I have noticed that my posts seem to reach people in countries other than the United States.

While I am aware that the internet is international and all, it surprises me to see that I have so many foreign readers. Damned if I know why someone in Europe or Asia would be interested in what a grouchy old American sailor says.

Still, I find it interesting.

In other news when I went grub shopping I picked up a spare pint of ice cream I have plans for.

There's a young man that is about 12 and has a pair of younger sisters. I'm giving it to him with explicit instructions to tell his sisters he got it for helping me out and then sharing it with them.

I'm an oldest son and I guess I was pretty good to my two youngest sisters and tossed them a freebie every so often. It paid good dividends because over the years they have been very good to me. 

It doesn't take much for an older brother to be a hero to his kid sisters. An occasional slice of pizza, a dish of ice cream or maybe a chocolate milk or something.

That's all it takes for a guy to look like a hero to his kid sisters.

What happens later in life makes it pay dividends. Sisters remember things and later on in their marriages or careers they run into things and pass them on.

Once one of my sisters got offered a couple of tickets to the Boston Pops and guess who got to go and sit on the champagne esplanade and watch the Pops and sip champagne?

It was a good night and didn't cost me a dime.

I would imagine if I hadn't been good to my sisters years earlier I would have spent that night sitting around and doing nothing.

Being good to people pays dividends and being good to kid sisters pays bigger dividends yet.

Anyway, this afternoon I'm going to tell the young man to come over after dinner and pick up the ice cream. I'll explain things to him then. 

I was going to do that last night but I got called out to pick up another rugged laptop by a friend and reader.

Incidentally thanks to a certain reader I am back to writing with another Combat Laptop, another Itronix GoBook III. Something in the old one cratered but the hard drive was still OK. We swapped out the hard drive and I was pretty much good to go.

We had a couple quick bugs to work out but now I am good to go.

In other news my cell phone finally crapped out after several years of serious abuse. When it did I cringed because it meant coughing up another $125 or so.

Surprise! I got a smart phone for $29.88! Technology has sure dropped in price. I can now do my email, text and phone anywhere there's a cell tower in range. 

My fingers are pretty rough and it's a little hard for me to text on a touchscreen but with a stylus it's nearly just as fast as it was with my old slide out keyboard. Probably just as fast as I am not a fast text-er.

An IT guy I know said he could set my phone up so I could run a ham radio from anywhere but I think I'll pass. I am a big enough Luddite to begin with and I don't want my moldering mind addled any more than it is.

Maybe I'll write a sermon later today but I have a good day to work out back and have to get to work. I put a pretty good dent in it yesterday but got rained out.

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Click on my profile picture. 

Everyone thinks I a defending the honor of the woman behind me but I'm not. I don't have to. She has a pistol in her left hand hidden in her skirts. She is perfectly capable of taking care of herself. I've seen her pick the ace out of the ace of spades at twenty-five yards.

I am defending the cat that is at our feet. A moment after the picture was taken I slit the nose of a punk kid that tried to pull the little kitty's tail.

He won't do that again.







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