Haircuts.

For the past 15 years I have kept my hair very short. 

If I let it grow out I look like Einstein so I simply keep it clipped. 

About 15 years ago at Camp Perry one of the Marine NCOs gave me a 'Navy Reg' haircut which was my style for a couple of years until I decided it was also too much maintenance and simply went to a high and tight which was easier to maintain. 

A few years ago I went to a shave everything but the top and clip that down to about a quarter inch which looks stupid for a couple of days but grows in nicely. It works and makes sense to me and looks OK.

Truth is the difference between a good haircut and a bad haircut is about two weeks.

Back in the service I never could understand all the stupidity regarding hair. I was a GI and figured I was expected to look like one. I ran with 'presentable' as my standard and eventually was told to get a haircut which I did only I simply got myself a basic training shaved head which I sported until just before I got out.

One day my battery commander casually asked me about it. He was just curious. I simply said that hair was the stupidest thing in the world to worry about and I just wanted to shut everybody up. I had better things to do than measure hair length and argue with Top about it which many soldiers did. I told him I thought the whole thing was ridiculous and it saved me money because I could grow it more between haircuts. 

He shrugged and said it was fine by him. He said that a specific length was mandated simply because something like 'neat and well groomed' was subject to interpretation and then we're all in trouble. I agreed.

I think the whole haircut thing came to a head when some private told Top "If the army wanted my hair cut they would give it to me for free."

That was about the stupidest thing I ever heard someone say in the Army. 

I was the unit armorer and was in the supply room. There was a barber kit there that was allegedly for 'field use', it had hand clippers that looked like they were for shearing sheep. There was also a set of electric clippers elsewhere. I seriously doubt they had ever been used.

I got a call from Top and he told me to give Private Gino a haircut. 

I protested. "I'm a pretty lousy barber, Top."

"That's why I picked you." he said. "Peel him like a grape."

Private Gino walked in and asked me how long I had been cutting hair. "First time," I replied. "I'm just going to shear you like a sheep because that's all I know how to do. Don't worry. It'll probably grow back in in OK."

Private Gino turned around and ran to the barber shop. 

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

I just got reminded of a small incident that happened to me in the Army.

I was probably still an E-2 and was coming out of the chow line and an officer stopped me and took my tray and told me to get myself another one. For a second I was WTF? 

The lieutenant said to me "I want a typical meal to eat. I'm OOD and am checking out the mess hall."

"Fair enough, Sir. It's actually in my best interest. For a half second I thought you were too lazy to go through the chow line but figured there was probably a pretty good reason."

I just went to the head of the line and filled up another tray for myself.

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

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I just saw a video of someone stealing shoes

from Muslims as they prayed. He was stealing them in pairs which is the badge of a rank amateur.

If you are doing that the best way is to steal only one shoe from each pair and really piss them off. It's far more maddening to find you have only one shoe as opposed to having none at all. Add insult to injury!

If you are going to do something like that at least do it right. It's far more entertaining watching 20 people with one shoe than 10 people with no shoes.

Besides you can piss off twice as many people per armload as you carry them off.

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

Oh yeah, the best way to get rid stolen shoes is to wait until you go on a long road trip and every couple of hours throw one into the breakdown lane.

Nothing gets people wondering more than seeing one shoe in the breakdown lane. They stay alert and keep their eyes open looking for the other one to show up.

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Why?

should I get new truck?

I really don't want one and the one I have is comfortable enough. I like it and it does everything I want it to. It's as comfortable as the well worn Topsiders on my feet. It is what it is.

Look at me and figure out who I am. I am an old guy living out my life with things I have grown comfortable with. Look at my vehicles. I own a 2009 Tacoma, basic non extended pickup and a 1991 Mazda Miata.

Both of these fit me to a T.

Old School.

What is interesting to note is the local car lot has a 2011 low mileage duplicate of my pickup for $15K and in the back of my head I would actually consider paying for it if the one I have $hits the bed.

I like simple machinery and over the past ump-teen years have seen only two new car features that interest me, heads up GPS and backup cameras. I put an aftermarket backup camera in my 2009 ride.

Anyway, the power steering went on me and I have to get it fixed. 

Years ago when I first got the damned thing someone asked me about why I didn't get all the cool features, the bright, shiny objects. 

"Because if you don't have them they can't break and have to be fixed," I replied.

He was kind of stunned for a few seconds and admitted "There's something to be said for that."

I suppose if the truck came with manual steering I would not be getting it fixed. A Tacoma is a lightweight truck and really doesn't need power steering. It's just one of those things carmakers have sold for so long that most people would not know what to do without it.

What do you do without it?

You simply drive it the same way you do with power steering. The manual steering box ratios are a little different which tends to compensate. 

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Trump vs The Pope.

Don't get me started.

The Pope fired the opening salvo and Trump returned fire.

Tango Sierra. Fair enough. Trump defended himself.

I am of the ilk that believes that when a church enters the political fray they should lose their tax-exempt status. See how he likes that one!

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I see where the ballroom is on hold again because of a federal judge.

What they ought to do to those judges that keep obstructing the President is have them put some skin in the game.

It the case against the president stands the  test of SCOTUS then it stands. Fair enough.

OTOH if the case is overturned by higher authority the losing judge should be busted to Justice of the Peace and assigned to someplace like Mayberry County where he spends the rest of his career dealing with small town drunks, missing pets, noise complaints and intervening in squabbles between Karens..

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Thank you, God

For sending me three miserable pain in the a$$ orange cats in my life.

And thank you Jesus for dying for my sins even though I haven't finished committing them. I'll try to throttle back.

Amen.

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I got my ass chewed out years ago.

Ever seen a Hollywood Joe Swashbuckler pull a hand grenade pin with his teeth ala Sergeant Rock?

If he did that in real life he would most likely yank a couple of his teeth out and be standing there with grenade with the pin still in it.

A grenade pin is nothing more than a cotter pin with a ring in it. The ends of the pin are bent over to keep the pin from falling out and causing pain and suffering to the owner.

Before you even get ready to pull the pin one should flatten out the bent over ends of the cotter pin to make it pullable.

Grenades are an accident prone tricky weapon and there are 1,000,001 different ways they can endanger the user. They're dangerous and are only used in training under very supervised situations. 

Anyway, I was a safety NCO a couple of times at the grenade range. I posted the other incident here years ago. This time actually turned out to little more than a nothingburger except it started a pretty good rumor about me.

The safety NCOs went first. We went through the motions and chucked out grenades as a refresher familiarization on how the process worked.

When it was my turn I went by the book, threw my grenade, ducked and too the pin off off my finger, put the ring in my teeth and after the grenade went off I stood up.

The guy, Sgt Brinholder, next to me spotted it and asked me how many teeth I had lost and looked again. He naturally assumed I had pulled the pin with my teeth. I had not lost any, of course and he cringed.

I knew he'd tell someone I had pulled the pin with my teeth and it would go through the battery like a dose of salts. I felt pretty good knowing the rumor would put me in the badass/out of my mind category.

Later on Lieutenant Phil approached me. Lieutenant Phil was a pretty good junior officer and I respected him because he paid attention.

He said he has been watching things through binoculars and asked me "What's with this badness of making it look like you pulled the pin with your teeth? It's a bad example. I saw you pull it with your finger but you just had to show Sergeant Brinholder you had pulled the pin with your teeth like John Wayne. It sets a bad example because Brinholder will say something and it will go through the entire battery!"

I tried to squirm out of it by asking him if he thought everyone else was stupid enough to follow my example.

"Yes I do! You know damned well there are privates out there that will try that! How about Private Globie?"

"Hmm... you got a point there, Sir." 

"Don't worry," said the Lieutenant. "I'll just let the rumor run its course. The guys always figure it out after a while. Still, stop doing $hil like that."

"Yes, Sir."

 

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If you are an Iranian American

then your work is cut out for you. 

If you are a citizen and a registered voter it's time to help keep the Republicans in charge of Congress. Vote Republican.

If the Democrats take the house Trump is probably going to be impeached. The Democrats will cease any action against Iran and the people there will be screwed.

If you are not a citizen then there is something you can do and that's to put the shoe leather to the pavement and go door to door and see if you can gather votes supporting Republican candidates. No law against that.

If you are an Iranian-American citizen and a voter you, too can slap the shoe leather down and gather votes.

If you are an American citizen registered to vote as a Democrat you can switch parties and send a message that you support our military efforts in Iran.

If your congress critter is a Democrat you can call his office and tell him to support the President. Make it clear that if they don't you will make a concerted effort to vote them out.

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A part of Iran's laundry list. Why we fight.

John Roberts FOX News compiles an impressive list of Iran’s reign of terror over the years. This can all be verified. This is why it matters.

Here’s a short list (1/2)

•November 1979: Iranian students, backed by the regime, seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran — taking 66 Americans hostage in a 444-day standoff .

•April 1983: The Islamic Jihad, an Iran-backed terrorist group, carried out a suicide car bombing at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, killing 17 Americans.

•October 1983: Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorists killed 241 U.S. military personnel — including 220 U.S. Marines and 21 other service personnel — in a truck bombing at a Marine compound in Beirut.

•March 1984: Iran-backed Islamic Jihad terrorists kidnapped CIA station chief William Buckley on his way to work in Beirut, ultimately killing him the following year.

•September 1984: Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorists killed 23 innocent people — including two American service members — in a car bomb attack at the U.S. Embassy annex in Beirut.

•December 1984: Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorists hijacked Kuwait Airways Flight 221 en route to Pakistan, diverting it to Tehran — where they brutally tortured and killed two American officials.

•June 1985: Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorists hijacked TWA Flight 847 on its way from Athens to Rome, torturing a U.S. Navy diver before shooting him point blank in the head and tossing his body onto the Beirut airport tarmac.

•July 1989: Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorists killed U.S. Marine Col. William Higgins after kidnapping him the previous year while serving with a United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon.

•April 1995: Iran-backed Islamic Jihad terrorists killed eight people — including one American citizen — in a car bomb attack in the Gaza Strip.

•August 1995: An Iran-backed Hamas suicide bomber blew up a bus in Jerusalem, killing an American and three other passengers, and wounding more than 100 others.

•February 1996: An Iran-backed Hamas suicide bomber blew up another bus in Jerusalem, killing three Americans and wounding three other Americans.

•March 1996: A suicide bomber linked to the Iran-backed Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist groups killed 20 people — including two Americans — in a suicide bombing at a Tel Aviv shopping center.

•May 1996: Iran-backed terrorists killed an American-Israeli dual citizen and wounded another American citizen in the West Bank.

•June 1996: Iran-backed Hezbollah Al-Hijaz terrorists killed 19 U.S. Airmen and wounded nearly 500 others in a truck bombing at a U.S. Air Force housing complex in Saudi Arabia.

•September 1997: Iran-backed Hamas suicide bombers blew themselves up at a shopping mall in Jerusalem, killing an American-Israeli dual citizen and wounding seven other American citizens.

•August 1998: Al-Qaeda suicide bombers, facilitated by Iran-backed Hezbollah, simultaneously bombed U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 224 people — including a dozen American citizens.

•August 2001: An Iran-backed Hamas terrorist blew up a Jerusalem pizzeria, killing three Americans.

•January 2002: An Iran-backed al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade terrorist killed an American-Israeli dual citizen in the West Bank.

•July 2002: An Iran-backed Hamas terrorist killed five Americans in a bombing at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

•June 2003: An Iran-backed Hamas suicide bomber killed 17 people — including an American citizen — on a bus in Jerusalem.

•October 2003: Iran-backed Popular Resistance Committees terrorists killed three U.S. diplomatic personnel in a bombing in Gaza.

•Between 2003 and 2011: Iran-backed militias killed at least 603 U.S. troops in Iraq — “roughly one in every six American combat fatalities in Iraq.”

•August 2003: An Iran-backed Hamas terrorist blew up a bus in Jerusalem, killing five Americans and wounding one other American.

•August 2006: Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorists killed American citizen and Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldier Michael Levin during the Second Lebanon War — the only American to die in the conflict.

(2/2)

•January 2007: A dozen men affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force killed five U.S. soldiers and wounded three others in Karbala, Iraq, after disguising themselves as U.S. soldiers and entering the Provincial Joint Coordination Center.

•March 2007: Former FBI Agent Robert Levinson disappeared in Iran, likely dying in an Iranian prison.

•July 2014: Iran-backed Hamas terrorists killed two American citizens serving in the IDF.

•October 2015: Iran-backed Hamas terrorists killed an American citizen and his wife in a drive-by shooting in the West Bank.

•December 2019: Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollah terrorists killed an American civilian contractor and wounded several U.S. service members in a rocket attack at K1 Air Base in Kirkuk, Iraq.

•January 2020: 109 U.S. troops suffered traumatic brain injuries in an Iranian ballistic missile attack on the Ain al-Asad airbase in Iraq.

•September 2020: U.S. intelligence indicated the Iranian regime was considering a plot to assassinate the U.S. Ambassador to South Africa.

•February 2021: An Iran-backed militia fired a rocket at coalition forces in Erbil, Iraq, wounding a U.S. service member and four U.S. civilian contractors.

•July 2021: Iranian-backed militias wounded two U.S. service members in a series of rocket and drone attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria.

•September 2022: An Iranian rocket attack killed an American citizen in Iraqi Kurdistan.

•November 2022: An IRGC captain orchestrated the killing of an American citizen in Baghdad.

•March 2023: An Iranian drone attack killed an American contractor and wounded five U.S. service members and another contractor in a strike on a coalition base in Syria.

•October 2023: Iran-backed Hamas terrorists killed 46 Americans and kidnapped at least 12 Americans in the October 7th massacre.

•December 2023: Iran-backed militias wounded three U.S. service members in an attack on Erbil Air Base in Iraq.

•January 2024: Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollah terrorists killed three U.S. service members and wounded more than 40 other service members in a drone attack against the Tower 22 military base in Jordan.

•Between October 2023 and November 2024: Iran and its proxies conducted more than 180 attacks against U.S. forces in the Middle East, wounding more than 180 U.S. service members and killing three service members.

•November 2024: An Iranian national and IRGC asset was charged for plotting to assassinate President Trump.

•June 2025: Iran-backed militias attacked at least three U.S. bases in Syria and two U.S. bases in Iraq.

520 killed, countless wounded and this doesn't include the 2977 killed on 9/11 which Iran helped fund.

This war has been LONG overdue.

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Piccolo does a good deed

I was working construction south of Seattle and my partner and I had just finished a siding contract, had our pay in out pocket and were getting ready to leave for Alaska. We dropped into a tavern for a late lunch. We were both pretty keyed up. We were headed north in my old pickup.

We walked in and I said the the bartender as we headed to a table "I'm the Pro from Dover and this here's the Ghost of Smoky Joe. He wants a Lite beer and a ham and cheese sandwich and I want a roast beef sandwich and a Heineken." I turned to the waitress nearby and said, "And I want you to know that you have about a half an hour to get your stuff packed it you want to come to Kodiak, Alaska with us."

She approached me and asked me, "Are you for real?"

I saw a brief look of desperation in here eyes and turned to my partner, "Whaddya say?"

"I don't care." he said.

What happened is we bolted lunch and took her home which was nearby. She was in and out of that house MOST riki-tik with a sleeping bag and a small backpack, threw her stuff into the bed of the pickup and hopped into the cab.

She rode with us up the Alaska Highway all the way to Kodiak. Upon arrival she was on her own.  

Later she married a Native, had a couple of kids and we lost track of her. I think she moved to either Old Harbor, Port Lions or Ouzinkie.

I always think that it was one of the few halfway decent things I have done that truly made a difference in someone's life by giving them a second chance at life.

It cost me nothing.

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