More memories. keeping clean on the road.

One of the things about life traveling is that it wasn't all that hard to keep fairly clean but you did have to work on it.

Over the years I have washed a lot of clothes in creeks, rivers, ponds, waterfalls, streams and even janitor room sinks although laundromats worked well if I could afford them. (I generally could.)

Water was generally easy to come by even in cities or towns because I always carried a Sillcock key. I just had to look up what they are officially called because I always called mine a water key. They operated operated hose bibs on commercial buildings and enabled me to fill canteens, fill leaky radiators and wash up if I needed to.

The difference between being a bum and a gentleman of the road is being able to keep reasonably clean and presentable.

I just noticed the old Sillcock key on a shelf and it triggered memories of my wandering years.  

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Please do not put ow ls on the toilets.

This goes way back to the Mobil refinery on the Delaware River. I don't know what's there today. Wait a minute. I Googled it. It's now the Paulsboro refinery.

Anyway in the employees men's room management forgot to make sure the toilet paper was replaced regularly and when it ran out the guys did what they had to do and used paper towels. This caused blocked toilets.

Instead of making sure there was ample TP they hung up a sign that said "Please do not put towels in the toilet". That was a bigger insult so when they ran out of TP they did what they had to do.

One wag picked off some of the letters so the sign read 'please do not put ow ls in the toilet."

The sign was replaced, vandalized again, replaced and vandalized.

When we went in there to load the dockman noticed a plastic owl with glow in the dark eyes and asked if he could borrow it. We had put it there to reduce the number of bird droppings on the fuel tank. it worked pretty good at reducing it.

We did him one better. We loaned him a new one we kept as a spare and told him to return it because they were hard to come by.

A couple months later he returned it and told us what had happened.

Someone stuffed the owl into a toilet and then unscrewed several light bulbs and left the restroom dark and dingy. Some supervisor walked in and saw the glowing eyes of the owl looking at him and (this being the 27th telling of the tale which grows with each retelling) $hit himself. Most likely he panicked, left and went elsewhere.

Anyway management finally asked what was going on and immediately fixed the problem.

What makes me wonder is why the problem existed in the first place. Those plant employees are not animals. They are human beings and as such deserve to be treated like human beings. 

When someone casually mentioned that they were running low on TP someone should have fixed things instantly.

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Obama screwed up with his library.

It's an eyesore and there are reportedly unpaid contractors. 

He should have hired Donald Trump to build it. 

Trump would have built it on time and on budget.

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There are about 154 female Rangers as of about a year ago.

which is 100% legitimate because while the DoD relaxed the standards for women to be in Combat Arms, Ranger school didn't relax a damned thing.

Somewhere out there are 154+ badass women the met the standards, passed the course and were awarded the tab. For the record one of them is an ICU pediatric nurse which I find to be too cool.

I was listening to someone gripe because Pete now requires EVERYONE in combat arms to meet the same requirements that her male counterparts do.

No combat arms unit needs anyone of either sex that can't pitch in and carry their own weight.

Grunts already have too much crap to lug around as it is much less have to carry some of someone else's.

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One time I heard a TV reporter claim that blacks were getting a raw deal because they were not getting 'prestigious' combat arms assignments and the promotions that went along with it.

I only heard that once because I'm sure it was pointed out .to her that people get to choose their jobs before they enlist and can also reenlist to change their career field. That's what probably shut her up.

Everyone gets the same opportunity. Nobody's special.

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I was wondering about what ever became of the nurse that graduated from Ranger School.

Captain Molly Murphy is now an ICU pediatric nurse at Walter Reed. 

When the fist women Rangers were going through the pipeline I asked a (then) recently retired Ranger School instructor if they had dumbed down the course to let women graduate. He told me he had wondered the same thing and made a couple of calls to his friends that were still in.

Nope. She passed the course fair and square. She passed every single training day.

It's a 62 day course on paper but the last day is administrative. They give orders and other administrative things. A lot of graduates spend that day in the hospital getting medical treatment. A lot of candidates that have pushed on through injuries and illness turn themselves in that day.  It is not considered a training day and doesn't effect graduation.

Molly checked herself in along with others to get patched up and the naysayers tried to say she didn't finish the course. She had and had done well in it.

A while ago Pete Hegseth raised the standards for Combat Arms MOS category. What he did was ordered gender neutral PT tests, using the male standard. That means if a woman wants to become a grunt she has to pass the new PT tests. 

I like the idea because it raises the standard. I'm sick and tired of double standards, period. It's unfair to those that make it to the top and sounds like a participation trophy.

Anyway some chickee-poo decided that the woman that graduated Ranger School was proof that women belong in Combat Arms.

Apples and oranges. SOME women belong in Combat Arms. Namely the women that qualify and pass the same test required by men.

Grunts pack enough $hit as it is. They don't need to be forced to carry someone else's that doesn't belong there in the first place.

I'm with Pete on this one. 

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It would be interesting to find out how much money it takes to put $10 worth of chow into a poor person's belly.

From 5 different levels.

Federal

State

County

City/town

Neighborhood

It would probably look something like this:

Federal: $1,000,000

State:     $100,000

County  $10,000

City       $1000

Local*    $15

*Local means disbursing funds to churches and local not for profit and volunteer organizations, that sort of thing. 

Of course my figures were pulled out of a hat but you get the general idea.

Trump had mentioned throwing some sort of welfare thing back to the states and the fact is that I agree with throwing a lot of shit back to the states. In fact the state ought to push it down even further.

Currently the tax structure is an inverted pyramid . The taxes take the bulk of the tax money. The pyramid should be turned over and the bulk of tax money should be spent further down the line.

From a federal level you have to put a guy in charge and he has to hire a few assistants who have to hire their assistants who have to hire someone from all 50 of the states who have to hire their assistants who have to hire someone from every county in the state and you have now spent millions and the people you are trying to feed haven't gotten a single bite of food yet.

On the other hand if you just give a few bucks to a non-profit or  church volunteers they can generally get $10 worth of chow in somebody's belly for about $15 because they will probably need about $5 for gas to pick the food up and deliver it..

About 30 years ago I was part of a church that had volunteered to supply 2 meals a month to a homeless shelter and a woman that did a lot of the cooking said they could put out a pretty good meal for about a buck a plate. Depending on donations it was often less.

If one bothers to look around there are probably a lot of federal programs that should be pushed back to the states and pushed downhill.

One other thing. Locals have local knowledge and they can often spot a faker. If some guy is collecting disability and is seen roofing his house that's prima facia evidence that he can work. Locals can recognize a faker. Outsiders would not know the faker from Adam.

Of course this post isn't very accurate but you get the general idea.

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I wonder how much weight I would have to lose to get into the Space Force?

It seems that a lot of people just like to jump to conclusions.

I asked someone this a while ago and they told me I was too old to join the Space Force. When they answered by asking me why I want to join the Space Force I simply said "Never mind" because I knew exactly where the conversation was headed. I would get a long winded explanation about how I was too old and yada yada yada. I just wanted to know the answer to a simple question. When I came home I Googled it. (The answer is a bunch.)

Fact is it was simple curiosity. I was looking some sort of a benchmark. It would be interesting to know I met the height/weight requirements at the ripe old age of 75.

I think the worst one was the time someone close to me was going shopping and I asked her to pick up a can of Gold Bond Medicated foot powder.

"WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOUR FEET?" she cried out.

"Nothing," I replied. "I use Gold Bond Medicated foot powder to take care of them and keep them in perfect condition."

I headed that one off fast.

Sometimes I'm just better off doing things myself.

As I was typing the above someone called and asked to use my compressor to check their tire pressures. I like to help so I laid out the hose and turned on the compressor. 

I left explicit instructions. When you are through with it just leave it in the driveway. Do NOT try to put it away. I will.

Usually I expect things returned the way they were when they borrowed it but there are exceptions. Coiling the air hose is one of them because most people don't know how and leave it tangled up try as they may. 

It's far easier for me to coil the hose because I know how I like it so it is set up easy to uncoil.

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A couple of 54 second eggs this morning.

Fifty four second eggs?!

Over the years I have heard of microwaving eggs (with differing results) but never really looked into it.

One day I dug into it and found a couple of interesting reports. Off to Amazon for a set of egg cups and followed the recipe for one minute eggs. I toyed with it for a while and found that 54 seconds is just about right. 

Not bad, just about as good as my poached eggs and a lot easier to clean up after.

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I just told the guy across the street to move the kid's toys and stuff onto the concrete walkway so I can mow the front part of his lawn.

It doesn't look too bad but it could use it and I can use the exercise.

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There is a package due in today and I have no idea what it is. I checked everything I have ordered over the past couple of months and everything has been delivered.

We shall see what we shall see.

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