I am writing this to post to post the link on another website.

Someone tried to shame me for giving my Godson a Daisy Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas. I got the usual crap that goes with it. 

For him I say he ought to make his opinion noted and stand up for it. I recommend he put this on his lawn.

Of course if I were his neighbor I would cheerfully post this:

Fact of the matter is I didn't give my Godson a BB gun as a toy to turn him loose with to terrorize the neighborhood. I gave it to him to teach him some responsibility.

By now his parents have had a serious sit-down with him and explained that it is not a toy and could cause serious damage to people. The 'shoot your eye out' line really isn't a joke. It's serious business.

Besides his parents, his fairly avid shooter uncle will coach him along and insure a proper education in firearm safety and basic marksmanship. One thing that he will learn in the process is personal responsibility which is something many adults know little or nothing about.

Between two parents and an uncle I'm sure he will be steered in a safe direction. Later if he accepts the responsibility of BB gun ownership he will probably graduate to a single shot .22 rifle. eventually when I pass my 30-30 deer rifle will be passed onto him if he still shows interest.

I've been in the shooting sports almost all of my adult life and hopefully I will pass this onto him.

I hear a lot of parents screeching to kid proof guns but that's a cop-out. For one thing you can't. Kids can get into everything and find the meanest of hiding places for things. Besides, one can't control what happens during a play date. Some kid could very well hand your child a loaded firearm they either discovered in Dad's drawer or elsewhere. While locking things into a safe may sound like a 100% solution, it really isn't. Motivated kids can figure out how to get into Fort Knox. Besides, when they eventually get handed one, as a child OR even later on as an adult they will be ignorant of the safety rules.

A far more proactive solution is to gun proof you kids. You have to pull your head out of the sand and realize that this is a heavily armed country and you're not going to change it. Get over it and face reality.

You expose your kids to firearms and teach them to handle one safely. It doesn't take much. The safety rules are simple.

I have a relative that carried a handgun in the line of duty regularly. His mother was constantly worried about the kids getting their hands on it. 

One day he placed his revolver on the kitchen table and took his mother into the living room and said, "Watch this."

A few minutes later his son walked in the kitchen door and called out to his father that he had left his revolver on the kitchen table. Dad told the kid to bring it into the living room for him.

When the lad came into the living room he was carrying the revolver in his right hand. The cylinder was swung out and he was carrying it safely by the frame, with his fingers in the hole the cylinder was usually in. His left hand held 6 cartridges. The boy has simply unloaded it and disabled the revolver.

He was six years old.

It doesn't take much to gun proof kids. The basic safety rules are pretty simple. 1. Never point a firearm at something you don't want to destroy.  2. Keep your finger off the trigger until you re ready to shoot. It really IS that simple.

Hopefully my Godson will accept the responsibility of a BB gun and through it learn safety. I bet he will.

A few years down the road I may put a .22 single shot under the Christmas tree if he show interest. If not, that's good, too.

Still, because his parents and uncle will take the time to teach him he will go into later life aware of firearms and responsible enough to be safe.

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Merry Christmas.

Nuff said.

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it's been a Merry Christmas Christmas this year.

I've only gotten two 'Happy Holidays' the whole season. It seems to have returned to Merry Christmas again!!

Of the three 'Happy Holidays', two were working behind a counter. to be fair about it I have to give them a pass because they are behind a counter and likely were told by management what to do.

The second 'Happy Holidays' was an obvious liberal who returned my 'Merry Christmas' with a 'Happy Holidays'. I rained on his parade by saying "Happy Holidays. How sterile! Who cut you balls off?"

While not as much as I would like I see it, it's certainly a welcome change back to saner times. 

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It's Festivus!

The holiday for the restofus.

Before the fire I would break out the yarmulke a Jewish friend sent me that was embroidered 'Happy Festivus'. Sadly it turned up missing after the fire.

This year Christmas and Hanukah are both eon the same day.

This is the day for the coalition of Christians and Jews to celebrate.

Good deal! 

 

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A woman I have met before that lives nearby has been killed while walking her dog.

She was hit by a car.

The woman that hit her stopped and instantly called the police, much to her credit. 

Needless to say, there was speculation and as usual a lot of fingers pointed at the driver who may/may not be held responsible.

I had met the woman that got hit a while back and she seemed okay. The again it was a case of one of her neighbors and I met her in the condo parking area where they both lived. I met her a couple times afterwards and briefly spoke to her.

Twice I heard that when she was walking her dog, who was also killed in the accident, that she seemed to be in a daze of some sort because a number of people had waved at her while she was walking the dog in bright daylight and seemed to have not noticed them.

She was walking her dog near a well known corner that should should have been a four way stop instead of a two way stop. Of course after she was killed there is a hue and cry to make the corner a 4 way stop.

She was reported to have been wearing a reflective vest of some sort which is what people should do because as a driver I have had to deal with too many Johnny Cash (The Man in Black) look-alikes that walk their pets after dark in black clothing. Then again, what kind of reflective vest was she wearing?. Some of them have a stripe or two running down the back and the commonly worn dark colored backpack makes the vest worthless to someone coming up from behind.

It's winter now and it gets dark early and lately as I have gotten older I try to drive at night as little as possible. Still, when I'm out I see people walking pets or simply walking with their backs to traffic dressed in very dark clothing. 

While I have never hit one of them, I have had a couple scare the holy hell out of me when I spot them. A couple of them over the years have been walking in the middle of my lane backs toward me, not a care in the world. 

I'm a slow driver in residential areas, especially in the Miata for a few reasons. The Miata is a little loud and sometimes people think I'm going faster than I really am. I try and make an effort, at the very least, in my own neighborhood. This holds doubly true after dark mainly because of the Johnny Cash dressers that are out and about.

Of course the usual suspects are quick to point out that pedestrians have the right of way and automatically will assume the driver is responsible. Fine. We'll get to this later.

As many of you know, I'm a retired mariner and as such have made my career have lived under maritime law. I also have some fairly extensive sailboat cruising under my belt. One of the first things someone learns for a captain's license are the Rules of the Road, a fairly complex set of rules establishing a pecking order for the right of way. by day under various circumstances there are day shapes that must be displayed. By night there are various lights that are displayed. 

The Rules of the Road go back to to about 1897 and were established to prevent collision at sea. This was long before the invention of radar and bridge to bridge radio communication. 

There is also one unspoken rule for mariners. It's called The Law of Gross Tonnage. It means you can be following the Rules of the Road to a T and still get clobbered. Nothing absolves one of their duty to prevent a collision at sea by any means necessary.

During my sailboat cruising period, under sail I was supposed to show port and starboard running lights and a stern light in darkness and inclement weather. However, in addition to this I religiously hung a radar reflector in my mast. Small plastic boats do not show up very well on radar because the aluminum mast doesn't reflect radar waves very well.  I've tested my radar reflectors before and they work and work rather well. (update: two years ago about the time I retired these became mandatory)

I have lived in a world of ships up to 1500 feet in length that traveled at 27 knots or greater and while we religiously adhered to the Rules of the Road, we also adhered even more religiously to the Law of Gross tonnage. To a man the people I sailed with were very proactive in preventing collisions at sea. The very, very few times, and I can only recall one where we had a close call the tug skipper did exactly the right thing and a collision was averted. Instead of slowing down he instantly hooked up to all ahead full.

Incidentally if you are involved in a marine casualty and were in compliance of the Rules of the Road don't go running to some accident attorney or some shoreside shyster because you are not going to some court downtown. You are headed to Admiralty Court and it's an entirely different ball game. Dewey, Cheetham and Howe, injury lawyers are probably going to get chewed up and spit out like popcorn and YOU may very well wind up deeply in debt. 

Admiralty courts don't assign blame as such. The decide a percentage of the responsibility. If the total damages total to a million bucks and you get held with 5% of the blame then you can be required to pony up $50,000. Seldom does one party simply walk off cleanly with no percentage of the responsibility assigned.

I have been a witness in an Admiralty court once and 

Back to the accident.

The driver as of now has not been charged with anything. I suppose she could be charged with manslaughter or negligent homicide if the police believe it is warranted. So far she has not been charged.

Legally and socially I suppose it's fairly easy to assign blame. Car hit pedestrian. Car guilty. The End.

Now let's get down to responsibilities. 

Cars are inanimate objects. They can not be assigned blame except in the very, very rare case of manufacturing defect in which case the manufacturer can be dragged into the situation. 

For one thing, this shows she was not likely fiddling with her damned cell phone as this is one of the first things the police usually check in the event of a fatal accident. Has she been she likely would have been charged with something.

So far I have seen no evidence that she was distracted or any wrongdoing on the driver's fault. While I am not certain of where she came from, if she was a local it's highly likely she was aware that the intersection was a bit on the tricky side and was paying reasonable attention. It's also highly unlikely there was any malice involved. That was displayed by the fact that she stopped instantly and notified the police immediately. Still, she shares a portion of the responsibility which is yet to be determined.

As for the victim, it appears to me from what I have heard she was known for not paying attention. However, she reportedly was wearing a reflective vest of some sort. Some people have said that she didn't seem to pay attention to her surroundings. I'd have to assign her a portion of the responsibility.

One thing is certain, though. She shares one thing in common with Elvis Presley. They are both still dead and that's simply the way it is. That's a cold, hard fact.

One other cold hard fact is that if either of the two parties had seen the other the odds of this terrible accident are that it probably would not have occurred. The woman driving certainly didn't want to hit the pedestrian and it pretty damned likely the pedestrian didn't want to die, either. In fact she certainly didn't even want her dog killed, either. FWIW her Sheltie was killed, also.

We teach drivers to drive like their lives depend on it yet we tend to ignore the responsibilities that pedestrians have to take care of themselves. 

As of now I don't have anywhere near enough to act as a mock admiralty court juror and assign percentages of the responsibility I can say with certainty that both parties carry at least some burden of responsibility for this accident. It's pretty clear to me that both parties should have been paying more attention to their surroundings.

As for the aftermath, we have one dead woman, one dead animal and one living woman who has had her life changed forever and has to live with this.  

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

Of course this well never end. A couple of days ago someone mentioned to me about someone that walks from his condo to the nearby supermarket in dark clothing. He walks with his back to traffic on the way to and faces traffic on the way home carrying his groceries. He's also reportedly hearing impaired.

He sounds like another Darwin candidate to me and if he does get hit by a car I will not be surprised. Not even a little bit.

 

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One thing I hope DOGE goes through like a dose of salts

are a lot of government subsidies.

For some reason or another, the wool subsidy made a certain amount of sense. It was there in case of war because wool was used for warm uniforms by the military for cold weather uniforms.

Back in the early 70s when I was a soldier I was issued wool pants and wool shirts in my TA-50. They did the job well enough on winter field problems.

I was also issued wool GI blankets and they were pretty good...for the times.  

Had the Slobovians bombed Oyster Bay in a fiendish sneak attack the demand for uniform wool would have been damned high. Synthetics for outdoor clothing was still in its infancy back then.

By the mid 80s synthetics were beginning to take off. By 1990 wool uniforms were a thing of the past. The subsidy should have been lifted by 1990. In this day and age wool for military use was history.

Still, it continued.

Here's a list of the Heritage Foundation's top ten obsolete government programs that ought to be done away with.

https://www.heritage.org/budget-and-spending/commentary/top-10-obsolete-government-programs  link will open in a new window.

Truth is although it will cost jobs the jobs that will be eliminated are jobs we pay people to do little or nothing.

There WAS a time when people would take a government job at somewhat less pay than their non government counterpart because of government benefits and retirement. These were people playing the long game, but that's changed. They more often than not do better than their non government counterparts.

Nobody likes seeing people lose their jobs but the fact is there's really not much use to what many government employees are doing.

When Joe Biden clouted the coal miners people asked what the coal miners were going to do and his answer was learn to code.

While a few wags thought that would be an appropriate answer to those that lose their jobs, I'd like to be a little bigger than that. Most government employees have pretty good educations and can probably be absorbed into the civilian market a lot easier than they think.

Of course, in the case of the real whiners we can tell them that they'll be plenty of jobs open after we deport the illegals.

 

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Snow sucks

We got hit with a few inches and although I hate snow this wasn't too bad because it was light powder and the instant it stopped I cleared the paths and cleaned off the pickup with the leaf blower. No shovel needed.

I managed to do the whole job in topsiders. No boots needed.

Not too bad.

Update: It started snowing again and tomorrow morning it's back to Square One. 

I hate winter.

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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.

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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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