what I was replacing.

She swapped out whatever and had me up and running in a few minutes and I was good to go. She knew her stuff.

These new phones don't have an easily replaceable battery and generally when the battery gets sick it's replacement time. With the A-12 I had turned off 'fast charging' and set it to stop charging at 85% because it makes the battery last longer.

Yesterday I charged it up to 100% and at slow charge it is certainly a slow charger which is OK because I can charge it while I sleep.

I spent yesterday removing all of the junk apps they put on it at the factory and trying to clean a few things up. I can't uninstall Samsung news but I managed to eliminate a bunch of stuff I have no use for whatsoever. I don't need a half-dozen gaming apps or other stupid stuff because it just takes up space and slows things down. 

There's a couple factory apps I'm probably stuck with that I can't seem to uninstall. I have 2 text messengers, a Samsung and a Google and can't uninstall either one. I only need one. Maybe I can put the Google one to sleep. 

I certainly don't need Samsung news so maybe I can put that one to sleep, too. I'll figure that one out.

Coupling that with a couple of hour and a half long phone calls from the wife and an old compadre and that's a lot of juice. 

I had started at 0900 and stopped at about 2100, a full day. I was down to 70% which came to around 3%/ hour and when I sacked and let the phone rest it drew a little under 1%/ hour unused which is reasonable.  With normal use I should be able to run about 3+ days which is close to the old A-12.

Of course I generally charge it when I hit the rack but every so often I run it down. I also have it set to charge it only to 85% as that increases the longevity of the battery. 

Once when I was forgetful I got three days out of the old A-12. I think I can probably do the same with the new A-14. Hopefully I won't get spacy again and do that again.. We'll see.

One other thing I wonder about is how well and how fast it will charge on my solar panel charger. I would imagine if I set the phone on fast charge in a pinch I'll be OK.

I've got to figure out a couple of things here and there but when it's all over and done with the A-14 should be pretty good and a good deal for the money.

Needless to say, the jury is out. Ask me in a year.

44444444444444444444444444444444

Back in '09 I bought a new truck which is still my daily driver. 

About a month after I got the damned thing Toyota started sending me all sorts of questionnaires asking me how much I liked it. I returned every single one.

Written across the questionnaire in Sharpie pen was 'Ask me in ten years.' 

 

 

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The war on drugs has proven to be a complete waste of time and treasure.

We've made no progress at all since Reefer Madness came out in 1936. Reefer Madness and the similar crap was disproven when I was a kid in the 60s. In short the Establishment lied to us about marijuana.

Needless to say, many of us figured they lied to us about weed so they were probably lying to us about heroin and that probably created a pretty good number of junkies.

Incidentally when I figured out that the Establishment was being less than honest I got curious and that was my unwoke awakening. I've been skeptical about government, Top Men, and the Establishment ever since.

I didn't have a serious bent toward drugs other than alcohol. What kept me out of the drug scene other than on the very fringes was what I noticed about those deep into it.

I noticed that druggies were often getting ripped off or were ripping someone else off, getting beaten up and in the case of someone I knew personally, murdered.

The murder victim was an idiot that had saved $10,000 and planned on scoring $10K worth of coke in Anchorage and returning to Kodiak to double his money. He didn't know how to keep his mouth shut and while I don't know what happened his body was reportedly found at the Anchorage dump.

I just looked at the people around me and decided I didn't want to be a part of it. I pretty much steered clear of the drug scene.

We've spent too damned much time and treasure trying to regulate the behavior of drug abusers. It's time to change our tack and go either one way or the other.

Either we get a big, bearded turbaned  Saracen (Straight out of 1001 Arabian Nights and complete with those curled up pointy shoes with bells on the tip) with a huge scimitar  a to say "Goomzebah!" and lop the heads off of drug abusers or we legalize it and tax it appropriately. 

By taxing it appropriately I do not mean taking out 'The gouger's handbook' like they did when they legalized pot in Colorado. Certainly not the way that the feds and states have done with tobacco to try and force people to quit. All that will do is to permit the current black market created by criminalization to continue. A reasonable tax would be acceptable with the caveat that is to be used ONLY for rehabilitation and drug related things.

Making it affordable would certainly cut down on drug related crime.

Speaking of the black market, a couple of months ago I was offered a carton of Marlboro Reds for $50. While I could have easily resold them for $75, I passed.

What we have been doing for about a century hasn't done anyone any real good. Druggies still drug, the black market still runs, people are still getting ripped off, beaten and killed. In spite of squandering our treasure nothing has changed. I suppose on the positive side it's created law enforcement jobs for people that want to do thankless work.

The entire war on drugs has been a big waste of money.

Legalize it all and let Darwin sort it out.

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Another 18 YO plumber apprentice asked me about the military.

He, too had wanted to be a soldier but decided to apprentice as a plumber.

I said to him that if he wanted to stay within the United States DoD that his best choice was probably the Marine Corps. They somehow manage not to get as involved in social experiments much as the other services do.

I told him if he wanted to be a pure soldier that "The last vestige of being in an Old School army is the French Foreign Legion and I seriously don't recommend it."

Then I asked him what changed his mind about the army.

He said he was not interested in being a part of a once excellent organization that's gotten woke.

Interesting young man.

He told me about the recruiter giving him a call and yada yada yada. He said the recruiter sounded 'kind of desperate'.

I read where the Army grabbed a bunch of NCOs and ordered them on recruiting duty with pie in the sky promises of promotions if they were successful. My guess is a lot of careers are going to be ruined over this which will make things worse.

I think the young man made a pretty good choice.

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I might have posted this years ago

But so what?

Anyway, there are people that understand bull$hit and those that don't. The people that don't get fed more bullshit when I run into them.

This kid in front of me looked like a handful. I looked down at the little boy and asked him how old he was. "I'm SIX!" he said with a big smile.

"Really? When I was your age I was nine," I replied. I was treated to a smile, a quick confused look and another big smile. It was obvious that the kid knew he was having his leg pulled by an old guy.

The mother couldn't figure it out. "How could that possibly be?" she asked me.

So I asked myself, Self? How can you pull this one out of your ass?

I explained that I was born shortly after WW2 on board a Liberty ship that my family bought for next to nothing after the war and it was the family business. There was no provision for carrying passengers so as soon as I was born my name was put on the crew manifest as an ordinary seaman.

My mother, interestingly enough had grown up on a river tug and during the was served as a Wave. The Navy put her to work as a river pilot moving LSTs from Neville Island (a nearby WW2 shipyard) down the Mississippi to New Orleans where the regular Navy took over. My mother was the mate on the ship.

Because we were working a coastal route and no leg of the voyage was over 600 miles we were permitted to run a smaller crew that worked a 6 hours on, six off watch system. Longer voyages would have required a 4 on 8 off watch system.

Because of the 12 hour days the crewmen, myself included, were given a day and a half credit of sea time for every day worked. I grew up on board and was 'ship schooled'. The Chief Engineer taught me math. Dad and Mom taught me to read.

Anyway, by law the Coast Guard was giving me a day and a half's credit for every day I was on board. When I was his age I was legally nine and when I turned fourteen I applied for my Able Seaman card which you were supposed to be 21 to get. The Coast Guard issued it to me on my fourteenth birthday. I also registered to vote and could legally purchase handguns.

In fact, by law had I chosen to I could have started to collect full Social Security when I turned 44 but opted not to do so. I just let the amount I can collect keep going up for when I finally do retire. If I wait I'll probably see ten grand a month which is a lot more than I make working.

"Really?" she asked, wide eyed.

"Anyway, you can see why I was nine when I was his age," I said, smiling at the little boy.

Hook, line and sinker.

How I can pull stuff out of my ass I can't figure out. It's probably a gift from God...or maybe a curse. Who knows?

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I truly hate copper thieves.

It would be one thing if they just sneaked into your garage and walked off with a pile of copper and left but they don't. That would be just a clean theft. 

They tear everything up to get it. They'll rip out plaster and sheetrock, cut studs, joisting and other framing and in general do maybe $35,000 (or even more) worth of damage so they can leave with a few dollars worth of copper to scrap.

The labor involved often means that they're working for under minimum wage because it's often a lot of work destroying everything to dig the copper out of plumbing and wiring.

Personally I think that the penalty for copper theft should be that the thief is handed over to the victim. The victim gets the use of the thief for slave labor for as many hours as the dollar amount of the damage he caused. Twenty five grand's worth of damage means 25,000 hours of doing whatever the victim want's him to do. 

Need a new sewer line laid? No sweat. Don't pay some excavator, just hand the thief a shovel. Landscaping? You bet! Hell, rent him out to the neighbors.

I figure that after a few people get caught and wind up in virtual slavery for a few decades the practice would stop.

 

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Digital currency

is going to be an easy sell in the 'burbs because Karen and Ken are lazy and stupid.

While for the most part I do use my plastic, I do so in order to watch my spending. I get a record sent to me monthly which is all well and good. Still, there are things I do use cash for some things and will continue to do so. I just got an offer of a 4% discount on a major home repair job if I don't use plastic to avoid the fees and that's a slam dunk lead pipe cinch that I'll write a check or take a trip to the bank for green stuff. 

Of course some guy was trying to sell it on another website and said the biggest reason to not want to go digital was they engage in 'illicit activities'.

Interesting choice of words. It's kind of a standoffish choice.

Earlier in my career I had a supervisor say "He was high on marijuana" in a lame effort to distance himself. I saw that for what it was because word was that until the Coast Guard started drug testing the man was pretty much of a pothead. Apparently he thought that saying "He was stoned" meant he was familiar with it. Being familiar with something could mean he had partaken. There was a lot of this early on in my career. False, self righteous denial. I'd have actually respected him had he said he had cleaned up his act when the rules started to require drug testing instead of trying to be a plaster saint.

I always wonder about people like that. 

The first thing that came to mind was there are an awful lot of 'illicit activities' that do not require the transfer of funds. While we're at it, there are a number of legal activities that are just plain wrong. As I have said before I don't let anyone-especially the government- define my morality. 

Anyway, the first thing I started to type to his "illicit activities" crap was that one does not have to transfer funds to be a pedophile but decided against it. The whole board would have gone stark staring bonkers. It's a true statement. Of course it would be taken out of context and read as an accusation. Instead I suggested that because he didn't take part in 'illicit activities' he probably would have ratted out Anne Frank.

While I don't know for certain who reported my Anne Frank answer I'd bet heavily that it was the person that I offended. Plaster saint's get offended easily over things like that and it immediately makes me wonder what the person has to hide.

As to be expected, he reported it and the usual cycle of crap took place and I got my pee pee slapped (again).

The term 'illicit activities' conjures up a lot of things that I am guilty of. Most recently a drug offense when a couple of nights ago I decided that because I was not going to be home at the necessary time I'd put a pill on a vial on my key ring which I keep for just this very reason. It's illegal to carry prescription medication in anything other than the original container. So sue me. I see no purpose in carrying around a big bottle with me.

When my license wouldn't scan I had a beer bought for me by a teenager with a fake ID. So sue me. If the system is so screwed up that a 71 YO man can't buy a beer than it gets what it deserves. It gets ignored. We've gotten so stupid that a 71 YO man has to have a beer bought for him my a teenager with a fake ID. As a lot of you regulars know I don't do stupid very well. 

I suppose on the other hand that if they didn't require a scan that some kid working there would let his buddies waltz out of there with six cases of PBR or something like that. Actually the answer is not to hold the store accountable but the individual person that committed the crime. Now if you look like you're over 40 they don't card you anymore. I wonder what happened to make the system smarten up. In a way it's scary.

In the FWIW department the clerk that refused me told me he had to refuse a sale to an ancient old woman that wanted a single beer for a recipe to make something for her grandson with a couple of rabbits that he had bagged while hunting. The clerk had the decency to say he felt like hell after having to deny the sale.

Had I been in the store I would have bought an old woman a beer.

I am one of those suave, smooth devils that would have given the old woman a smirk and a wink and asked her, "Young lady, buy you a beer?" And bought her one.

Other illicit activities I routinely take part in are things like stopping at lemonade stands and hiring the local kid to mow the lawn when I'm either too busy or plan on being out of town. God only knows what rules and regulations I break while doing that. There's probably a whole laundry list. I wonder if there's a tag on any of my pillows.

Incidentally about 10 years ago when he was 12 I hired a young man to look after the cat take care of things at home when I was at work and the wife was out of town. 

He was just the man for the job and after the second or third time I came home to find out that Kitty had gotten sick and that he had somehow wangled a veterinarian to make a house call! When I called the vet to find out how much I owed I wound up settling with him for a bottle of Dewar's.

I also found out he was spending at least an hour a day with Kitty instead of feed him and run. 

This, of course probably put me in violation of 1001 child labor laws or whatever and God only knows what else but he did a damned sight better job than most adults and  older pet watchers would have done.

All I can say about mister 'illicit activities' is that people like him seem to be on the increase. We're turning into a bunch of zombies walking around staring at cell phones and obeying a bunch of rules and regulations without thinking about what we're doing.

It's scary.

(Yesterday I needed my phone to answer a quick text in the UPS place and when I was done I looked at the clerk and said, "Please note I am putting my phone back in my pocket instead of staring at it like a damned zombie." She grinned. I was mildly surprised she didn't look confused.)

Back to digital currency. How about no? 

We've already seen what Trudeau did to the truck drivers when he got their accounts frozen. All it really took was one click of a mouse and BINGO! You ain't got no money. 

Of course the bulk of the idiots that want to trade their privacy for convenience always fail to realize that if they OK it for something to happen to someone else they tacitly agree that the same thing can happen to them. 

Mister 'illicit activities' likely hasn't figured that one out yet. 

When it happens to them it's too damned late. Of course they will be standing there agape wondering what happened. He or she will stand there dumbfounded over the ticket and fine that arrived that they have to pay for not wearing their seat belt and will wonder where, why and what happened until they recall that they didn't put it on when they moved the car two feet ahead in their driveway.

Imagine a world where everything you do is traced and followed. You can't even hire the kid to mow your lawn. You can't buy a damned lemonade. Bubbles even has to get a card reader installed because there are no more dollar bills to put in her G-string. 

The more I watch the more I see a lot of us are just becoming little automatons and zombies.

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Buying beer as a teenager in Scituate Harbor, MA.

By the time I was about 19 I had a pretty good beard and could pass for 21 and after the first time or two they'd recognize your face and just take your money.

Actually there was a bit of a science to getting the program up and running. There was one guy there that was a little careless about checking IDs. The first time it was a shot in the dark. You'd go in when it was busy, grab a six-pack and get in line and if he was preoccupied he'd just take your money. After doing that two or three times and getting away with it he'd recognize your face and just take your money.

If he carded you during the first couple of times you were S.O.L. and had to wait until you were of age. I managed to get over somehow.

The trick then became going through him while there were other employees in the store. They'd figure he had checked you out and you were good to go. It didn't take long before you were a regular and nobody bothered to card you.

They had a parrot in the store and needless to say, the proper way to get a six-pack was to go to the cooler, grab one, put it on the counter and say something really vile to the parrot which would cause the counter person to call you an a**hole.

Immediately the parrot would say, "You a**hole!" The counter guy would get annoyed.

"Now you got me doing it, too!" he'd say as he rang you up.

Sometime I ought to write a post about that damned parrot.

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Another veteran replied that he didn't recommend the service to young people, either.

It got me wondering what the .mil is going to do when push comes to shove.

It's going to be pretty interesting because the next logical move is conscription which we have not had for half of a century. Needless to say, I can't see a politician advocating for a draft because it will mean he won't even be elected assistant dogcatcher in East Podunk, Nowhere for $6/hour. As a result I don't see that happening.

One of the positive sides of a return to conscription will be the epic screeching of the Karens out there that have sons and daughters of military age. It might (might) make a few of them open their eyes.

The rank and file, both officers and NCOs don't want conscription to happen, either.

I served with a few of the last of the draftees and many were pretty much worthless. I remember the long faces, the slow pace and knew they for the most part, were people that I just knew I didn't want to have back me up. Truthfully there were one or two exceptions as there always is but for the most part they shirked and felt sorry for themselves.

Some of these were college grads that had been deferred but they graduated and their deferment ran out. They just wanted to get out and start their careers.

We hear stories of draftees staying in and becoming Sergeant Majors and truthfully I had a doctor that was a draftee and retired as a colonel and an MD he was another exception. (Interesting story. He was a high school dropout.) 

What we don't hear too often is the stories about the duds.

Still, a lot of them just plain sucked...at least in peacetime.

Officers and NCOs really don't like having people serve under them that don't want to be there and are not motivated. I can't say as I blame them. Nobody like to watch someone milk a job and take a full day to complete an hour's worth of work by someone who is just passing time.

Needless to say fifty years later a lot of draftees that loafed their way through pony straight up to the veteran's parking spaces etc. (Truthfully, some damned well deserve to... Some.)

I should carefully state here that quite a number of draftees got sent off overseas to places like Vietnam and Korea and made the best of a lousy situation, turned to and pitched in. These guys are OK--actually kinda special-- in my book.

Still, all in all I sure don't want to see conscription return. 

The solution is simple. Drop the social experiments and return to the original mission.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

In the FWIW department, the military has a specific job which is to kill people and break things. 

There is absolutely no room in it whatsoever for anything but an absolute meritocracy based on ability and skill to do those two things period. If you can do the job and do it well, you got it.

There should be just one standard that applies to everybody...period.

And yes. Everybody means everybody.

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I was getting my car worked on and a woman came in.

She said she had a check engine light on.

The counter guy took her keys, went outside, fired her car up and came in and reported that the light was not on. She looked somewhat confused.

She was sitting next to me and I discreetly got her attention and said quietly to her that it was part of a Pittsburgh car repair shop conspiracy and that all mechanical shops had an electronic force field around their shops that turned off check engine lights.

I was curious to see if she would take the bait and was pleased to hear her reply, "Trump's fault?"  

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Cell phone panic.

My cell phone cratered and yesterday it was time to get a replacement. 

I've been running Straight Talk through Wallyworld since the days of smoke signals and it's been flawless so I've stayed with them. For $40/month it's been reasonable. 

Anyway, the Wallyworld store don't have the crack teams of trained cell phone specialists anymore. The have an outside source of subcontractors that are pretty good.

I've been running Samsungs for a while and they've been pretty good. I have no desire to switch to an iPhone simply because I'm not really an Apple guy. 

The hard part was trying to find a store that one of the subcontractors was in. They actually do have a person manning the counter but they will only sell the phone. The contractors will both sell you the unit and set it up for you. I've lost a lot of dexterity and I'm not as computer literate as a lot of people would think. I'm not entirely illiterate but  Besides I'm just tired of messing with things like that.

Surprisingly enough, the sub, a woman, wound up saving me $50 by recommending me a less expensive unit. I walked out for $100+tax.

I have never been able to figure out why people are willing to spend $1200 on a cell phone except out of some pride thing. While there are people out there that do need a good one for work, I don't need all the technology a super phone provides. 

Actually the other day I was discussing computer needs and my needs are simple. The guy I was talking to agreed that we both would still be happy with an old machine and Windows 98 simply because we don't do a whole lot on a computer. I'd still be running Windows XP if they still supported it. Whatever.

Then again, I'm content still driving a 15 year old pickup. It does the job comfortably enough. 

Some people say I'd still drive a Model T but they're wrong. Model Ts don't have a radio and heater.

Needless to say, as soon as I got home I ordered a military grade case for it for about $20 in hot pink. While I am not a total klutz, accidents happen. A good case protects it from the inevitable bumps and spills.

I run with hot pink because I can't seem to find a case in yellow/green, the safety color highway workers wear. Those two colors are perfect because I can find the phone at a glance when I put it down. They stick right out. It just makes my life easier.

I suppose if I was some kind of uber cool secret commando I'd have one in camouflage or something but it would be a pain in the ass to find if I laid it down on, say, a dark mahogany desk or something.

Assuming Amazon didn't screw up, tonight I'm 100% back in business.  

 

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A senior I spoke with a while ago is not going to go into the military

and I told him that was a good idea.

It wasn't long ago that I would have encouraged it. Now I discourage it.

This kid had wanted to be a soldier since he was a child and suddenly took a 180 and is going into HVAV at a nearby community college which I thing is a pretty good idea.

When I aske him why he changed course he told me he wanted to be a real soldier and not have to spend his time listening to a bunch of woke bull$hit.

Can't say as I blame him.

Seems the services have done a Jim Dandy job of alienating their recruitment base with all of the woke crap. Recruiting is down about 25% from reports I get and I bet it will get a lot lower than that.

The Army has recently tried to recruit the very people it threw out for refusing the Covid vaccine. It would be interesting to find out how few of them will accept the offer. Needless to say, of the few that will accept the offer are likely the very deadbeats they really don't want but will be forced to accept.

They did it to themselves.

As of a couple of years ago I recommended the military for youngsters coming out of high school. Not anymore. My opinion happens to be shared with a number of other veterans I have spoken with. It's really a shame but that's the way it is.

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I think I just got my pound of flesh.

No comment other than to say the score is even.

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"I don't have anything to hide because I don't get involved in illicit activities, " several people have said to me over the years.

Which seems to tell me the person is of very questionable character. It sounds to me like they allow the government to dictate their personal morality.

At least that's what it sounds like to me.

In short I'd bet a lot, probably all of these people would have ratted out Anne Frank.

"Postenkommandant, there is a Jewish family living in a hidden room at Prinsengracht 263-267!"

That is what I have to say about most people that say they have nothing to hide.

Remember, Anne Frank was hidden out by outlaws and ratted out by a 'law abiding citizen'.

Then there's the people that would rat out some little kid's sidewalk lemonade stand.

Then again, when I hear someone has nothing to hide, I immediately wonder what they are really trying to hide.

I always figure if someone is a moral human being they have a thing or two to hide and have broken a few laws here and there because not all laws are fair and just.

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Some time ago in Ohio.

I was at Camp Perry and needed a place to stay because it was a last minute type of thing. So I put out the word and someone I know offered to let me crap out on his boat.

Good deal! 

He emailed me a description of the boat, the location and the combination to the lock. Bingo! I'm in business.

I arrived at the boat fairly late, noticed the combination lock had not been locked, went in, threw my bag down on the nearest rack and crapped out.

When I woke up I saw cleaning supplies so I gave the cabin a pretty good scrubbing, left a thank you note and left. I went back to Perry and left for home that afternoon. 

When I got home later that evening I saw an email from my friend. "I see you didn't use the boat last night."

WTF?! Didn't you see the thank you note? The six-pack I left?

No.

Whoops! Wrong boat!

I wonder what the owner thought when he found the cabin scrubbed, a six-pack and a thank you note?

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