Mowed the lawn yesterday and the manse looks pretty good.

This year I'm going to eliminate a couple of flower garden spots because the amount of work keeping them weeded has made the juice not worth the squeeze. The weeds have won.

Several years ago I did this to a flower garden that became a nuisance. I simply salted it one September and killed off everything. It was a bare patch but the snows and April rains drove the salt well underground so I reseeded the area with grass seed and it looks pretty good now. I'm probably going to do this somewhere else come fall. Thistle has taken hold and that's a fight that is hard to win as they are hard to kill. Time to fall back and regroup and go scorched earth.

Sometimes it's a lot easier to just wipe the slate clean and start over.

I'm wondering what to do about a fallen tree in the wayback. I'll likely buck it up and hire some kid to hump the bolts to the pile and just let them rot which actually happens fairly quickly around here.

When we moved in 30 years ago and my Charles Atlas course was still current we rented a chipper and created a chip pile that was 10 feet tall and inside of five years had vanished.

Anyway I suppose I will spend a chunk of the day outdoors which is always rather nice.

 

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April is almost over and God only knows what's coming up in May

March and April have been pretty boring months although shooting season has started and I have gotten out a couple of times.

Winter seems to be pistol season and now we're working into rifle season. We shall see what we shall see.

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I just read where some city is up in arms over an LGBTQ pride event.

I didn't have to read very far to decide that if you permit the LGBTQ crowd to have a pride celebration that you have to permit the straight community the same opportunity to have a straight pride event.

It's either all of us or none of us.

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I think I am going to start shooting five stand

but for my own reasons.

There's something about the different stands where they send up the clay bird and some kind of order but I'm not interested in that or prizes, awards, and so on.

I have not been out with a shotgun for a long time and I would like to relearn wing shooting. Skeet and trap seem too repetitious and maybe five stand will get that way but it'll take a while for me to get used to it. 

What I'm looking for is something that pops out of nowhere and I have to react and shoot it. For me there generally has to be a somewhat practical reason before I try something out.

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WOW! Close call!

That asteroid damned near hit the visitors center! It would have vaporized it!

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Yesterday's work day

where we bit off a piece a little bigger than we could chew.

We managed to clean out two block houses at either end of the range which was a chore in itself. They hadn't been gone through in years and years and we threw out a lot of stuff.

One of the problems with a chore  like that is the tendency old men have of saying "Hey! That's still good!" even though it hasn't been used in twenty years. 

Of course that will be met with "I just used that the other day!" 

Yeah, right. The other day was April 7th...........1984.

Anyway, that was only a part of the activity. The firing line got leveled and the sod replaced with a layer of fine limestone and that will dry out quickly after a rainfall and should be better for the shooter in the prone position. It'll eliminate the mud, too.

That was a pretty big job and was close to completion when I left.

Needless to say, the first person to complain that wasn't there is going to get a damned smart answer.

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I'm caught between a rock and a hard spot.

I was watching someone load a bunch of grub into his car. I offered to help as I sometimes do and commented "That's a lot of grub."

"Yeah. I got it for $40 because I got a self check-out discount."

If he was being sarcastic (I don't think he was) then he got me. Fair and square.

If he wasn't he was a f***ing thief. 

On the other hand it's hard to blame him because self check-out makes it too damned easy. They say that it saves us money but I doubt that seriously. 

People are divided into three categories. There are the great minority of those that are 100% honest, a minority of those that are patently dishonest and the vast majority of people that wish they were 100% honest.

What irks me is that a lot of idiots think that theft is a big victory over the corporations when the bottom line is that it isn't. The corporation doesn't lose a dime. They simply raise prices to compensate for their loss. WE pay for it.

Whoever came up with the self check-out idea should be made to live under the 38th Street Bridge. He's cost us a lot of money.

On the other hand if I have to go to the store and help unload trucks I WILL pay myself via self check-out.

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I just sent to Casablanca for a QSL card.

which I want even though I have Morocco confirmed. 

Having seen the movie I've always wanted to work the place.

I was seriously tempted to ask if Rick's Place is still there but at the last minute I decided that it might be misconstrued as being insulting or otherwise offensive.

Normally that would not bother me but I do want the card.

In other gnus I worked Easter Island last night on 12 and 15 meters, about 5 minutes apart.

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Well, another day, another dime.

Saturday is a club workday and my assignment has already been made.

I am to clean out this blockhouse next to the firing lane. It'll likely take me a while because of all the accumulated crap that's gathered in it over the years.

A big part of what's in the blockhouse are things that have been left behind after matches and about 87% of it is worthless otherwise the owner would have retrieved the item.

I've already said that most of it is getting pitched and the two guys running the range agree with me.

I suggested we use the stuff I'm not putting back into the blockhouse to use for a fund raiser. You buy a $5 ticket and we hand you an item and if you know who left the item on what year you win $100.

"Billy Joe Bob left that here back in 1983!"  

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I may be 100% wrong but I think that if

Israel could just whack the Ayatollahs with little collateral damage that Iran would westernize in a heartbeat.

I am old enough to recall the influx of Iranians that immigrated to the States after the Shah got the boot. In fact I knew a number of Iranians. Some of them had a relationship of some sort with the Shah. One was the son of the Shah's personal photographer. 

I got the feeling that the reason the Shah got booted out was because of corruption and not necessarily religious fervor. When something like that happens people tend to think that anything is an improvement.

Then again I might be 180 degrees off course.

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Good morning.

I just woke up and as the coffee was brewing I wandered out to the front porch made a fairly loud 'woof' and was treated for my troubles by hearing the neighborhood dogs start barking.

One of the neighbors knows I sometimes do this and thinks it rather amusing. 

It's a satisfying way to occasionally start the day. Most people are inside so it doesn't really bother them because nobody keeps their windows open yet or they're already up and about.

I think that almost everyone only keeps their windows open for a few weeks in the spring because when it really heats up they keep them closed and turn on the AC.

It's supposed to be warm today so I think I'll do a little gardening which I think old men are supposed to do.

Maybe I'll build a bird house out of scrap lumber. 

Looks like a pretty good day coming my way. We'll see.

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In other news, I read that in 2016 someone made a 10 hour long feature film called 'Paint drying'.

That's what it was, 10 long hours of watching paint dry.

The filmmaker did this to make the British Board of Film Classification have to watch all 10 hours of it to be able to give it the proper age classification.

A stroke of genius!

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Did some pretty good shooting yesterday

The first thing I did was scrawl 'OOC' (Out of competition) across my scorecard which meant I was just shooting to be shooting. I had to get out of the house.

I had my service rifle with me along with my bolt gun and at the last minute grabbed the bolt gun for reasons I won't get into.

I used the slow offhand to tune the scope up a bit and got it dialed in and just played around with the rapids. I got three off on the first string and five off on the second string and did OK. I was waiting for slow prone.

Not only did I keep all of my rounds in the black, but I had no sevens and only a couple of eights, ending up with a 184/200 which ain't that bad and is pretty good when you figure the X-ring is 1.79 inches in diameter and the 8-ring is 7.79 inches in diameter at 200 yards.

That means I kept 20 consecutive shots inside 3.9 MOA and on top of that only had a couple of eights.

Considering my eyesight has gotten so bad that even through the scope I was holding on the center of a blur that ain't too bad.

I've got an eye appointment coming up and I think I'm going to go and get my eyes fixed and see what happens. 

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Off to the range today.

Yesterday I pitched in and helped out at a Marine Corps League match which was kind of chaotic in a sense. It seemed they all forgot most of what they learned in boot camp which was funny. They WERE SAFE though and I suppose that's 99.9999999999% of it.

Today I might shoot a match. It depends on how confident I am when I get there. 

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An open letter to one of my neighbors

over the way they are raising their children.

For quite some time you have heard me rant about "F*** the children!" as a knee jerk to those that plead with the old saw "Do it for the children.".

Dear neighbor, 

You are doing a wonderful job of raising both your kids. They don't effect me negatively in any way whatsoever. In fact they are a joy to watch, talk to and be around.

Keep up the good work! It is a joy to watch a pair of responsible parents in action!

Pic

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I just got a song stuck in my head from 1959

from a TV commercial that came out in 1959.

It's from a Kellogg's cereal that only lasted about 2 or 3 years.

Kellogg's OKs.

I finally got so weirded out I sand the song aloud and went to Youtube and found the ad video there and I'll be damned but I had sung it word for word.

It's crazy what sticks in a person's mind. I likely have not heard that ad since about 1961.

I hope it goes away soon.

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Another rainy day.

It's been raining off and on almost all month. The first sunny day we have and the lawn is going to grow about a foot tall and I'll have to start mowing it.

We've been getting flash flood warnings for days. The Ohio River is much higher than normal according to the reports I've been getting.

What's funny is that the people that get upset the most by these are the people that live on top of hills where they are in no danger.

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Screw the children!

If you can't raise children responsibly on your own then don't have them.

YOUR children are not MY responsibility. I am not willing to change my life in any way simply because YOU want to have children.

That's generally my answer to anyone that pleads with me to 'do it for the children'.

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Oh, well.

Rain today.

Rain tomorrow.

Rain the rest of the week.

Sucks.

The first sunny day and the lawn will sprout up about a foot and the lawn mowing cycle begins which in itself isn't a bad deal as I don't mind mowing it.

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You know, someone could get an Article 15 for that!

And if it were me I would probably take it STRAIGHT to the JAG office and look into the possibility of filling charges against the battery commander for Conduct Unbecoming an Officer.

Either way I would demand my right to trial by Courts-Martial.

The reason I even bothered to post this is because even back in the day there was always someone somewhere along the line stupid and chicken$hit enough to make a big deal out of nothing.

Hell, Jimmy Dolittle tied his Japanese issued medals to the tail of a bomb just before the Tokyo raid.

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speak of the Devil and there he is!

Yesterday I mentioned a check coming from the lost property department being due to arrive.

Later that day I opened the mailbox and there it was.

$82.65. Not bad. 

I'll probably turn it into ones and use it for QSL cards and range fees.

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I have a check of some sort coming from the State Department of Lost Property

I ran a search and found out there was some missing money out there with my name on it and applied for it.

It's supposedly under $100 but two bucks is two bucks more than I have now so WTF. Why not?

My guess is that it's $2.79 but I suppose that it could be as much as $99.99 which would be well worth the few minutes I spent putting in for it.

Whatever, it's going to be interesting to find out.

Whatever it is I will probably get a laugh out of it of one kind or the other. I'll either say 'Oh, well' or 'YES!'

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Last minute Hail Mary play

I almost missed a day because I ran off to a shooting match this morning and forgot about everything else.

At the match I was asked to help out at a Marine Corps League match Next Saturday and plan on doing so.

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Had business downtown the other day and

once inside I went into every man's room I could find and looked behind the toilets for envelopes containing bribes that had not been picked up yet.

I guess someone beat me to it.

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I wonder what I'd do with, say, $50K I found there. 

Maybe I'd buy a new pickup or something. Who knows?

First thing I'd do is go out to dinner.

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What's a 'big kid'?

I just had an amusing thought that goes back to childhood and the term 'big kid'.

As in "some big kid stole my lunch money". or whatever.

If I recall clearly and look back on it, the generally unspoken rule of thumb was that if someone was was either a couple years older or about a head taller he was a big kid. The inverse holds true, also. A couple of years or a head shorter was a little kid and it pretty much stayed that way until somewhere around high school.

Hmmm...Haven't thought of that one for decades.

 

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Go to about 16:18

It's a funny episode and there's more than a kernel of truth to what the deli owner said about crime and why there were no robberies in the precinct anymore. It's because the residents didn't tolerate them and after robberies became unprofitable they stopped.

As usual, Gunther and Toody are in hot water for not enforcing all the petty-assed bull$hit that happens on their beat and the captain raises hell about it.

Meanwhile the inspector notices that there have been no serious crimes committed in their area of responsibility for almost a decade and tries to find out why. 

It really is pretty funny but the point that makes sense is that if people don't tolerate crime it will stop.

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One day going through the chow line.

I was going through the eggs to order line and wanted a ham and cheese omelet. The cook was having a bad day and as he was flipping it the omelet slipped off the spatula and busted open a bit.

"Don't worry about it," I said. "Just cook it and serve it to me. It'll be just fine. I see you're having a bad day .. Maybe it'll get a little better."

"You sure?" he asked.

"Yeah, no problem. It'll be just fine," I said.

And it was. The omelet went in one end and out the other like it was supposed to.

Not making a big deal out of a lousy omelet turned out to be one of the most fruitful things I did in the Army. From that day on he always took extra good care of me in the chow line.

In garrison it was OK but in the field it was a Godsend.

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Something I HIGHLY recommend is going to zip-codes.com

every so often and checking to see if your zip code has changed.

While the basic first five digits seldom change, they actually can as the population shifts. Still, it's fairly rare. It's the last four that can change with little or no warning.

Mine hasn't changed since I got it but overseas hams report that a lot of QSL cards using the 5 digit zip get returned and so do a few that use the 9 digit zip. 

I sent a QSL manager zip-codes.com and he reported a couple of people he had mailed QSL cards to have had theirs changed.

Whatever, just a public service announcement from the Hash.

https://www.zip-codes.com/

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Well, I'm the Nextdoor a$$hole....again. What's new?

Someone posted one of those 'isn't he wonderful?' posts on Nextdoor. Apparently some IT guy hooked up her printer and didn't charge her for it as sort of a favor and she just had to tell the world she got a freebie.

This is my answer.

You are doing NOBODY any favors by bringing the fact that someone threw you a freebie. Had you done it to me it would have been the LAST favor I ever did you. What you did here is open up a kind soul to having his good nature taken advantage of. I will be rather surprised if he doesn't get calls from people expecting him to work for them for little or nothing. When someone does you a favor be grateful and keep it to yourself. ASK ME HOW I KNOW THIS!

Needless to say I got crucified by all the little karens and my post reported and yada yada yada.

I'm Old School and when someone tosses me a bone I keep my damned mouth shut to protect my benefactor from being flooded by a bunch of people with their hand out asking for the same treatment.

If anybody asks I simply say I got a pretty good price on something and leave it at that just to prevent my benefactor from being flooded with the usual Free $hit Army battalion.

Needless to say, a lot of karens were mad at me because many of them are card carrying FSA members and/or nosy busybodies. If the shoe fits...

Back in the day when I was a one man small town contractor I did toss out a lot of bones but I always put a caveat on it that the recipient keep their damned mouth shut or the freebies would go away.

Actually most of the freebies I threw out were repaid in kind. Eventually I'd get a drink bought for me or some venison or halibut which was gratefully accepted. When I got repaid in kind I always kept quiet about it because it was nobody's business.

During that period of time I did do a lot of small pro bono things here and there. It helped build up a customer base and I did do a number of jobs on 'street credit' because the people I did work for always paid their bills. 

If anyone asked what I was charging someone my reply was always "That's between us." 

Actually I learned about big mouths as a youngster. 

Once I was swimming at the pond and a little kid that didn't know how to swim jumped off of the 'dam' and went into a panic.

I simply reached down and grabbed his arm and hauled him back onto the dam with no bull$hit or fanfare and told him to go home.

I guess he told his mother because my mom got a call and afterwards told me the kid's mom was going to write the editor of the small town rag we had and tell everyone what a hero I was. I paled.

The first thing that came out of my mouth was "I should have let him drown. Call her and stop her and tell her to shut up about it."

"Oh, but...yada yada yada." she replied and I repeated myself. "Call her and tell her to keep quiet about it! I'm serious!"

More yada yada yada. No help, either.

About 15 minutes later my dad walked in. I took one look at him and pointed at him and then pointed down hard. It was the signal he used on me to tell me to meet him in the basement NOW.

His eyes widened. He knew I had never used the signal on him.

We went downstairs and I pled my case and pointed out that my classmates would have a field day with this and torment the hell out of me. Dad looked at me and said, "I'll handle this immediately."

I was in the other room and only heard part of the conversation. "Know what he said? He said he should have let your son drown. If this hits the paper I know my son. When he gets tormented by his classmates over this he IS going to retaliate, most likely it will involve paint or fire and I'm not going to punish him for it! Tell your wife to smarten up! Look, Tom. My son saved your son's life and all he wants in return for your son is for your wife to keep her goddam mouth shut! He wants to be left alone. It's the least you can do!"

Thank you, Dad. 

It did get pretty much buried and only a couple of neighbors found out (She just HAD to say SOMETHING to SOMEONE) about the incident so it wasn't too hard to deal with but from that day forward I knew how to handle a favor or a freebie.

Some years back I had an unnamed electrician do a small job for me. It was no biggie and the agreed on price was $150. When he was done I tossed him a 100 ml of Jim Beam and reached for my wallet. He said, "Ah, just give me a hundred bucks and keep your mouth shut."

Done deal and when someone asked me what I had been charged I simply said I had gotten a pretty good deal on it and left it at that.

My dealings with the Old School trash guys were legendary and I guarded that relationship closely. When someone asked how come they took practically anything I left on the curb I explained to her that I knew one of the trash guys because we went to different schools together and left it at that.

Actually one thing I did to the trash guys once endeared me to them. I once snagged a mannequin and then off to Goodwill for a cheap pair of sexy mules and a pair of black fishnets which I clad said mannequin in and stuffed it into the trash can head first with the legs sticking up.

Of course someone reported it and I watched a police car pull up and was treated to watching the officer shake his head and laugh as he drove off but I digress.

The trash guys laughed like hell and I knew I had made their day a little better for it. I think the next week they ditched four old tires or some damned thing for me but whatever.

One other thing I will post no details on is the time I got a $5000 mysterious home repair job done for about $300 and a bottle of Jim Beam. I sure kept my mouth shut on that one!

I'm 100% sure that if I ever mentioned that deal I would have ruined it for others as the entire FSA would have descended on the poor guy.

The afternoon after I made my Nextdoor post I spent an afternoon with a few people at the range and when I discovered that two of the guys were self-employed I asked them about tossing someone a bone. Both of them said they used to but don't anymore in general.  One of them said he charges $10 for opening the hood. The other  stated on the very rare instances he does it's for a regular customer and he admonishes the customer to keep it under his hat.

They reported that a big part of the reason they run their businesses this way is because people have to brag about getting getting taken care of and it draws the inevitable FSA expecting $25 brake jobs and the like.

I think that as I wrote this that I can give an example most karens can understand.

How would you like being descended on by every horned toad and dweeb in your class because your date to the big dance told everyone about what went on in the back seat of his car later on that night?

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Another day working DX

which was fun because everyone and their cousin was on the air including the Chinese. I worked 3 separate Chinese stations in 18 minutes.

The rules for working contesters are that to work a contesting station you have to give him a QSO number. Using the number of contacts you have made that day suffices. 

Some of the contesters I heard had made over 2000 contacts and because I was cherry picking I made about 20, all interesting DX.

It's kind of funny when someone says 'Number 1874' and I reply with 'Number 6'.

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To which I will add that it just as hard to pray for someone you wish would slip on a banana peel as it is to pray for someone you wish would fall down a 300 foot mine shaft. 

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Baltimore bridge. One group that's gonna get screwed is probably

the working stiff longshoremen in the port.

Because Dundalk terminal is now shut down the guys are probably not getting paid for the next couple of months.

Of course the lawsuits will go on for years and everyone and their cousin will jump on the bandwagon and send their legal attack dogs to collect compensation for them.

It's a lead pipe cinch that the terminal people will sue but when they get the settlement money I'd bet that the guys at the bottom don't see a dime of it.

I may be wrong, though because maybe the longshoreman's union will send in their attack dogs and grab a piece of the pie but still if the union gets money I wonder if any of it will get to the rank and file working stiffs. 

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History repeats itself.

Back in the day when I drove $50 crap cans as daily drivers I had a women back into me and dented my right rear passengers door.

She went into a dither and carried on about insurance companies and notifying the police and accident reports and so on and so forth. It's the last thing a young driver wants to hear and I imaging she thought the damage would cost hundreds to repair.

I looked at it and told the frantic woman that the entire car cost me $50 and a Saturday afternoon's work and was treated to an "I don't understand."

So I explained to her that I never pay more than $50 for a car and just fix them up myself and that everything would be OK and she should just go away because her car wasn't hurt at all.

She asked who would fix my car and to get her off my back I said that I would even though I wasn't going to bother. Finally out of oncoming desperation just to get rid of her I said, "Tell you what. I've got to go into the church hall for about an hour. If you want just grab a six-pack of PBR and throw it into the back seat. I'll leave it unlocked."

She grew wide-eyed and asked me how old I was and I told her I was 19 and she said, "But that's illegal."

"Well then don't worry about it. I'll just call my dad to pick me up one on his way home from work. None of this is any big thing. I'll fix it myself and we can skip the paperwork. I gotta get in there before I'm late."

With that I walked off. 

About an hour later I returned to my car and saw the coat I had left in the back seat was covering something. It wasn't a 6-pack. It was a case of PBR. I laughed and tried to picture the woman sneaking up to the car carrying a case of beer, looking around for the police and rapidly tossing in back, covering it with my coat and driving off scared out of her wits.

Fifty years later, Homeless Depot parking lot. 

Some lady brushed against my pickup ever so slightly while parking. I was still in the pickup getting ready to leave. I was answering a text before I fired up to go home. I actually never felt it and out of the corner of my eye saw her get out and look at my rear fender and came and was practically in tears as she reported to me she had hit my fender.

I got out and inspected the mark. It was a big, fat nothing burger complete with bacon, lettuce and tomato. I scratched the little chip of her paint off or it and told her not to worry about it but she was still upset.

"Don't worry about it," I said. "When I get home I'll grab a can of rubbing compound and make it disappear in about two minutes. You'll never know it happened."

She was dubious as hell and clearly had it blown out of proportion in her head. She was clearly upset and I tried to console her just to get her to go away. It was someone making a mountain out of a molehill.

"Look," I said. "If you really feel you have to do something about this to make your guilt go away then the next time you're at a convenience store or supermarket then pick up a simple four pack of Guinness and put it on my porch. You don't have to and I don't expect it but if you truly feel you have to do something than go ahead. It's no big thing. I don't care." With that I gave her my street address.

I got home a couple of hours later and found an entire case of Guinness on my porch. I shook my head.

Go figure.

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Maybe Biden has a point on gas.

Back when Trump was president my gas tank would only hold about $40 worth of gas.

Under Biden it holds almost $100 worth of gas!

Pretty cool, huh?

If we drill and become energy self-sufficient we will go back to my truck only being able to hold about $40 worth of gas.

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When it rains it pours.

It seems like every time I try and cut spending a whole bunch of crap happens that needs to be tended to.

Wham! Out of nowhere comes an unexpected necessary expense for $60 which in itself isn't too bad, followed by another whatever for $110, followed by whatever. Problem is they add up fast.

On the other hand I paid my 2023 taxes and it looks to me like I overestimated the amount to set aside for taxes by 100% which means I actually have more money in my pocket on a monthly basis than I thought I had and that is always a good thing.

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

Daily phone maintenance.

1. Settings: turn off any background apps running

2. Run cleaning cycle

3.Reboot.

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It's the Netherlands now, you know.

said someone to me when I called the place 'Holland' which is what I called it for about the first 50 years of my life. The name's changed but the people are the same. It's one of the fairly few places in Europe where they like Americans. They tend American war graves to this day.

In my mind the place is 'Holland' and the people there are 'Dutch' and they grow beautiful tulips and when you hear a clop clop clop you know it's a Dutch jogger because they wear wooden shoes as they jog past windmills. When they get home they have a bottle of excellent beer. All in all it sounds pretty good to me.

Now get off my case. I like those people.

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One of the things middle management used to forget about old hands

is that it's pretty likely old hands know a lot of people that they don't.

There are two incidents that come to mind over the years. Both times my shipmate and I were warned that we had to give the people we were going to meet a good impression and yada yadda yada , so on and so forth.

Anyway, as the person in question walked in after an hour long lecture on how important it was to out on a good impression I heard my shipmate say, "Quequeeg! How ya doing? Last I heard you were going to visit the folks in Vanuatu! Did they throw a missionary in the stewpot for you when you got there?"

The port captain looked in horror.

"Nah, we got McDonalds now," he replied. The port captain didn't know what to think, say or do until my shipmate made introductions.

"This is Piccolo and that's some port captain."

The port captain lamely said, "I guess you guys know each other." and left shaking his head. Needless to say, we got the contract.

The other time there was a supervisor and a port captain in the room when the person in question arrived. He was halfway down the stairs and I looked up and heard, "Piccolo! What brings you to the west coast?" Long time, no see!"

"Hey, Ceesco Keed! When they send you out here?" I asked.

"Two years ago. What's the relief crew like?"

"They're OK," I said.

The supervisor's face lit up relaxed but the port captain looked incensed because he had been upstaged.

The customer looked at the pair of them. "These guys are squared away. I'll tell Tom to ink the contract IF these two are running the show."

Then the bull$hit of what we had been doing since we saw each other last started. The port captain looked pouty because he was left out while the supervisor was tickled pink we had managed to get the contract.

 

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The Kingdom of Eswatini is the new name for Swaziland.

When I heard that a while back the first thing I asked myself is 'why? Did all the Swazis move out or something?'

The next thing I wondered is if I have to work it again to keep it in my DXCC log. (I don't.)

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

In other gnus my cell phone wants to update its software and will do do on its own if I do nothing. WTF just get it out of the way.

More junk that means shorter battery life between charges is the likely outcome. I keep deleting junk and they keep adding to it. 

One thing I do have down to a fine art, though is that every morning I run a cleaner and then reboot the whole damned thing. 

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

I see where someplace in Minnesota is blaming the auto industry for making cars that Black people like to steal.

Oh.

I can't help but think what would happen to me if I happened to own one and installed an alarm in it that would enable me to catch the thief. Who would go to jail?

The guy trying to steal it?

Or maybe I'd be charged with hunting over bait.

It's all so tiresome.

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I just worked a wonderful woman on 20 meters. You never know who you are going to run into.

What a kind voice she had. It was a joy to talk to her!

She was running her rig from Austria where apparently she lives now and I instantly opened her QRZ page and checked her out. She had a link to her personal website and I found out she is a Saudi Sheikh's daughter! She's kind, educated and very well traveled and studied mathematics in the States and earned her Master's in Vienna. In addition to that she speaks three languages I know of, Arabic, German and her English is perfect, unaccented American English.

For a while she worked with special needs children in Riyadh and that takes a special kind of patience. She's a talented, attractive, special kind of woman.

Of course as an old man that watched a lot of old rerun movies as a kid the fact that she's the daughter of  a Sheikh that rang a bell. Off to the Official Hollywood Guide to Old Movie Characters.

Let's see, here. S...S...S...SH..S H E....here it is. Sheikh...Sheikh... Sheikh's Aunt...No. Here it is. Sheik's daughters. Two kinds. Let's see here...Oh, yeah. Beautiful and ugly. Oh yeah, The ugly one is the daughter the Sheikh tries to force the hero to marry. The hero usually grabs a sword about two minutes before the wedding ceremony and fights his way out and joins the Foreign Legion at Fort Zindenauf and is awarded the Legion of Honor for shooting 38 of his pursuers off of the back of a camel. (Of course Hollywood never explains how they got 38 people on the back of the camel)

Here we go....Sheikh's beautiful daughter...This is the one I'm looking for. Let's see. What's her appropriate story line? Oh, yeah.

She and the hero meet and fall in love at first sight. The Sheikh finds out and has someone haul the hero out into the desert and drop him off in the middle of nowhere 100 miles from food or water to leave him to die of thirst and starvation. 

In the next scene it's after dark and the hero miraculously shows up outside the Sheikh's fort wall, fit as a fiddle and rested leaving the audience to wonder how he survived. He's freshly shaven and has a meticulously groomed pencil thin moustache. His clothes have come straight out of the cleaners.

He's clad in a pair of those baggy pants, the pointy shoes that have a little bell on the tip, a white V-necked big, baggy sleeved dueling shirt a bandana on his head and a dagger in his teeth and just happened to have found a coil of rope next to the wall enabling him to lasso an abutment and scale the wall.

 Sneaking past 5 or 6 lazy, sleepy guards he finds his way to her room. They embrace and decide to run away. Stealing the Sheikh's favorite horse, the gallop out the gate as the alarm is sounded and from out of nowhere 1000 shouting, sword swinging men on camels are seen pouring out the gate in hot pursuit.  (I guess he kept his army hidden in a giant underground bunker of some sort because they appear out of nowhere.)

After about 6 or 8 pretty good fight scenes and several close calls they escape to Chicago or Detroit and live happily ever after.

Actually Hollywood stereotypes certainly doesn't hold true only for Sheikh's daughters. It often holds true for Americans. One of the greatest exports America has is the western movie. 

Because of this one thing that is not a good idea to do is to try and clear French customs while wearing American western clothing. Don't do that and DON'T ask me how I know. 

The customs inspector will take one look at you and in his mind will decide That man is an American cowboy! Cowboys carry revolvers! Where is he hiding his six-gun?  He will then proceed to tear through every bit of your luggage in an effort to find one. When he doesn't he will look at you with suspicion trying to figure out where you are hiding it.

I wondered about what he was thinking. Did he think I was going to pull out an illegal pistol, fire a few shots into the air and stampede a herd of cattle through the streets of Paris? 

(Personally I don't need a six-gun. I have the US Cavalry on speed dial so if I had a problem in Paris a quick call would have a bugle blaring and thundering horses charging down the streets of Paris, rescuing me in the nick of time. Never in the history of the motion picture industry has the US Cavalry been too late.)

Another thing is that during my (real) career as a seaman I surprised a few people when I let them know that most Americans were not millionaires and that I live in a modest home in a quiet neighborhood that I had mortgaged. (Now I am an old retiree living on a somewhat limited income)

Anyway, this woman apparently has radio in her blood. He father had the first callsign issued in Saudi Arabia, HZ1HZ, and she wrote that she used to sit and listen to her father communicate with people all over the world in English. I'll bet her father has JY1's call sign in his log. (JY1 was the late King of Jordan and was on the air regularly.)

When her father passed somehow she got his Saudi callsign issued to her. Her father was Deputy Minister of Communications in Saudi Arabia and she was the first woman to he issued a license in her province.

One thing Hollywood got right about this YL is she's a raven haired beauty straight out of central casting. She's a very attractive woman. One thing that Hollywood seems to gloss over is she was not born in North Africa where all of these old adventure movies seem to have taken place. She was born in an entirely different continent. Saudi Arabia is a part of Asia. Good old Hollywood. Never let the truth get in the way of a thrilling adventure story.

I think that one of the best parts of ham radio is that you never know who you are going to meet or get to listen to on the airwaves.

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

Later that night I was talking to my nephew and he asked me if I had run into anyone interesting on the air. 

"Yeah, as a matter of fact I just worked an interesting woman. She's a Saudi Sheikh's daughter. Wonderful woman. Spoke perfect unaccented American English, she was working out of Austria," I said.  

"Oh, yeah? Cool. You know, those people take their education and travel seriously. I'll bet she learned her English in the States," he replied. 

"I think she did. She studied math here. Now tell me, when I said 'Sheikh's daughter' what was the first thing that you thought of?"

I could tell by his voice he felt kind of sheepish.

"You know, Hollywood really gives us a really lousy picture of reality..." he hedged.

"Out with it! First thing you thought of." I interrupted.

He laughed. "A beautiful dark haired exotic women that runs off with a handsome stranger out in the desert somewhere."

Hollywood. Never let the truth get in the way of a thrilling adventure movie.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Speaking of Hollywood, I had a cab driver that was born in Casablanca driving me from an airport in New York once. 

When he said he was from Casablanca my smart-ass nature ran away with me.

"Casablanca, huh? Is Rick's Place still there?"

He turned and gave me the look one gives to a wise guy like I was being at the time.

"Nah. He sold it right after Elsa and Lazlo left for Lisbon and stowed away on a ship that had a stop in England where he got off. Elsa and Lazlo were already there and Lazlo was busy helping out DeGaulle organize the Free French so Elsa ran off with him and they headed to the States together settling in Chicago where they got married and had a couple of kids. Later Rick got involved with some redhead and Elsa divorced him and took him to the cleaners and when the redhead found out he was broke she dumped him. Rick spent the rest of his life a drunk living under a bridge in Cicero."

Needless to say I laughed myself silly and realized three things. First we were kindred spirits and that he had a pretty good education from somewhere and that he had seen the movie.

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I don't know who Steve Garvey is and I don't care.

I see where he is running for office and one of his online ads brags about his baseball career.

I don't give a damn about his baseball career. 

And it might surprise people to find out I don't listen to Cher, either just because she's a singer.

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Everything these days is SO important

that we have to endanger the rest of the world by answering texts while we drive in heavy traffic at 60 mph.

It's IMPORTANT that we find out who is wearing what to the big party. It's IMPORTANT we find out instantly what time the game is going to start two weeks from now. It's IMPORTANT we find out who is buried in Grant's tomb right NOW! It can't wait! Gotta happen NOW!

Years ago when cell phones took hold and I finally got one I got called to the home office which was a little over 2 hours away.

I fired up my pickup and started in that direction and instantly after I got on the Interstate my phone rang. A glance told me it was the office. We had a 'no phone use while driving' rule in place so I pulled into the breakdown lane and answered it to be greeted with a breathless ''Where are you now?"

To which I replied, "I am sitting in the breakdown lane on the Interstate."

"OMG! What happened? Did you break down or get into an accident?" 

"No. We have a no drive and talk on phone policy so I pulled over to answer you," I said.

"Well, get going! We need you now!" he shouted.

That entire conversation repeated itself five more times during my drive and when I arrived the big boss asked me if I had been caught in traffic.

I said I had not but I had to pull over to answer the phone six times because someone kept calling me to see how far along I was.

THAT raised his eyebrows and I knew my caller was in for an ass chewing and a math lesson.

As for why I had been called? There was a question regarding a delivery I had been in charge of and the customer had a couple of questions that could have easily been answered over the phone but his boss had told him to talk to me face to face.

Needless to say this was IMPORTANT.

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Download the free app!

and add more useless crap to your phone and slow it down even more.

"Hey, I just got the free app from a truck stop outside on Minot, ND! Pretty cool, huh? I'll get 20 cents off of a gallon of gas every time I stop in!"

Of course the idiot has never been there and isn't likely to go there in the foreseeable future but if he ever does he'll be able to save $2.50 on a fill-up. Either that or the place will have changed hands or gone belly up and the app will be no good by the time he gets to use it.

I've been fighting a battle with my phone since Day One. 

Everyone wants to fill my phone full of crap, I want to delete it. It's a never ending battle.

One other thing, the more crap you have running the faster the battery runs down.

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One of the rights I give up when CCW

is the right to be a smartass. I can't start anything whatsoever and probably with good reason. I have to stay lily white because if I start something and it escalates then I no longer have a right to defend myself.

The right to self-defense can be easily lost by starting trouble of some sort. 

I say this to clarify that I am NOT running around packing heat and looking for trouble.

In fact I damned seldom run around the neighborhood armed and generally speaking, if I do it means I am headed somewhere where it might be prudent to.

Occasionally my wife would ask me to carry because she knew it would make me behave myself.

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Why the names have been changed to protect the innocent/guilty.

Some bonehead busybody I know once asked me why I don't just say the hell with it and name names, places and times.

"Yeah, maybe I ought to," I said. "Your mother was the best piece of a$$ I ever had. She had a Japanese love swing and what happened in the back seat of my '63 Ford I still have show up in my dreams. Want me to start there or does that hit a little too close to home?"

It was funny watching him turn beet red and what made it funnier was he knew we lived 700 miles apart. It was just the thought that made him turn purple.

How about giving people a bit of privacy? A lot of those that are still alive have kids and grandkids they are trying to raise. A lot of them were single when much of this $hit was happening and they don't need the embarrassment.

"Oh yeah? Piccolo got drunk with you and two stole a police car? I never heard about that one!" That's the last thing some poor bastard raising a kid needs to hear his kid repeat to his father.

On the other hand, my unindicted co-conspirators and I can certainly share a few laughs out of earshot of the nosy ones.

 

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I had the PRC 320 in a local park earlier today.

and was trying to check in on the YL net.

Someone casually asked me what I was doing and I cheerfully explained that I was a ham radio operator trying to check in on a net and told them they could listen in if  they wanted to.

It took a couple of tries but I got my call on their log via an assistant net control out of Broken Arrow, OK with a 5x5 signal report. 

Then it was off to try my luck elsewhere.

Along came someone else that demanded to know what I was doing. I told him I was reporting in to the Moose and Squirrel net reporting that Boris Badenov and/or Natasha Fetale or Fearless Leader had not been seen in the area.

He gave me a really angry and dirty look.

"Take out your phone," I said. "Say 'OK Google, take me to Moose and Squirrel net' and open the link.

He did and went through it and got even more annoyed.

I turned to him and said, "I hope your grateful toward all of the other members of the net that work hard to protect Rocky and Bullwinkle so they can protect us from world communism."

He gave me a pissed off look and walked away. Hopefully he was feeling pretty stupid.

Here's a pretty good picture of one identical to mine.

 

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One of the things I know that probably would have made me a good father

is that I remember how it was for me back in the day. If you can think back fairly clearly and look at the  problems your parents had with you it becomes easier to raise a kid.

The other thing I know is that we're all different. I hear parents of three kids surprised that all three of their kids are entirely different. I don't think that's surprising at all.

The other thing you should get used to is that maybe one or more kids don't share your interests. Don't think that automatically your son is going to be your hunting/fishing buddy. He very well may but then again me very well may not. Don't pressure him either way, offer to take him and leave it at that.

If you are having kids to take over the family business, don't bother.  

Offer the same thing to your daughter and she may very well surprise you...or she may not. It's all somewhat of a crap shoot. A daughter might just be a girly-girl or a real tomboy. There's no telling.

What does matter is the end result and that you raise them to be decent, well adjusted people. 

In my case I am a product of both a parent that had a path they expected of me and another that was wise enough to let nature run its course.

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About 25 years after I left my hometown and returned for a visit

I think I'll keep this one for myself...

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Junior prom.

Christ! What a joke that was.

Not only was I the oldest son of the family, I was the oldest son of the entire generation and the pressures were unfair. When my Junior Prom came around Mom asked be who I was going to go with and I told her I was not going.

"You HAVE to go to your prom!"

"Where does it say I HAVE to take part in ANY school activities?" I shot back. 

"You're going to the prom," she practically screeched.

The carrying on was close to epic and I knew Dad would be dragged into it and I cringed. While I knew he'd back me when push came to shove.

"Okay," I said. "I'll figure something out."

Off to the next town over where I generally hung out. I asked around and found out that Lisa Lorenzo didn't want to go to her prom, either. So I went looking for Lisa.

When I found her I told her that I didn't want to go to my prom and that I was looking for someone not to go to either prom with. She laughed like hell and agreed not to go to my prom with me if I wouldn't go to her prom with her. She said that when she told her parents she didn't want to go her mother was disappointed.

"So we both don't go to our proms together." I said. "It's a non-date."

"Okay," she laughed. "It's a non date."

The following afternoon I got a call from Lisa. She said her father wanted to meet the guy that wasn't taking her to the prom. "Don't worry. You'll like him."

I showed up that evening, having bicycled to her place. Al Lorenzo proved to be a real character. 

"I just wanted to meet the young man that isn't taking my daughter to her prom that she's not going to," he deadpanned. We chatted a while and finally he told me he would be delighted to have me not to take his daughter to the prom. We both laughed. Then he asked me how I figured that Lisa and I were not going to different proms together.

"Yogi Berra was asked how he knew someone and he replied "We went to different schools together." It makes sense to me."

He chuckled.

Then he asked me what I was going to do instead of going to the prom.

"Probably going fishing at Damon's Point," I answered. He said he wished he could join me. I told him to drop by.

The next day was Saturday and that afternoon Mom asked me who I was going to the prom with. I announced that a girl named Lisa Lorenzo and I were not going to our proms together.

We went round and round over that for a few minutes and Mom demanded the Lorenzo's phone number and said she was going to call the parents to find out what kind of funny business was going on. I gave her the phone number. As she was dialing it my father walked in.

My mother introduced herself and asked what was going on between Lisa and I. The next thing I heard her say, "What do you mean they're not going to their proms together?" and I knew Al had answered the phone. I pointed at Dad and then to the phone.

Dad stepped in and in about a minute it became clear that he and Al understood each other.

"I can do that...Bring him? Sure he's right here...Give us about 25 minutes... See you then..." He turned to my mother. "We're meeting him at the Harbor." He turned to me. That means you, too."

We went out to the crap can dad drove back and forth to work, a beat up old Ford. He started it up and laughed. "He's a hot $hit," he said. "He told me to meet him at the Grog Shop."

"You'll like him, Dad. You know how parents want to meet their daughter's dates? He had me over so he could meet the guy that's not taking his daughter to the prom she's not going to."

"What!?" he snapped.

"Yeah. He did that. It was a hoot. I went, met him and laughed myself silly. He's funny. You'll get along with him well." I said. Dad shook his head.

We arrived at about the same time and I noticed Dad was carrying two beers and Al had one. Dad parked a beer in front of me. This was back in the day and the rules were different then. Dads could quietly have a beer with their sons and nobody said anything about it.

It took the pair of them about eleven seconds for it to sound like they had known each other for years.

Al said his wife was totally confused over the story that they were not going to different proms together and Dad admitted that Mom didn't understand it, either.

"That's because women don't understand Yogi Berra," he said and they both laughed.

Then Al said something interesting. "I like the way these two young people came up with their story and ran with it. I spoke with Lisa and there's no romantic interest between the two. They just had problems with their parents and figured out a way to deal with it. I really like the way our children educate us and help us grow up."

Al turned to me and said, "IF you need a date sometime and ask my daughter you don't have to worry. You can go out with her anytime. If you don't want to I'll understand."

Dad  looked at me wide eyed and with a lot of pride. "Thank you," I said kind of humbled.

Then the subject was dropped and the bull$hit started. The three of us yakked the time and beers away for a couple of hours. We all laughed a lot. 

Those men were Old School guys of the WW2 generation. They didn't step down to deal with a younger man, they lifted him up to their level and I was a part of the conversation. I've said before I walked on the shoulders of giants.

Al asked me what I was going to do on prom night and I replied, "Probably go fishing at Damon's Point." and he laughed and said he might join me.

After we left Dad said he'd handle things from here on. He also said he liked Al and was surprised I'd met such a good guy and thanked me for creating the meeting.

When we got home with a mild buzz on Mom asked Dad what was going on. He said "Lisa Lorenzo is not going to her prom and your son is not going to his prom and that's that. The matter is closed."

"But they're doing it together," Mom protested.

"Yes," he explained. "At the same time but not in the same place. Lisa is going to do what she wants and  Piccolo is probably going fishing at Damon's Point. The end. Now drop it."

Aftermath. Prom night.

I actually did go fishing prom night and as it was getting dark I was working on my tackle. I caught the motion of a car approaching and turned back to my tackle.

When I was done I saw Al Lorenzo get out of his car carrying a tackle box, a rod and a heavy ammo can that I soon discovered contained about a dozen cans of beer. It was heavily iced to boot.

"Help your self," he said and Al and I fished until about 2300. When he left he left behind a scrounged cardboard box containing two or three beers and a pile of ice. I kept fishing until about 0200ish and brought home a pretty good striper.

Lisa and I remained casual friends. She later went off to college and I lost track of her. From time to time I'd run into Al here and there. I did meet him on a visit home after I got out of the army. He said Lisa had married, had a child and was living in New Hampshire.

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