The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Or Why I have gotten damned careful with who I do a favor for.

I only do favors for someone I know that can keep their damned mouth shut up about it. I make if clear to them that if I ever hear they have told anyone I will never again help them out in any way.

The other day some woman was blabbing on social media that a deli clerk (or someone) found out she had a sick husband on a special diet and schlepped her a piece of fish for no charge.

Maybe the deli guy had the authority to do that, but maybe he didn't. What if corporate found out about his good deed? It's a possibility he could lose his job over that. 

So some guy does an old woman a favor and as a result loses his job.

When I was a kid working in a supermarket I'd sometimes 'forget' to ring up an item here and there for a poor old woman that did a lot for the community but I did it on the sly so she didn't realize it. I wasn't giving the store away or anything. It was something small and just occasionally.  I didn't want her to know because I knew she'd say something and I'd get into hot water with the boss.

The manager, a sharp-eyed man caught me sliding a loaf of bread to her and hauled me upstairs. I admitted I had and why. His answer floored me. He knew she was old and having hard times since her husband died. She was still active in the community. He told me to Carry on but don't give the store away, and Oh...let a ham or something pretty good slide by over the holidays. Make damned good and well corporate security doesn't see you or I'll have to can you and I don't want to.

I made it a point to make sure she never saw me doing that for her.

Why? Because I didn't want her to say anything.

Word travels fast and people don't know when to keep their mouths shut. 

Another reason I make sure favor recipients stay mum is because when the word get out and find out you are kind they will take it as a sign of weakness and descend on you asking for the same thing you did for someone else as a special favor. When you refuse then they get upset and you're the bad guy.

This is also true of teenagers. A couple of teens pushed someone out of the snow once and the woman said she wanted to find out who they were so she could publicly thank them. When I was a teen the last thing I wanted is to be held up as the shining example of youth.

I would have rather had a reputation as a greasy thug than be known as a goodie two-shoes. To a certain extent that still holds today.

When you thank a favor giver you thank them privately. What transcended between the two of you is nobody else's business.

There is a saying that no good deed goes unpunished and in an awful lot of cases that's true. In my case once the penalty for fixing someone's roof was being badgered by others to do things for them for little or nothing. That's because the person I helped didn't know better than to keep their mouth shut. It was also the last time I ever did them a favor. 

I've written a post here a while back about the time over 50 years ago a little kid jumped off the dam at a nearby pond into water well over his head. He panicked and I simply grabbed an arm and hauled him out and sent him home where he promptly told his mother. She said she was going to write a letter to the editor of the hometown rag calling me a hero. I'd have never lived that one down with the guys.

I played hell getting that one quashed. I had to break out the heavy artillery (my father) and even he had a hard time getting that pigheaded stupid woman to shut up about it. He had to talk to her husband and tell him he would not accept responsibility for his son's actions if the letter got into the paper.

Publicly complimenting a business of some sort that went above and beyond is one thing. By all means let us know who runs a good business. Still, ask first. However before you publicly compliment an individual employee run it by them first to make sure you're not going to get them into any trouble. One never knows company/corporate policy.

I have kind of a bad feeling about the guy that gave the woman the piece of fish. I get a vibe that he was acting on his own and that if the who, what, when, where and how come gets out he could get into hot water with his/her employer. The old days of giving employees a little discretion is long over with. Today businesses are run by computers and bean counters and the human factor seem to have all but vanished.

Throw social media into the equation and all bets are off.

If someone does you a personal favor keep it under your hat. Besides getting the favor doer into a bind you insure that the favor doer will simply stop doing favor. Don't ruin things for everyone else.

If someone does you a personal favor then keep your mouth shut.

  

 

  

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Another false threat to either eliminate Social Security

as usual.

"OMG! OMG! Trump's gonna eliminate Social Security!"

Another lie. Someone posted that on a social media site and the truth is that Trump wants to eliminate the tax on Social Security benefits. In fact there is already been a bill introduced by Thomas Massie (R-KY) to eliminate the tax.

It should also be mentioned that Joe Biden voted to tax Social Security earlier in his dubious political career.

I am old enough to remember the Eisenhower administration and that the Democrats tried to accuse him of wanting to eliminate the program which was a bold faced lie. The false threat comes up every time there's a presidential election and the accused is always a Republican.

The lie is designed to scare the hell out of seniors and get them to vote Democrat, plain and simple. 

Trump has stated that he wants to eliminate the tax on Social Security. He has no intent on eliminating the program itself. 

As for DOGE? The have no intention of eliminating it, either. What they would like to do is clean the administration up and streamline it to reduce costs and waste. There's most likely a lot of inefficiency and waste in the administration. DOGE wants to eliminate it. This won't effect benefits and may very well make things easier for all of us.

 I get sick and tired of those that spread word that if so and so gets elected than Social Security will be eliminated. It's a flat out lie.

As for the person that posted this lie I would like to find out what type of person he is.

Is he repeating a lie because he thinks it is the truth? If he is he's another stooge that took the bait. Stalin called people like that useful idiots. I feel sorry for him.

Or does he know that it's a lie and is spreading it anyway as a cruel trick to discredit Trump and get seniors scared out of their wits to turn on him. 

I'd like an answer. Are you ignorant or just plain cruel?

 

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Old School bartending at its finest.

Anchor Bar.

Kodiak, AK.

Early 80s.

1500ish local

Blaine and I were in town flush with cash from a successful fishing trip. Both of us had paid any debts we owed and had pretty good bundles left over.

It was a rare glorious day in Kodiak and we stumped into the Anchor and grabbed a couple of brews and went outside on the porch. We noticed that there were maybe six or eight people inside. A fairly small crowd.

We looked up at Pillar Mountain and Blaine asked me rhetorically how long it would last before it slid into the sea.

I smugly opined it would maybe last until 2025. He grunted and replied that it would be several centuries after that. 

"Betcha a round for the house," I said.

We can't settle that until 2025," Blaine said. Then he gave me a look of understanding and said, "I'll take that bet!"

I stuck my head in the door and said to the bartender (who happened to be the owner) "Mike, ring the bell. Blaine and I have a bet and the loser pays. Pour 'em!"

Blaine grinned and said, "Let's go double or nothing!"

"Cool!" I said and when Mike came out to collect I told him to go back in and ring the bell again because Blaine and I were going double or nothing!"

He went in, rang the bell, poured a round and came back out to us.

"What's the bet, anyway?"

Blaine answered him. "Pic says that Pillar Mountain is going to slide into the sea before 2025 and I say it's not gonna happen for another thousand years."

Mike looked confused for a second or two and it sunk in as to what the bet was all about. His face turned angry then relaxed as he thought about it.

"You bums!" he snapped but there really wasn't much anger in it.

He went back inside and behind the bar and face the handful of fisherman.

"I've been conned and conned bad, boys. By a couple of sanky, dirty con artists. You're not drinking on Blaine and Pic. Your're drinking on ME! The loser of the bet was supposed to pay for the last two rounds but I can't collect until 2025!'

The bar laughed themselves silly and Mike said, "What the hell!" and reached up and rang the bell. "What the hell. Why not? I'm losing money anyway."

Mike didn't lose a dime. His initial expenses were about $25 in beer wholesale, if that. He knew this and knew that word would go all over the fleet that Blaine and I had beaten him out of two rounds for the house and the fleet would have the place mobbed as they came in to hear the story from the horse's mouth. He'd make the loss up in spades. He knew how to run a small bar.

If you're smart you know how to cast your bread on the water and get back poached eggs on toast.

 

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MY insurance company.

which I will not name here for reasons I won't get into. Maybe later.

As some of you know I had a fire a couple of years ago. 

The insurance company was nothing short of incredible. I've never seen anything like it in my life. I was amazed. They covered everything and gave me an interesting option for the stuff lost in the garage. I could have a check and replace things on my own or they could replace the stuff itself. All I had to do was submit a list. I took a chance and submitted the list. Within a week I was getting calls from Lowe's, Home Depot, and a few other places to arrange deliveries. 

Everything they replaced was of either the same make and model or better. Every. Single. Thing. No junk whatsoever. None. I was stunned.

Most of it went directly into storage which was fine. Actually all of these vendors offered to hold the stuff for me until I got back on my feet but I opted to have it delivered because I wanted to check the stuff out. 

The remediator I hired had submitted a bid and the insurance people accepted it and instantly cut me a check, excluding mechanicals, plumbing, electric and HVAC. When I submitted the bids of these tradespeople a check arrived inside a couple of days.

We also had a discussion with my adjusted. My wife and I figured that this would be a golden opportunity to bring everything up to code. After all, the place was build in 1948 and could use it.

We agreed that the insurance company would pay for what we lost and we would pay for the upgrades. More than fair enough. I got two bids from the plumber and electrician and the insurance company paid full replacement.

Both of these subs gave me a very reasonable deal on the upgrades because the walls were already open and it would be a simple add-on to what they were already doing.

In short the insurance company stood by me and did the right thing, actually to a fault. When things were completed everything was replaced perfectly and we were in better shape than we were before the fire.

I was truly impressed.

I made this post in light of the recent murder of the CEO of an insurance company that by many accounts has been withholding claims and apparently trying to deny coverage to those that can't afford to fight back. 

First of all I won't condone murder although I can understand why the CEO got whacked.

What I WILL say is that everyone in my insurance company is on my personal protected list. When I needed it most they came charging through with flying colors and people like that deserve to be protected. Anyone that wants to hurt anyone in that company, from the CEO to the guy that sweeps the floor has to get past me.

Again, I refuse to condone the murder but have to say that historically most murder victims like that tend to bring it on themselves by treating other people poorly one way or the other.

While my homeowners insurance covered my home and that really means a lot to me, it is second only to my health. My health insurance company seems to be adequate and has performed well. I (as of yet) have been treated well although I had to get the HR people to goad them once. Still, they're halfway decent. 

I am no financial genius but I do know simple math.

Income (premiums)- Outgo(Claims)= Profit (or loss)

Needless to say, the object is to make income exceed outgo.

Granted it would he a perfect deal to have it all coming in and nothing going out and personally I wish I had never had to file a single insurance claim but when something happens it's time for the company to pony up and hold up their end of the deal. Cheaping out usually winds up with companies losing money in the long run.

There's also the human side to things. Damage or loss of a person's home is a shattering experience to most people. While there are cold, hard facts and accounting to be seriously considered, there's also the human and emotional side of things. A good adjuster (I think that's what it's called) has to understand this and realize that he's not only dealing with numbers and money. They're also dealing with a human being who is probably upset. You absolutely have to remember this if you want to run a successful business. Your customers come first. Insurance is a service business and you are serving your customer base.

From a business standpoint it's good business to make things as easy as possible for a policyholder. Policyholders have mouths and talk to other people. Lord only knows how many questions I was asked about how the insurance company was treating me and I know for a fact that a couple of people switched based on what I told them.  

I know I have done something to help the company that helped me by sending them new customers. 

My wife handles a lot of financial stuff and I have to be honest and say I don't know what our rates are compared to other companies.

If I know my wife she didn't cheap out and go with the lowest premiums, nor did she instantly go to the most expensive, either. She's a researcher and I'm sure she dug around and checked everything out and asked around before she found our company.

She's wise enough to know that an insurance company isn't measured by low rates. It's measured by the service it provides in the event of a casualty.

She belted one out of the park when she chose ours.

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Many men are now opting to stay single

and I don't blame them. If what I see is the current dating pool I'd stay single, too.

In a few decades we are likely to see a lot of fairly content single men and miserable women surrounded by six or eight cats.

I certainly won't be around to see it but it's happening and it's really sad.

Why would a reasonably motivated, fairly intelligent man want to enter into something like a marriage that has a greater than 50/50 chance of failure and lose at least of half of what he has accumulated? It simply makes no sense. Why play a rigged game? Of the over 40 divorces, 70% of them are initiated by women.

The other thing is that many women are not willing to hold up their end of the bargain. It seems that too many don't bring a whole lot to the table and also expect a Tier one man in return. It don't even work that way. Not even a little bit.

A couple of years ago I ran into a young, handsome stud that was making damned good money and we started talking about life in general and the subject came up of marriage. He was single and said he had just thrown another fish back into the pond because she had almost $200K worth of student debt and a useless degree. I sure the hell don't blame him. That's entering the marriage with a minus $200K balance which he was probably expected to pay. Not only that the useless degree shows she makes bad choices. The juice just ain't worth the squeeze. 

A Tier One guy is looking for a Tier One bride and sorry about that, Sister but you ain't in the club. You want it all your way and life ain't Burger King. The so-called woman's movement has seen to that.

A couple of years ago I was chatting with a mother who was telling me she hoped her daughter would meet a nice guy and give her a couple of grandchildren. Just them the daughter waddled over packing about 75 pounds of extra weight and her face was inked up and pierced so much she could have passed as a South Seas islands headhunter.

I took one look and thought to myself that the woman would get her grandchildren because some crackhead would probably knock her up.   

A lot of men are looking for a traditional marriage with clearly defined roles. They want to be breadwinners and want their wife to tend to the children. 

One time I met the guy in the coffee shop and I suggested looking overseas for a bride and recommended Thailand or the Philippines. He said he had thought about it and was very seriously considering it. Can't say as I blame him. I would more than seriously consider it if I wanted a traditional marriage.

As  for those of you women that your daddy told you that you were a princess and deserved a prince, I got news for you. Your daddy lied to you. Enjoy your loneliness and enjoy your six cats.

As for the men that stay single, the way things are today it makes sense.

There's also another side of things worth mentioning. The internet and internet dating has changed things as far as face to face people skills go. Too many younger people of either sex don't know how to have a face to face conversation with the opposite sex anymore.

Communication between people seem to have reduced much of it to emails, texts and that sort of thing. 

I started writing this piece yesterday before I went shopping and decided to mentally put myself back into my late 20s and early 30s and picture myself scouting around for basically someone to go home with. I was just looking around to see what was out there.

Granted, I am married and NOT looking for side action. I wanted to try and put myself in the situation of a younger guy looking for someone to date. During that period of my life I dated woman older than me because I wasn't looking for a mate. I was looking for fun.

Inside of about an hour I struck up conversations with four woman in their early to mid 40s and was comfortable and confident. One was married and not looking but still we had a nice brief chat. Most of the women were likewise easy to talk to. Out of the four I am convinced that if I were 28 again I could have gotten two of them to meet for coffee back in the day. I'm also of the mind that one of them would have cheerfully accepted a coffee date with me at the ripe old age of 73! Maybe she was looking for a rich old man with a bad cough.

Later at another market I set my sights lower and went to see if I could break the ice and start a brief conversation with some younger women and I was surprised to see how awkward a couple of them were. I don't think they thought I was creepy because I was asking them for gift ideas for my grandchildren. It appeared a couple just didn't know how to talk to men. Out of the other three one was a single mom and she seemed comfortable. I had the distinct feeling a coffee date with her 40 years ago would have taken place in her kitchen. It led me to believe that single moms in their 20s haven't changed much.

Still, I went away thinking that a lot of the younger people don't seem to have the people skills that we used to have growing up.

I got up to check the mail and I'm back now. The woman across the street, an elementary school teacher pulled in and I had a couple of words with her about today's kids. I was glad to see her because I wanted her opinion for this post. We chatted for a couple of minutes and she told me that in first grade she has to teach kids the very rudimentary people skills, like how to share, how to ask someone if they want to play with them and simple basics.

These skills back in the day were not taught in the home. They simply pushed the kids out the door and they learned on their own and before first grade. When some other young mother dropped by for coffee or whatever and brought her brood along the whole push of us were shoved out the back door to play. Believe it or not, we figured it out. We didn't have to wait until first grade.

When I started school in the mid 50s I was simply told to walk up to the GAR hall and get on the bus. I already knew most of the kids at the bus stop, even some of the big kids (fourth, fifth and sixth graders). That stop must have filled about a third of the bus. GI Joe had come home and was fruitful and multiplied.

The town I lived in at the time was a sleepy semi rural lobster fishing type community. Commuters to Boston were just beginning to move here. This was about six or eight years before the Charge of the Bulldozer Brigade came through and doubled the size of the town overnight. It became a bedroom community for Boston and when the Southeast Expressway opened the town grew even more.

When I was little it was pretty much snow white with a couple raisins (Mainly Cape Verdeans) in the rice pudding. Before I entered first grade I was a naïve kid that never had even spoken a black person face to face before. 

First day at recess I met two brother that were black and one of them had a ball. I asked one of them why their skin was a different color and he said he was born that way and when I asked to rub his hand to see if it came off he agreed. Nothing came off so I asked to play ball with him and inside a couple minutes we were playing together in the schoolyard. 

That night at supper I told my parents about the two guys I met with dark skin and told them I had even rubbed his hand to see if it came off. Mom looked mortified and dad snarfed his coffee out his nose and said "They're kids. It's OK." 

"They're probably the twin boys of the Cape Verde Islanders across town. Norm has met them. They're OK," he said. He turned to me and asked me what we did on the playground. 

Them mom asked me what I learned at school and I probably said what every other kid says when asked that question. "Nothing."

About a week or so later I asked my parents "What's a ni**er?"

My mother paled and dad again stepped up to the plate and explained racism to me and told me I was to judge people by who they are and not what color they are and he never wanted to hear that word from me again. The lesson has stayed with me for the past 67 years.

Still, as I grew up I was never intimidated by anyone including the opposite sex. While I didn't date much, I had no problem with my female classmates. I developed an outgoing personality. I'm certainly not shy. Few of my classmates were.

While I did grow up in a sheltered community, we had no internet or cell phones and did more business and pleasure face to face and developed social skills.

Back to the 70% of women over 40 that initiate divorces. I looked a bit into that and managed to discover that what happens is that it appears to be a hormonal thing following or maybe even starting with menopause. It's an imbalance of sorts and if the woman talks about it to her doctor he's apt to give her mood elevators and send her on their way. This only covers up the symptoms and may very well even make things worse. Deeper digging in needed to get to the bottom of things.

While smart couple may be able to work through this and overcome it, often before it's discovered the damage is done. 

Still, if it happens that way some poor bastard is stuck with losing half his stuff and winds up with child support payments. It is what it is and the end result is a some poor slob has worked his ass off to wind up living in a cheap fleabag somewhere coughing up half of his income for the next umpteen years.

With over half of marriages ending up this way the risk ain't worth the reward in this day and age.

 

 

  

  

 

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That dirty bastard Donald Trump stole the election! He rigged it!

If the Democrats want to fix this so it doesn't happen again then they should demand voter ID with proof of citizenship to get one, in person voting, paper ballots and same day election results.

That should keep those dirty Republicans in line and keep it from happening again!

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It would be a pretty good location for a strip club

The local Outback just closed and as usual the busybodies were wondering what was going to replace it. Of course some wag suggested a massage parlor so I jumped in there and pointed out that because it was set back and out of the way it would be the ideal spot for a strip club. Actually it would be an ideal location assuming the township would permit it. It's near enough to the main drag and set off enough not to mar the appearance of it. 

Needless to say, the township would not permit it. The township next to mine wouldn't even allow a dog groomer to open shop citing noise from dogs barking.

A couple of years back someone asked what was going to be built on a lot where she had seen excavation. I said that I had asked one of the guys running a bulldozer and it was  going to be a strip joint and an adult bookstore. (To be fair about it, he told me that he tells everybody who asks him the same thing wherever he is. I'd probably do the same thing. Why not? I knew he was a smartass when first laid eyes on him. )

What was wonderful to watch was a couple on their late 70s. The woman posted, 'Good! Now I will know where to find my husband!'.

The husband said that it would give his wife a job opportunity.

I'm still laughing at that one. It is truly a joy seeing an old couple go through life laughing with each other.

Then again that older couple probably were wise enough to know the township wouldn't permit it.

Needless to say there's always a few people that take the bait and one drama queen started screeching that now they'd have to move because she didn't want her children to be exposed to such a place and so on. It was a pretty good meltdown. Much moaning, wailing and gnashing of teeth. I'd give it a B+.

(God only knows what kind of a conniption she probably threw when she found out Donald Trump had won the presidency.)

Doesn't anybody even think anymore? A township that won't allow a dog groomer certainly isn't going to allow a strip joint. What was she thinking?

About 40 years ago I worked in one off and on as a utility man, keeping things fixed and maintained. It sure wasn't full time but several times I would talk with the owner who was most likely the manager because the place was likely mobbed up somehow.

The 'owner' was pretty free about talking about the business end of things and the rules (spoken and unspoken) One unspoken rule was that you NEVER hire local talent because it would raise a public outcry about what they were doing to our daughters.

He explained how the girls were hired through a 'talent agency' and that he had to maintain housing for them. Much of my work was keeping up a pair of condos that the girls were housed in. They were destructive as hell and tore things up frequently.

He had to watch illegal drug abuse among the girls, keeping it down to a dull roar. He admitted there was no way the headache could be completely eliminated.

The other thing he had to keep his eyes open for was prostitution which is the bane of strip club owners almost everywhere. The last thing an operator needs is accusations (true or not) of running a brothel alongside the club.    

Girls that got caught whoring were sent out of town on the first flight out, period. No ands, ifs or buts. Gone. Here's your ticket. Adios. They were also told that if they returned on their own nickel to ply the oldest profession they would be arrested.

One thing he liked were fresh faced college girls that were there for a single purpose, to make money. They caused far fewer problems and attracted a lot of business. Back then there were not too many of them. I remember one made enough to pay for her senior year. She returned the following summer to pay for a Master's. I had lunch with her a couple of times and respected her for focusing on her education. She was a hard luck story that wanted to better herself. She was intelligent and tough and not afraid to make sacrifices.

It's interesting to note that a few of these women stayed in town when their dancing contract was up, found legitimate jobs and assimilated into the general population and became respected members of the community.

Then he had to deal with the police and he explained that it was fairly easy if he could manage to keep things down to a dull roar and would help them out from time to time. If the cops were looking for someone that walked in he's simply pick up the phone and call it in. It was a case of one hand washing the other.

Still, while I probably don't want one in my town mainly because of the way it adds to the traffic and there's a lot of the clientele I don't care very much for. Still, back when I worked for the club I daresay that one of the local churches was a far bigger pain in the a$$ because they kept trying to force their beliefs down everyone else's throats and regulate everything.

FWIW I shacked up with one of the strippers for a brief period of time and later one of the local women I knew asked me what I saw in her. 

"Absolutely nothing," I replied. "I just figured it would look good on my resume."

She thought a moment and said, "You're right. Every scoundrel worth his salt should have a few things like that on his resume."

Then she blushed a bit and told me the time she ran off with a harmonica player from a blues band for a while.

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It looks to me like we're not going to get clouted with heavy snows this winter

Usually I have been able to predict this by watching the deer.

During heavy snow winters there's generally a lot of white in their coats. So far I have seen only black.

While not scientific it has been my observation that this is the case based on about 30 years of deer watching.

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

Drones are reportedly all over the place and have seemed to show up in more places than Elvis Presley used to. People are starting to panic.

I saw one report that the Space Force is running tests which is probably logical but this is no time for logic to enter into things. It's time to PANIC and start all sorts of rumor, conjectures and conspiracy theories.

As for me, as I tend to do, I am going to sit down and wait and see what happens.

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

In other news I ran into a former coworker a while back that asked me what I am doing now and I told him that I wrote a book exposing the entire industry and that the company put me back on the payroll full time in exchange for not publishing it.

So far I have gotten three calls from former coworkers asking me about it. Needless to say, I neither confirmed or denied it.

I suspect I will be getting several more calls.

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Thank you, Fact checkers. I never would have known

that Burger King really didn't change their motto to 'We don't snitch'.

All this time I thought that they really did.

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

Someone else also said that Luigi Mangione should have gone to Waffle House instead of McDonalds because they would have probably hidden his gun and loaned him different clothes and given him a decent breakfast.

Yeah. I can see that.

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I don't know if I ever mentioned this but I got a call to perform an exorcism.

I was sitting in my living room when the phone went off and I saw it was an old shipmate. I answered it and the instant I did my shipmate asked me if my religious credentials were up to date.

"Yeah, sure," I replied. 

"Oh, good. How would you like to come to Maine and perform an exorcism?"

"I suppose I  could. What's up?"

"The wife and I are standing in a pretty nice house that was built in 1815 and the wife asked me if an old place like this has any ghosts in it. I said quick fix and called you." he said.

"I can do that if you'll supply the transportation," I answered.

"Cool," he said and hung up.

I later got an email telling me that the realtor standing next to his wife got pretty wide eyed having heard his half of the conversation. the conversation.

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Watching a suburban mom load her kids into the SUV

I was sitting in a Sheetz parking space eating half of a sub next to an SUV. A mother of two little kids came out, opened the side door next to me and installed tow little kids in the new and improved car seats for kids. The process for the pair of them probably took about five full minutes.

My window was open and the woman saw I had been watching her process a number of somewhat complex straps, snaps and buckles of various sorts. I thought to myself that it's easier to strap a fighter pilot into his cockpit.

She spoke to me and commented that it was time consuming but at least the kids were safe.

I looked at her and said, "When I was their age dad would throw the three of us into the bed of the pickup and take us from the farm and into town every Saturday."

I kind of expected she'd be horrified but she was only mildly surprised. "My father said kids rode in cars without seat belts and sometimes rode in truck beds." Then she said, "You probably didn't go all that far, though."

"He took us from our farm in Ohio to San Diego to pick up his brother when he got out of the Navy," I answered. That raised eyebrows. "It was actually a pretty nice trip and we got to enjoy all the sights and smells of America. The Interstate system was still in its infancy. We took a lot of US Highways."

"You went all the way to San Diego in the bed of a pickup truck?!"

"Yeah. We made it work and stuck together like a family. My mother talked about that trip the rest of her life." 

"We spent a few weeks in California and the weather turned. Mom took my brother and sister and took a bus home and Dad, my Uncle Bill, and I drove home together. Bill stayed with us a while until he got back on is feet after he got his Filipina wife into the States."

"Didn't the police stop you?" she asked.

"Nope. They probably figured we were hillbillies and did that kind of thing all the time. It was a different America back then. We valued liberty more than safety and family most of all," I replied.

She told me it was the most interesting story she had ever heard.

Fact is the story isn't mine. It's similar to any number of stories I have heard during my career at sea. It's interesting to note that an inordinate number of older seamen come from small towns and rural areas and have told me similar stories.

What IS fact is that I got caught driving a fire truck with about a dozen special needs kids from a summer camp into town and instead of getting into trouble we became little heroes. 

I posted that story years ago. 

What's also fact is that it was a very different country back when I grew up.

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Don't be afraid to tell it like it is.

if the people over you will actually listen to you.

One day I met the CEO of my employer who casually asked me in passing if everything was OK.

There is one thing, I said. That's the wrenches that supply has been sending out that we use to remove blanks. I broke one a couple weeks ago and damned near got hurt. 

I went on to explain that the money saved on junk wrenches would be spent several times over by even a single no lost time accident.

When he asked what I recommended I said that something like Snap-on wrenches were a bad choice also because we do lose them over the side occasionally. I said that some of the building house middle of the road store brands would probably be adequate.

I told him that fresh oats cost a little more than oats that had been through the horse and he laughed.

I spoke with him at a weekend party and went back to work the next Wednesday. The following Monday a memo came out explaining that every barge would get 3 inch and an eighth wrenches and 3 inch and a quarter wrenches and to discard any with certain (el cheapo) brand names on them when the new wrenches arrived.

The new wrenches started arriving almost immediately after the memo went out.

While in places management doesn't listen to their people, some places do and it makes for a better, more profitable business.

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Stop bothering me.

Why am I supposed to get upset because some horse's ass celebrity is leaving the country?

Just leave. I'm getting sick and tired of self-appointed people that we can easily live without babbling empty threats about how they are going to leave.

Am I supposed to be cringing in fear because Joy Behar or some other mean spirited self-appointed muckety muck is going to leave?

One guy so far has done it right. Celeb (whoever the hell he is) reportedly renounced his citizenship and left. 

While I think he was foolish to do this, I respect him for keeping his word. 

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The older I get the more I think we should stop plowing money into colleges

and put it into vocational education.

Colleges seem to produce too many college idiots that can't really do anything. It's certainly not necessary to make a decent income and take care one's self.

College is only necessary if one wants to get a marketable degree in STEM or some other needed field. We have enough useless philosophy majors to send to every undeveloped are on the planet, including California.

We need more people that can actually do things.

There's also another thing. Many of these vocational students go on to become entrepreneurs by opening their own small businesses.

What's interesting is my information goes back to the 60s because a classmate of mine went to a Vo-Tech. He said that it wasn't all in the shop, half of his education took place in the classroom and an awful lot of the classroom time was spent on classes about running a small business.

Many Vo-Tech grads go on to opening small businesses which should go back to being the backbone of this country. 

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A Guinness post

Which is my go-to beer.

Some time ago I mentioned Guinness to someone. He was somewhat of a youngster and went on how 'real men' don't drink it because it only contains 4.1% alcohol. I guess he's an IPA man, a high test that clocks in at 8%. Two of those can get a person a DUI.

I looked at him and asked him what time of day he has his first drink and he said never before 1700.

"Oh." I said. "I have a Guinness with my morning bacon and eggs. To drink all day you have to get started early. One certainly doesn't want to get folded up like an accordion before noon, do they? "

While I don't really, the look on his face was rather entertaining.

Maybe I'll write a post about the old days when I DID have a Guinness for breakfast.

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For the record I have not had a beer buzz before 1700 in probably four decades although about a year or so ago I looked at a huge breakfast in front of me and my dining partner and I had a laugh and we both decided to wash it down with a Guinness.

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Recently I signed and forwarded a petition to the Cleveland Guardians

initiated by a Native American group requesting that they change the name of the Cleveland Guardians back to the Cleveland Indians.

I think I am going to write the Crow Tribal Council and see what they have to say over this.

I will post results if I get an answer.

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To those celebrities that ran away to Canada.

Now what are you going to do when Trump annexes Canada?

Whoops! Should have gone to someplace like the Congo.

Oh, well.....

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People I would love to see get a pie in the face

Not punched, not beaten senseless but publicly humiliated.

For some reason it's a tossup between Adam Schiff and Hillary Clinton, leaning toward Hillary just because of who she is.

I can see it now. Hillary running for POTUS in 2028 with Kamela or maybe AOC as her running mate.

There's Hillary at the Big Convention in front of the microphone babbling in her self important tone of voice about how she's going to save us when all of a sudden, straight out of nowhere, WHAP!

A perfect pie-kill! Straight out of the Tree Stooges with a banana cream pie. A shot Moe Howard would be proud to call his own.

The pan slides slowly off of her face to see a look of shock, anger, indignation and complete and total humiliation in front of the entire country.

Hillary has a nasty temper according to what I have read and she's reportedly cruel to the little people. With any luck the public would be treated to a vile, profane highly animated conniption fit that would be self-exposing as to how she really is.

I'd pay good money to see that one.

If you have anyone you would like to see hit with a pie please feel free to share it as a comment.

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Most man don't care which sex is president.

A pretty good example is one that came from across the pond.

Maggie Thatcher, the 'Iron Lady'.

Hillary and Kamala could never have filled those shoes.

The Brits loved her. 

I was sitting in a place called the Blue Moon Tavern in Seattle (now a gay bar, then a bar and library) when a semi local novelist came in plastered and went to the pay phone saying he was going to wake up the Queen of England.

A Brit sitting near me said to him "If you try wake up Maggie I'll clock you."

I didn't pay much attention to the novelist even though he was semi-famous at the time as I had my sights set on the trollop next to me.

Still, I remember the Brit. He truly respected Maggie and I'm sure he didn't care what sex she was. He got angry at the thought of some drunken novelist trying to wake her up in the middle of the night.

The Dems historically have nominated women to get the woman vote and the women they nominate are worthless. Hillary was worthless, as was Kamala. Had either of them been halfway decent they would have easily beaten Donald Trump.

  

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Snowy day and I am warming up the pickup.

Some busybody dog walker reminded me to get the snow off of it before I drive. I told her I'm taking the snow with me to Miami because them rich Jews down there will pay me $8/pound for it.

History repeats itself because I said that same thing to a cop in Massachusetts once over 15 years ago while I was brushing the snow off of my pickup. I posted it here.

The reason you are required by law to do this makes sense. The powers that be were looking out for illegal tailgaters and didn't want them to have a 5x5x2 foot block of snow land on their windshields at 70 mph. I got that. They want to enable tailgaters for some reason. Maybe they have shares in MAACO or Earl Sheib or something. Who knows?

Needless to say, they wrote the law saying that every bit of snow has to be removed. The reason for this was twofold. Legislators don't have to remove snow from their own cars. They have chauffeurs. The other reason was plain and simple revenue enhancement.

Fortunately most police officers don't sweat the small shit and use common sense so it's no major task to sweep one's vehicle off.

Anyway, this morning while sweeping the snow off of the pickup I was letting the engine run so warm things up a bit and a dog walker explained to me like I was a backwards child that you don't have to warm up cars anymore, just hop in them and drive.

I told her I was aware of that and wanted to heat it up so I didn't have to freeze my a$$ off. Of course she said I was wasting fuel.

"Lady, I'm RICH! I can AFFORD to waste our precious natural resources!"

That ended that.

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Modern humans generate a lot of trash.

Humans generate a lot of trash and other waste. That's the way it is. Get used to it.

Some of this can be recycled and I'm all for that. If it can be economically reused than we ought to reuse it. (Enter the usual natural resources spiel here)

Currently in my AO we have two trash cans, one for honest to God trash and the other for recyclables. That is a good thing and I have no problem with that.

Rumor control now has it that the recyclables are going straight to the landfill because the Chinese won't buy them anymore because there's too much incidental trash in them. 

While I have no proof, it does sound logical when you look at the people around you that don't really pay too much attention and can be a little careless.

If that's the case then why do we even bother to put out the recycling bin? Why does the contractor even issue us one?

When in doubt, follow the money. This means the trash contractor gets to utilize twice the equipment and charge twice the money for their services.

If this is really the case than one of two things should be done about it. Either have us throw everything in the trash and charge us less money or educate the public on what and how to discard recyclables. For example, while a used pizza box IS cardboard and cardboard is recyclable the fact that it's greasy makes it trash and therefore should not be thrown in the recycling container.

All I can really say about this is that if you are simply dumping everything into a landfill then reduce the price I am paying.

On the other hand, if you are in fact recycling even a reasonable portion of the recyclables then it's fair that I pay my current bill.

Fair is fair.

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Everyone knows the plains Indians were nomadic and moved from time to time. They moved pretty much for two reasons, food and pollution. For food they generally followed the buffalo herds.

Sometimes people like to make snide remarks about how they polluted their camps which is in itself probably true but often put in an unfair context.

Truth of the matter is that if, for example, they moved to an area and lived there for a while they could probably return to the same area several months later with no problems.

The pollution they created was all basically organic, food and human wastes that broke down fairly rapidly as nature is pretty self-cleansing with organics. It's not like they put huge amounts of plastics, heavy metals and chemicals into the ground. Most of the pollutants the Indians left behind were natural organics.

They could rotate from one area to another and reuse the same camp sites over and over with no problems at all after giving nature a while to clean it up.

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Speaking of nature healing itself, the bombers are returning to Tinian.

https://www.stripes.com/branches/air_force/2023-12-26/tinian-airfield-reclaimed-wwii-air-force-12473942.html

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Griswold isn't here any more and I miss him.

Come Christmas time every neighborhood has a Griswold that sets up enough Christmas lights so that his house can easily be spotted from space.

These older houses originally were built with 100 amp service. He upgraded his to 200 (as did I) with numerous electrical outlets out side to (supposedly) run power tools. Actually I think it was for Christmas purposes. When he upgraded he kept mum about it.

He had a 'keep up with the Joneses' neighbor that tried keeping up with him and the game stopped after he upgraded his power because the neighbor damned near burned his house down while trying. 

The Christmas before he got his service upgraded he let the neighbor set up and then quietly hung a wreath on the door and called it good.

The following year, with 200 amp service he went crazy.

God only know what his January electric bill was. I looked at his electric meter once while he was running lights and it was spinning like a top.

As a gesture of goodwill he's shut them down when he turned in so the rest of us didn't have to buy blackout curtains left over from WW2.

As I sit here thinking about this I just cringed. This was about 15 years ago and LED lights were looming on the horizon. I wonder what it would have been like had he been able to set things up with LED lights. It most likely would have been tenfold!

Griswold passed a couple of years ago and I do miss him.   

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The soggy saga of Tonga.

goes back about a decade. 

I was spinning the dial and stopped when I heard a droning voice calling out A3AR...A3AR...A3AR so I stopped and instantly looked up the call. The call itself didn't exist but the prefix said it was a Tongan station.

It sounded to me like some Tongan had a missionary outside sitting in a huge black cast iron pot with a fire under it and was playing with his radio as the missionary was stewing in the pot.

A3AR...A3AR...A3AR....When he took a break I threw out my callsign and he repeated about half of it and I gave him the other half which he repeated, mumbled some vague thing I took as a signal report and went back to his cocoanut juice fired drone, A3AR...A3AR...A3AR. 

A few hours later I wondered if the guy had stewed missionary for dinner or if he was going to slow cook him all night so the meat would fall off the bones.

I logged him with a question mark in front of the entry.

I instantly started looking for him on line and found that a few people has worked him and were looking for him also. I searched off and on for years and had no luck until someone told me it might of been a partial callsign of an overseas ham that said he was using ham radio to learn to talk all over again after some kind of medical problem. If so I truly respect that.

Anyway, finding Tonga on the air became something that wasn't beneath the surface too deeply. I kept an eye open for Tongan radio activity. My research found little to no activity among native Tongans.

Over the years there were a couple of vacationers that got a Tongan callsign and worked the island but no luck here. I worked one and sent him for a card only to get it back marked 'not in log'. There were a couple of medium sized DXpeditions but it always seemed they were on the air when I was at work. It was frustrating.

A couple of nights ago I bagged a Tongan DXpedition and managed to work them on 2 different bands.  They had an online log and updated it every day at 0001Z, give or take and last night I found I was in the log on two bands so I sent for my card.

It's been a long chase but I finally put Tonga in the log.

 

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Radio-wise a pretty good day.

I worked Tonga a couple of days ago and today i sent for my card. Worked them on 12 and 20 meters. In a few months I should have my card.

Today in the mail I got a card from Cocos Island, the one off the western shore of Costa Rica, not to be mistaken from the one that Australia owns which is referred to as Cocos and Keeling islands.

Not a bad day.

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I'm scared! Celebrities are leaving! OMG!

An awful lot of entertainers are leaving the country!

What happens next?

Who is going to entertain us when they leave?

Entertainers are nothing more than trained monkeys. They do nothing but entertain. That's it. They entertain.

Few of them do anything really worthwhile. I don't hear of them building a house, fixing a car, designing a new airplane or anything really useful. They sing, act and play games. (Henry Cho gets a pass. The sonuvabitch is truly funny.)

They entertain. That's it. Movie stars pretend they're someone else, athletes play games and singers sing. 

Yet the celebrity status we give them is rather Godlike. It makes little sense to me.

Deniro, Cher and Whoopi are on my list of idiots. I saw Deniro being carried out of a boat after fishing so he didn't get his feet wet and running around in elevator shoes because he's afraid to see anyone see how short he is. Mob Guy, my ass.

Cher reportedly never finished high school and hides behind dyslexia. A lot of dyslexic people graduate from high school. She's a world class dumbass in my opinion. Whoopi is Whoopi, a plain and simple idiot in my book but she's not leaving after all her threats. I read somewhere she's not financially ready to after all the threats. No character. If she had any she'd sell some of her reported $60 million's worth of assets and go somewhere else and show some integrity and keep her word.

Leave. Please leave. 

I'm certain the rest of us can figure out how to entertain ourselves.

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Oh.

is generally the answer that I give to some do-gooder that takes the time to explain something to me that I have already known since third grade. 

Or when some ding-dong give me a long lecture about everything that's wrong with Donald Trump or being conservative or whatever.

When I get a yada yada yada yada and so on and so forth long winded blast of outright stupidity my response is simply this:

                                  "Oh."

Generally they walk off pissed off but that's OK. They can go away mad just so long as they go away.

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Ping!

Every older person that lives alone should have someone they ping daily with their cell phone.

I say ping because it's not like you have to send someone the entire Gettysburg Address or something. It could be as simple as a period or a comma. Just something to let the other person you're OK.

During my last assignment at work I was alone and I pinged my port captain daily. The one time I didn't he pinged me as a reminder and I shot one back.

It's a good idea if you ask me and not just for older people, either. 

It's for anyone that lives alone. 

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One of the thing I truly love to do to make things go away

is take drive a sports car. The '91 Miata is PERFECT for this.

God willing and the creek don't rise, I think I am going to take that little car on a road trip of sorts this spring. It's now in the garage sitting there awaiting my next small driveabout which may be as soon as tomorrow. 

I get a lot of joy tooling through the secondary roads in it, negotiating curvy roads and just sightseeing through rural areas. The NA is a perfect car for a driver that wants to feel the road under him. 

There is a saying that straight lines are for fast cars and curves are for fast drivers. Right now I am too old to be ratshack racing through the twisties but I can certainly enjoy tooling through a winding road at a sane speed in my old age.

Update. This has been sitting in my file for a couple of days. Tomorrow has come and gone and I did take the Miata out for a little spin. It was somewhat overcast but it was OK. I'm just trying to wring what I can out of the weather and enjoy tooling around in it.

The weekend looks promising in the sunshine department and even though it will be below freezing. Oh, well. That's why they make leather jackets, headgear and thin gloves. 

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This counts for tomorrow's post because I will likely be away tomorrow and busy.

 

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Hollywood types that are threatening to leave.

Go. Get the f*** out of here right now. Stop talking about it and do it.

Don't forget to tell us how sorry we will be when you leave because that in itself will be entertaining. 

Most of you are nothing more that trained monkeys that are trained to entertain us. Other than that you don't do a damned thing.

So feel free to put an egg in your shoe and beat it.

I won't miss you. 

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