Zelensky tried to push around the POTUS and got thrown out on his ass.
Afterwards the WH staff ate his lunch.
Hopefully some Marine PFC got some of it.
Friday, February 28, 2025
I see where the WH staff got a free lunch.
I do not know why but I have had a change since I held that baby the other day.
It seems something has come over me and things in life appear to be a lot clearer. There's a sense of clarity that has returned to me since I held that baby the other day. It did something to my spirit.
It is a damned good feeling that goes into my very soul.
Thursday, February 27, 2025
What's in it for us?
I'm seeing a minerals deal, not yet confirmed with Ukraine and it sounds pretty good to me. They need aid and from what I have gathered Trump is willing to send aid in return for certain mineral rights in Ukraine.
It's about time we stopped throwing money all throughout the planet and not getting anything in return. Trump makes good sense here and I can certainly go along with the plan if it materializes.
We have given out too damned much money over the years and gotten nothing in return. We even have given vast amounts of money to places that hate us which is poor financial control because if we don't give them any money they'll still hate us for free.
Before we give any money to anyone the first thing we should ask ourselves is what's in it for us?
Tuesday, February 25, 2025
Yesterday's trip to the mall
was rather interesting. It was rather upscale. I decided to start 'shoplifting prices' which is a colorful way of saying check a few prices to see what kind of a mall it had morphed into.
A pair of 501 Levis were marked $98 and I can get them for half that delivered to my door on Amazon. At a Sunglasses Hut I saw $300+ Ray Bans. The total mind blower is when I saw the Burberry shop and ambled in. I was curious what an Old School trench coat would cost me. A few decades ago I had one I had picked up somewhere along the line secondhand.
An Old School trench coat is the preferred overgarment of spies, secret agents and private detectives and must be worn at all times with a fairly wide brimmed fedora.
Anyway, I have the fedora but I guess my career as a private eye isn't going to launch because they wanted about $2250 for the damned thing! WTF?!
I just searched on line and that actually is about what they are running. (I also noticed I can get an almost identical one at Banana Republic for a little over a hundred bucks.)
I stuck my head into the Swarovski store and asked if they carried optics. Nope. Just jewelry. I glanced at a few hefty prices and ambled out.
As I type this I DO recall the last time I was in the mall, I was in and out because I went directly to the perfume counter. I had just licensed as a ham and got lucky having had a brief chat with a guy in French Polynesia. I wanted that QSL card and on his QRZ page he advised against mailing for a card because there was a lot of mail theft.
In a hold my beer moment I grabbed my card, a pink envelope, a lavender ball point and headed straight to the Macy's perfume counter and explained what I wanted to the old prune behind the counter. She rolled her eyes and didn't know what to say but the Gods were with me that day. The woman in her late 40s had overheard my request, laughed and came over and fixed me up. She addressed the envelope for me in a very girly manner, even dotting the Is with little tiny hearts, slapped a big lipstick kiss on it and asked me if I wanted it sprayed in Chanel #5.
"You don't have to," I replied. "Just use the cheap stuff that strippers use."
"OK. We sell gallons of this stuff," she replied.
She soaked the letter in cheap perfume and I dropped it in the mail on the way home. About a month later my card arrived with a note telling he he made sure his wife opened it when it arrived.
Needless to say, Abercrombie and Fitch and Banana Republic were there. Both used to sell safari and travel clothes but went upbeat decades ago. You used to be able to walk into either of those places and walk out looking like you were going to go shoot an elephant somewhere.
The big question I had to ask is where the money comes from. All of those places turn a profit or they would not be there.
Yes, there is a Jos A Banks there, which isn't high end and Banana Republic is somewhat reasonable in the mall but the high end places confuse me.
For the most part, this general area is pretty working class with the usual fairly modest homes and a few year old car in the driveway. This here ain't Beverly Hills with swimming pools and movie stars and Rodeo Drive nearby. This is Ford, Chevy Subaru and Toyota country. The average housewife certainly isn't a supermodel, nor is there a lot of gardeners, pool boys and maids in the households.
I just can't seem to figure out where the money comes from to support the high end stores.
.
Monday, February 24, 2025
What an exceptional day!
I have felt caged an and decided to go for a walk in the mall which I don't thing I have been in for at least 10 years. It wasn't crowed and was actually rather nice checking things out. It's been kept up and maintained.
A young mother with a two week old son was leaving one of the stores and having kind of a hard time with a package and the new infant. I went over and offered to help. She looked at me carefully and explained she was going over to the bench to put her newly purchased infant carrier together. She looked to be about 22 years old.
Holding a 2 week old infant is a joy for me. The infant is entering the world that I am soon leaving. Holding the child was a very, very spiritual moment for me. Of course no spiritual moment lasts very long.
I was spotted by a woman I barely knew and had not seen in years which was a food deal as far as I'm concerned. She walked up to me and asked me how my wife was doing. I decided to take one helluva chance.
"She threw me out a few years ago," I said. "As you can see, I've remarried."
The infant's mother never looked up. She continued setting up the carrier. The woman's head exploded and she mumbled something and walked off.
That's when the mother looked up at me with mirth and merriment in her eyes. She snickered and said, "Good one!"
I went back to enjoying the two week old, the mother finished with the baby carrier, loaded up her precious cargo and said to me, "I can't wait to tell my husband about this. Thank you for your help."
I'm fairly certain this will get back to my wife who will be glad I helped a woman with an infant but I'll probably catch hell for claiming fatherhood of the cherub.
I'll simply explain that it's in the manual, The Suburban Dwellers Guide, 2023 Edition, Government Printing Office (Which Trump had told DOGE not to close) on Chapter 8, Duties of old men. Section H Targets of opportunity are to be engaged so long as no physical risk is present.....Subsection 6 Specifically says that elderly gossips are to be given something to gossip about, preferably a story of a scandalous nature.
I suppose I'll still get my ass chewed anyway, but being able to hold a two week old infant is worth it.
This was an exceptional day.
A young mother with a two week old son was leaving one of the stores and having kind of a hard time with a package and the new infant. I went over and offered to help. She looked at me carefully and explained she was going over to the bench to put her newly purchased infant carrier together. She looked to be about 22 years old.
Holding a 2 week old infant is a joy for me. The infant is entering the world that I am soon leaving. Holding the child was a very, very spiritual moment for me. Of course no spiritual moment lasts very long.
I was spotted by a woman I barely knew and had not seen in years which was a food deal as far as I'm concerned. She walked up to me and asked me how my wife was doing. I decided to take one helluva chance.
"She threw me out a few years ago," I said. "As you can see, I've remarried."
The infant's mother never looked up. She continued setting up the carrier. The woman's head exploded and she mumbled something and walked off.
That's when the mother looked up at me with mirth and merriment in her eyes. She snickered and said, "Good one!"
I went back to enjoying the two week old, the mother finished with the baby carrier, loaded up her precious cargo and said to me, "I can't wait to tell my husband about this. Thank you for your help."
I'm fairly certain this will get back to my wife who will be glad I helped a woman with an infant but I'll probably catch hell for claiming fatherhood of the cherub.
I'll simply explain that it's in the manual, The Suburban Dwellers Guide, 2023 Edition, Government Printing Office (Which Trump had told DOGE not to close) on Chapter 8, Duties of old men. Section H Targets of opportunity are to be engaged so long as no physical risk is present.....Subsection 6 Specifically says that elderly gossips are to be given something to gossip about, preferably a story of a scandalous nature.
I suppose I'll still get my ass chewed anyway, but being able to hold a two week old infant is worth it.
This was an exceptional day.
What were they thinking?
A while ago some DX team decided to take a DXpedition to Somalia which I immediately wondered it it was a good idea and I ran a quick search to see what the State department had to say about visiting that hellhole.
Make sure you have a last will and testament filed before you leave.
Well, THAT says something right there. Maybe it's not a nice place to visit.
I have certainly done more than my fair share of crazy things but I am not not completely stupid.
The place has an average sub room temperature IQ of 67.67.
The place is completely beyond repair and no amount of time nor money can do a bit of good there. None.
It's one of the last places on earth where piracy is a part of its income.
Yet a group of hams tried to show up with a bunch of expensive, bright shiny objects (radios) and set up a working radio station there.
What could possibly go wrong?
While they did manage to get home safely the whole thing was a bust.
Why am I not surprised?
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I just ordered a western cut shirt to replace the other one that got accidentally destroyed. Every American should own at least one western outfit.
My wife asked me why and I said, "Suppose I have to go to Europe?"
Sunday, February 23, 2025
Merit.
I was glad to see DEI disappear because I am not a racist.
A free people are not equal and an equal people are not free.
I have stated time and again that we should all be held to the same standards of excellence.
If the fire department has a requirement that one is able to drag a 250 pound whatever for 200 feet then that means everybody. If some 87 pound chick can do it she has met one of the requirements to be a fireman. It doesn't matter if she is a gay, black, Jew or a gay white freckle faced redhead. 250 pounds, 200 feet and that means for anyone that wants to be a fireman.
I'm sick and tired of DEI. It is a major insult to all parties. It's a carryover from Rudyard Kipling's poem, stating that the 'civilized' countries had a duty to colonize and civilize it's peoples.
Meaning, of course teach them to drink Coca Cola etc. The assumption being that our poor little brown brothers were incapable of taking car of themselves. (Needless to say, most white men had no clue of how to take care of themselves in the bush. The locals did as they had been doing so since time began.)
Still, today in the States DEI has no merit whatsoever.
One thing it does do is to hurt minorities that went the whole mile and became excellent in their field. People look at a person like that somewhat dubiously because they are afraid he's a less than stellar DEI hire.
A nurse friend of mine has reported having had more than one black insist on a white doctor. Why? Because they suspect they are being handed off to a DEI hire if the doctor is black.
Saturday, February 22, 2025
Today is going to be a good day.
Like a lot of us I am a creature of habit in some things.
I wake up, shower and throw yesterday's underwear in the hamper.
Daily. Without thought.
As a result I play hell getting rid of s pair of briefs when they get really ratty. Last June before a trip I went through my briefs and took the rattiest 5 skids with me and simply pitched them after each shower.
Anyway the pair I had on when I woke up this morning was really ratty so something caught me as I dropped my drawers to step into the shower. Instead of automatically throwing them into the hamper* I dropped them into the waste basket.
That was a pretty good start.
*The underwear hamper is a cardboard box on its side in the living room I toss yesterdays underwear into because for some reason the cat like to sleep on my used underwear. The house is organized for the convenience of the cat.
Friday, February 21, 2025
Had to double check this one
If it's too good to be true it generally is.
I heard that some liberal court threw out 84 of Biden's last minute pardons. Fake news, dammit!
========================================
I have heard but am unable to confirm 100% that the crew on the Delta flight that flipped up in Canada had an all female aircrew.
I'm also aware that Delta is still running a DEI business.
I am certainly not going to even hazard to venture a guess over the competency of the crew. I have no idea but you can bet that if it is an all woman aircrew that Delta's DEI policy is going to have a lot of people question it. As of a few seconds ago a quick Google search says Delta is holding to their DEI policy. Same for United.
As of now Delta and United are on my no fly list because of the policy. When they decide to return to a meritocracy I'll start flying on them.
There is no excuse for not running something like an airline on anything BUT a meritocracy. I don't want to get killed over some stupid social experiment.
Needless to say, the airline officials say they hire on merit which is likely bull$hit because you can't have both.
Until recently I have not looked twice at a minority or female pilot or co-pilot because I simply figured that they had passed the same qualifications as everyone else. It's sad because now I tend to question things which I never used to.
What's interesting is the conversation I had with a female pilot. I asked her where she learned to fly. Was she military?
She gave me a proud smile and replied, "I learned the hard way."
She'd given lessons and flew the bush. I glanced at her hands and saw it was true. I was damned glad to have that skinny woman haul me across this great nation of ours.
Nowadays?
I question things a lot more because of DEI.
However I will not comment either way over the competency of the all female aircrew on that Delta flight. I WILL quietly wonder if DEI had anything to do with it.
Thursday, February 20, 2025
Kash is in.
Which means Adam Schiff is $hitting little green apples.
And that is a good thing.
Of all of the arrogant faces I have seen in my life I have never seen one so deserving of having a pie thrown in his face. Where is Moe Howard now that wee need him.
=====================================
On a more serious note here, while I am all for the deportment of illegal immigrants, I have never forgotten that they are human beings.
I know why they came here and what they were looking for. For the most part, they are nothing more than people that came here to try and better themselves. My argument is they did it the wrong way.
Had they entered legally I would support them.
They didn't and therefore entered without a proper vetting and health check. They broke the rules and they should be deported.
I read on another website where a couple of bullies tormented an 11 year old illegal immigrant girl and as a result she committed suicide.
Had they quietly called ICE I would have no problem but they took it upon themselves to torment her.
People have no business mistreating illegals. They should be reported but there is no excuse whatsoever to mistreat them.
We have enough cruelty in the world.
Whoops!
Missed a day.
Distracted by a doctor's appointment.
Tuesday, February 18, 2025
The DOGE story.
The prep work was amazing and the speed of the auditing totally unbelievable and increasing an an astonishing rate.
https://x.com/envisionalt7/status/1891316861133807774
Monday, February 17, 2025
A mental health day off line.
Was relaxing once in a while.
It's OK to not knowing what's going on once in a while.
After all, half the country doesn't.
Sunday, February 16, 2025
A deal for Bernie Sanders.
One day back in Massachusetts I was walking along Humarock beach after a pretty good storm and absently kicked a pile of seaweed. Something was in it so I reached down and dug whatever it was out of the pile. It was a lamp. I looked it over carefully and saw it was inscribed with 'Santa Maria MCDXCII'. Wow! It was made in 1492!
Anyway, I shook the lamp and discovered there was still oil in it! I spied a dog walker and I knew the lamp was valuable. I stuffed it under my coat. After a short time the inside of my coat got rather warm so I looked inside it. The lamp was still lit!
Now, when RFKjr was getting grilled by Bernie and he was accusing Kennedy of possibly wanting to take money from Big Pharma, Kennedy threw it right back at him and pointed out to Bernie that he had accepted a pretty good amount of money from them himself.
Bernie went through the roof babbling that no CEOs had ever given him money. (Well, no $hit. The CEO tells the CFO (financial officer) to hand out the money. It's not like the CEO of a major corporation met Bernie in an alley somewhere and handed him a briefcase full of cash.
Bernie's excuse was 'The workers gave it to me'. That's kind of unlikely as I have a hard time believing that all the workers at a pharmaceutical plant passed the hat and came up with a million bucks. If anything, Bernie shook down one of the unions and claimed the money came from the workers.
Unions can't use dues for political purposes, however many of them have PACs and they sometimes try shake down their membership for donations. It happened to me a few times but I squirmed out by explaining I had no cash on me, just a credit card. This was before cell phone credit card readers.
After the third or fourth time the business agent asked me why I never had cash with me. With a nonchalant air I explained that my wife cleaned out my wallet the night before I left for work to keep me from buying whores with it. He blushed and my longtime shipmate quickly said to him I was married to a mean, mean woman and excused himself to go below where he laughed himself silly.
A nearby deckhand looked at me wide-eyed and agape and I knew that story would go through the fleet like wildfire.
Back to Bernie. My best guess is that he he says 'the workers gave him the money' that they were shaken down for it by the union. so here's what I'll offer Bernie.
If he admits he got money from what was most likely a union shakedown of the rank and file, I'll blow out my lamp.
One of my pipe dreams was to go back to being a sailboat liveaboard.
Which means the inter-coastal waterway and figuring out a route between, say New England and Florida. I'd have to find dock space in Florida between Thanksgiving and early June. I start the northward sail, say Memorial Day and gunkhole my way north.
Hurricane season begins around Memorial Day and ends about Thanksgiving. That's almost perfect because summer in Florida sucks.
Both my sisters live on the Gulf of (now currently America) coast which means I'd probably want to sail around the bottom of Florida to be near them.
It would not have been a bad retirement gig but at this late date it's probably not a good idea as my health precludes it.
==========================================
Someone keeps pointing out that we need people to pick the various crops and do agricultural work to keep the price of produce down.
That's true enough.
However I want those people out of here because they are here illegally.
I think that the first 10 million that self-deport should be automatically given a shot at getting a work visa assuming they check out and have clean records and are free of disease.
If we have to throw you out then you don't get to return.
If we throw you out and you do return then you get thrown into a tent city in Arizona desert jail for a year or two while you await re-deportation.
Strike three and you get thrown back over the wall with a trebuchet.
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
Saturday, February 15, 2025
Take Grandma out of the freezer NOW!
Thaw her out.
If she's got too much freezer burn you probably ought to have her cremated. If not I suppose you can bury her but make sure you cover the grave up with endangered flowers so it's illegal to dig her up.
Quickly report her to Social Security as just having died. Empty her bank account after Social Security evens up with things. They'll only recover what was paid to her after you reported her demise.
If you work fast you probably won't get caught up in the upcoming Social Security audit.
You should be OK.
Friday, February 14, 2025
I wish President Trump would rename the San Andreas Fault
and change it to Newsom's Fault.
That is all.
More screeching about the rich.
I hear people screech that someone's net worth has increased by a few million and that the few million should be taxed.
That few million is unrealized capital gains.
Most homeowners that have lived in their home have noticed that their home value has increased over time. The difference between what one paid for the place and what it's worth now is also an unrealized capital gain.
Like the millionaire's stock, the working stiffs house has created a capital gain.
The people that want unrealized capital gains taxed probably never thought of that one.
Over 30 years the value of my home has tripled. For this area that sounds about right.
The figure of 25% of a capital gains tax has been tossed around and that means if you bought your house and paid $100K for it and it's now appraised at $200K then you owe about $25,000.
As in sit down and write a check.
Fair is fair and if the millionaire just had an unrealized capital gain of $4 million he should cough up a million bucks.
If he has to, you have to and you better be able to sit down at the kitchen table and write a check for $25,000.
For those that say he isn't paying his fair share, he is. He's paying the same 25% you are. He's also writing one hell of a bigger check than you are.
While an oversimplification, you get the drift.
I just read where DOGE has found out that Medicare has been plundered for $2.7 TRILLION
which is about 7.5% of the national debt!
(of which my share is about $102,000)
GET SOME, DOGE!
Musk's people have also discovered Social Security is paying people over 150 years old.
Medicare/aid isn't going broke. It's being outright ROBBED.
I have advocated an audit like this for DECADES!
Thursday, February 13, 2025
Being a billionaire probably doesn't mean what a lot of people think it means
If someone told me that Elon Musk borrowed ten bucks from one of his team to buy lunch with I would not be surprised in the least.
It simply means he had no cash on him to buy a couple of hot dogs from a street vendor that didn't take plastic. $hit happens.
People scream about billionaire not paying taxes and how the loopholes favor the rich and so on and so forth. I do not know about high finance tax laws but I know about income tax. It's about income.
When people scream about how some gazillionaire didn't pay income taxes there's probably a pretty good reason. He didn't make any money that year. He's still living off of the income from the big deal he made a while back. No income, no income taxes. Remember they call it an income tax.
But, what about all the stocks and real estate he owns?
What about it? He may simply be sitting on the real estate watching it increase in value. While it is doing that it is bringing him no income. The income will happen when he sells it for a profit. If he sells it for a loss, it's a loss and as such a portion of the loss can be deducted from his taxes. Any profit is taxable.
Same holds true for stocks. Say someone threw the dice on some penny stocks and the company grew very successful and their stock became valuable. The man has a net worth of 10 million and still works a $35K/year job. He pays taxes on $35K. The value of the stock means nothing. Nor should it, really.
The ten million is considered to be unrealized gains which should not be taxed because the game ain't over til it's over and the man sells his stock. It is also entirely possible that the company that issued the stock tanks and the stocks become worthless overnight.
In which case the man is no longer a millionaire. He's a stiff making $35K/year.
It's kind of like fish. If a skipper manages to put 100K pounds of fish on board which is selling for $1/pound he has 100K pounds of fish. He doesn't have $100K dollars until he unloads the fish and gets paid for them. If the boat sinks on the way to market he's got nothing.
He doesn't have to pay income tax on the fish until he sells them and turns them into money. The money is taxable, of course. The fish are not, needless to say.
People have odd ideas about the rich. They seem to think that like Scrooge McDuck that they have a giant vault full of cash somewhere and they are greedily sitting in it and counting money all day. It doesn't work like that.
Being a millionaire doesn't mean one has huge piles of cash laying around. It simply means that the person has assets worth over a million bucks. That's not too hard to do, really. Some people are and don't even realize it.
An example of this would be a guy that bought some logged over land in the middle of nowhere and he built a home of some sort on it and have lived there for 35 years. Last of the pioneers.
Over the past 35 years the forest has grown back in and some logging company wants to log it and offers you a million buck for the land.
Surprise! You are now a millionaire even if you don't accept the offer because you now hold an asset worth a million bucks. The offer has set the value of your property. It's now worth a million bucks simply because that's what someone is willing to pay you that much for it.
Actually if you sell it for a million bucks you will stop being a millionaire on April 15th. Your million bucks becomes income and is subject to taxes. You will be left with about $630, 000 after taxes because the tax rate on a million bucks is 37%.
Incidentally if you bank that $630K at 4% interest it will earn you about $25,600 annually and that is taxable income.
Most of this post is an oversimplification but you get the general idea.
It's easy to hate the rich because people are easily taught to. It's easy to appeal to a person's sense of envy. Hell, it happened to me at work. Early on I was promoted ahead of my time.
Why? Because early on I took the company test to become a tankerman and aced it. As a result of that I got sent to the company run training school, briefly apprenticed and was promoted. I got a substantial raise.
I took advantage of an opportunity. Most people didn't.
I also earned my Able Seaman rating concurrently. That meant a little more money in my pocket. For bettering myself I was called a kiss ass even though the programs were open to everyone. In less than a year my income almost doubled.
I noticed the people that slurred me were long time Ordinary Seamen, the entry level rating. The kiss ass name calling ended after a pretty good public verbal shoot out. I was pretty savage.
I pointed out that the tankerman program was open to everyone but he chose not to enter the program. I did.
While I was sitting home and during my off watch time I was studying and trying to better myself while he was down at the club swilling down beer after beer. Instead of sticking $20 worth of ones in some stripper's G-string I spent the $20 on the Merchant Seaman's manual. By doing so I had invested in myself. I told him it was about choices and instead of investing in himself he pissed it all away every payday. I told him it was about choices and he had gone through life choosing poorly.
The kiss ass insults stopped instantly.
He was probably 10 or 15 years older than me and I heard he took an early retirement (another bad choice) and retired a bitter, angry man. He was still an Ordinary Seaman.
I'll tell you about Vic later.
Wednesday, February 12, 2025
Vic is long dead. (Speaking of professionals)
He was a nautical treasure. He was a true professional at his trade. He was a career deckhand.
He was salty, cagey, talented, a good shipmate full of kindness.
My first oil barge didn't have laundry facilities. We would wash our duds on the tugboat that was hauling us around. Once I left my dirty laundry bag. When I got off watch I looked at it and simply walked past it and racked out. I was too tired and needed some sleep.
When I woke up my laundry was gone! Someone had stolen my dirty underwear! I was mad as a wet hornet but had to go in watch.
When I got off watch, still angry I started to go below and a voice shouted out, "Hey!" I turned. It was Vic.
My laundry bag flew through the air and landed at me feet. "You looked tired so I figured I'd take care of your wash." I thanked him and took my bag below and found everything to be clean and well folded. Vic was THAT kind of a guy.
He was about 20 years my senior and was still an Ordinary Seaman and could never advance any further because he was colorblind. He was also illiterate and for some reason unable to learn to read although he had tried every program out there.
His career had spanned decades and early on he had sailed post war Liberty ships bring either merchandise or humanitarian aid across the Atlantic. He told me of seeing a lot of damage from the war as they sailed into various unloading zones.
One of his stories was hilarious.. Somehow they cut a deal with the skipper whereby they would work passage back to the States. The pair came aboard almost instantly and cheerfully worked like dogs the whole trip back to Baltimore. He said they were the two happiest guys in the world until they got to the States where they were immediately picked up. Vic opined they were most likely military deserters trying to sneak back into the States.
Anyway, Vic was a whirlwind and incapable of sitting down or standing still. He was a very much in demand deckhand in spite of his illiteracy. There was literally nothing he could not do on a boat and skippers trusted him implicitly.
He was well liked by all and well respected. Any derogatory comments about his illiteracy drew angry glares from everyone. In his sixties he could outwork men forty years his junior.
Vic I always look at as a prime example of a man that could overcome his handicaps.
Tuesday, February 11, 2025
Speaking of western stuff yesterday I worked as a cowboy once for a two or three months
Note that I say 'worked as'. I was not a cowboy as such. That's a dedicated lifestyle and requires a lot of skills I never developed that take years.
If anyone asked me if I could ride, the answer is yes. I can ride a horse, or at least I have ridden horses. If you asked me if I can ride the answer is an unequivocal no. I can go into the barn and saddle a reasonably well trained and broken horse and ride it. However I really can't hop on a really spirited steed and go galloping across the prairie like a Pony Express rider. A real cowboy can.
I did help move a herd of cattle once or twice but lacked the skills of the other two cowboys. The could get their horses to turn on a dime and give nine cents change. They were good.
Much of the time my steed was a battered old Jeep I'd ride out to ride fence with. It was a tired, rusty old thing and there was a revolver in the glovebox. I never shot it. It wasn't mine and it stayed there.
When I showed up I did have a rifle but it was not a Winchester. It was a WW2 German Mauser bring back I bought in a pawn shop. I never shot that, either.
My tools in the Jeep were sort of a come-along to stretch wire, a bag of staples and a fencing tool* along with a roll of barbed wire.
Anyway, to this day I admire the two cowboys I worked with that were really patient and helpful that lived a very Spartan lifestyle and were very talented at what they did.
A lot of people don't understand when I talk about people that work in jobs like that as being professionals but they really are.
Fairly often I hear someone try to put someone down because of what they do and I instantly ask them the big question. "Do you know how to do that work?"
I usually get the old "Well, no, but..." and some lame excuse that it doesn't take much education and so on.
I countered with, "Yes it does. LIFE is an education.
I met one woman that got it.
A few years back I had the Amish reroof my house. I learned early on that if I wanted to pitch in that I should just move bales of shingles to the bottom of the ladder because if I did anything else I would just get in the way.
That day I met a woman that gets it. She stood there enamored watching the Dutchmen throw shingles. I saw her and approached her and she said she was fascinated watching them work.
I laughed and offered told her to grab a chair is she wanted to watch and she sat there two hours watching the Dutchmen in action. I was outside when she returned the chair and briefly chatted with her.
She had a degree in something useful with a minor in some kind of dance. (Fair enough. You major in something marketable and minor in your passion)
Anyway she told me she was enamored with the choreography of the four Dutchmen and said it was like watching a Bolshoi ballet. She was amazed at how everything flowed so smoothly and how few words had to be said between the crew. She said it was one of the most amazing things she had ever seen.
She got it.
===================================
The above post is very dated. That happened almost 50 years on a small cattle ranch that very possibly is a shopping center, condos, a resort or whatever.
Anyway, time marches on and I understand that quads and dirt bikes have replaced the horse in places. If that is so then I'd bet that some of the all time BEST dirt bike riders are cowboys.
* "Fencing tool! Anybody that's ever seen a roll of barbed wire's lost ten of them!"
Jim Koob
Kodiak, Alaska circa 1982.
Upon seeing a fencing tool in my toolbox
Another day another dime.
I'm a hat guy. The fire destroyed my entire fedora collection and I've since picked up a couple of old school lids ala Bogey. I've had people look at me and tell me they look good on me.
One guy a couple of decades younger than me saw me a couple of months ago and said, "That hat looks great on you. I like the look and wish I could pull it off."
Many moons ago in Kodiak I had someone tell me that I'd look my best in 1940s era full cut clothes. The few outfits I have worn in that style have had people compliment me.
When I arrived in Kodiak I was wearing a western hat. It got lost there and never replaced. Forty years later I replaced it today.
I'm an American and believe that all Americans should have at least one western outfit in the closet. I've had one for years and rarely wear it, boots jeans, western cut shirt. Never had the hat until today.
Someone asked me why I even have a western outfit to begin with.
"What if I had to go to Europe?" I answered, leaving him confused.
Protip. Don't land in France in a western outfit. It drives Customs ape $hit and the go rooting through everything you have looking for your six-gun and afraid you came to Paris to stampede a herd of cattle down Champs Ulysses.
Sunday, February 9, 2025
Over the years at sea I had to deal with a number of newlyweds
that had their wives/girlfriends moaning and bellyaching that their husband/boyfriend was away for long periods of time.
I generally told the unmarried guys to break it off then and there because it will only get worse even if they do get a job ashore. It takes a special breed of woman to stand by a person like a sailor.
Soldiers, sailors and doctor's wives generally have to accept that their life is going to be different than June Cleaver's life where Ward comes home at 5 and the tow of you eat together and talk about Wally and the Beav. Instead dear old dad is out in the middle of the ocean making a living to finance the operation.
The money at sea is usually pretty damned good and six figure incomes are fairly common. You can't make that stocking shelves at the hardware store. It's a job where one can actually afford to buy a home these days within a few years out of high school if you are not stupid.
Of course to be successful at the job you have to WANT to be there.
Still, it's usually damned hard on relationships s lot of the time.
I've overheard more that one sobbing wife phone call asking him to come home because the door fell off of the kitchen cabinet and she has to have it fixed. One conversation took place within earshot of three of us and when he asked us what to do he was stunned. None of us knew what he should do. We just knew what our wives would do.
"My wife generally fixes it herself. No biggie for her," said one. Another said his wife would put it in a corner until he gets home and I told him my wife would also save it for me to fix when I got home.
He quit after the next tour and about a year later rumor control had him working in a convenience store, most likely living in primitive squalor.
I have heard a few wives complain they had to stay home and he got to go out on the boat and have a good time instead of going to a real job. I don't know how one guy pulled it off but he brought his wife along for a short few day trip up the coast in the wintertime and she changed her attitude after spending most of the trip curled up in the fetal position in the rack seasick as hell for four or five days.
There were others and over the years some decided to swallow the hook and work ashore, others either laid down the law and told their wives to make up their minds of either having him home and living in squalor or letting him stay at sea.
One thing I saw that seemed to work out for a number of the guys was that he and his wife sat down and clearly defined their roles. He would be the breadwinner and she'd be the homemaker. She'd run the home as she pleased and he'd come home to whatever she had done to decorate the house with. That really seemed to work out well for a number of the guys.
One of the guys came back to work with a funny story. His neighbor asked his wife if he could build a split rail fence between their yards and she told him to go ahead. He waited for him to get home to check with him. When he asked him if it was OK to put up the fence he said, "Ask her. It's her house. I only pay for it and live here sometimes."
That's pretty much the way my wife and I had it arranged. So long as I had a place to stay I didn't care what color she painted the place or how she decorated it.
Other things notwithstanding, I was truly blessed with a wife that had a commercial fishing background and supported me in my career. She never once interfered with my work.
ETA. One tug skipper I knew went ashore for almost a year and returned. He said his shoreside job paid about the same and he came home every night but he missed the boats and the guys. Then he grinned and said "My wife ran me out."
He went on to explain that one morning before work his wife sat him down and told him to call in and take the morning off. He was to call the tug company and speak to the personnel department about getting his old job back and then go into work and give them his two week notice.
When he called the personnel guy at the shipping company he found out his wife had already called and greased the skids. It was already a done deal. Then he grinned and looked at me. "When Shorty threw the line off and I put the boat in gear I knew I had married the right woman."
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
Saturday, February 8, 2025
In an answer to a recent comment, we're seeing a change.
Recently Mitt Romney (of all people) said that Trump was changing the Republican party into the MAGA party and there's more than a kernel of truth to that.
The Democrats for decades were the party of the workingman, the guy packing a lunch pail. Every election they pulled the D handle.
Over time the Democratic party kept sliding further and further to the left, eroding Joe's values. Finally they did something that was Joe's last straw. Maybe it was drag queens in schools, maybe he discovered teachers could help students get an abortion without notifying parents. Whatever. He either went independent or maybe even Republican. Whatever.
Then he notices that the Republicans make more sense and they're not the party of the rich anymore. They've softened and are fighting for the values Joe espoused back when he was a Democrat and not paying attention.
I have heard a number of people that were Democrats say, "I didn't leave the Democratic party. The Democratic party left ME."
It wasn't a mass departure from the Democratic party that sent Trump to the WH. It was a fairly small group but it was big enough to tip the scales and give Trump a clear and indisputable victory.
The recent was of audits had caught a LOT of people's attention and I've heard more than one person say they voted for Harris and now wish they hadn't. They support the current audits and are watching the cockroaches scatter.
Under Trump the Republicans have somewhat morphed into the MAGA party and over time as Democrats slowly join they will bring many of their values with them and slowly the Republicans will swing a bit more to the left, close to center. My guess is that many moderate Democrats will stay independent voters but hopefully many will leave the party to wither.
Personally over the years I have learned to loathe career politicians which is what our presidents have been for the most part since forever. I can think of only one, really. That was Eisenhower. The rest have been pretty much career politicians. Actually Truman and Reagan had earlier non political careers but became politicians.
I have always advocated something like a successful CEO of someplace that understood business and ran the country like one, eliminating bloating and wasteful spending.
While Trump has these characteristics as positives I'll certainly admit that he's not the most polished or presidential person I have ever seen. He's a bull in a china shop and has little tact. Still, he gets things done.
He hasn't even been in office for three weeks yet and already he's cleaned out a pretty good chunk of the swamp and exposed an insane amount of fraudulent, wasteful and criminal expenditures on the part of government.
Anyway that's my take on things. We shall see what we shall see.
I've been wrong before.
Friday, February 7, 2025
The audit really has a lot of people in an uproar.
and that is a very healthy thing.
Jimmy Carter wanted one and didn't get it. Reagan tried to get one and gave up. Wanting an audit is nothing new under the sun. A lot of us have wanted one for decades.
We should have been having one every few years. Instead that can has been kicked down the street since Andrew Jackson managed to get the national debt paid off.
I think that USAID is just the tip of the iceberg and can't wait until the team goes through Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security because they will have quite a field day there.
Years ago a friend of mine was annoyed as hell because Congress approved $250K for a study on why children fall off of bicycles. He was right because anyone knows that it's because they're kids and sometimes clumsy. Still, Congress approved the study.
That's all well and good because Congress was up front about it and approved the money during session. Everyone could see it and there was no hiding it. While most of us thought it was stupid, it was at least up front and honest.
That's well and good.
It's the monies buried elsewhere that have to be brought to light.
As I said earlier, the can has been kicked down the road for far too long and now someone named Trump has decided to open the can of worms and what a can of worms he has opened!
This never should have happened because the government should have been audited regularly all along.
Someone turned the light on and the cockroaches are scurrying for cover! The Democrats (who appear to have stolen the lion's share of our monies, but Republicans are not 100% clean, either) are screeching to hang the president. They're using every lame excuse in the book about wanting to protect the public's privacy and SSNs.
The latter is somewhat of a lame joke. Before 2015 the military had GI's SSN on their dogtags. In many states they were used as driver's license numbers. A quick Google search says that in my state it's still on my license although if it is, it's probably inside the scanner strip on the back as I can't find it on the front.
Why are the Democrats trying to keep the people's SSN from the duly appointed government auditors? The government issued them the number in the first place! You are trying to hide the numbers from the people that issued them? Does anyone know how stupid that sounds?
As for trying to hide the public's banking information, that holds no water, either. One has to provide financial institutions with an SSN to open an account and banks are required to report any interest payments to the IRS. Another lame excuse. The government already know about our banking business.
If anyone wants to know my financial business all they have to do is go into the IRS, punch in my SSN and BINGO! All of my banking information, all of my retirement accounts, CDs, savings, everything comes up and it's all there. All of it. The only thing they don't know is how many dollar bills I have put into Bubbles' G-string at the club the other night.
Any elected or appointed official trying to interfere with the LONG needed audit is either guilty of stealing or misappropriating government funds or they are complicit in covering this up and shows a complete lack of integrity because they are trying to hide the audit results from the American people.
Get back to work, DOGE.
Thursday, February 6, 2025
On Facebook and X I have had numerous young women wanting to befriend me.
It's all a setup.
Most of them are most likely vice cops of some sort or another trying to set me up with an underage girl.
Surprise!
First of all I'm married and want to stay that way. Pretty much The End.
Secondly I have never had an attraction to younger women. Hell, even in my late 20s and 30s I more often than not dated women in their early 40s because I was dating for fun. It was rare for me to date anyone my own age.
I suppose it I was single at 73 I'd start chasing young stuff, like women in their 60s.
The formula I have heard often used is 1/2 your age +7 so let's do the math.
73/2=36.5+7=43.5 Nope. Not for this kid. Me and a 44 YO is a recipe for disaster. It's not a good idea for a 73 YO man to date a 44 YO woman that is at her peak. A gentleman NEVER puts his lover in a bind. It's ungentlemanly. She would find herself in court.
If the jury decided it was her idea she would go to jail for first degree murder, plain and simple.
On the other hand if she could convince the jury that it was MY idea it would simply be ruled suicide and she'd walk.
I hope I don't get hit by a bus today
Because I grabbed my undershorts from the bottom of the pile this morning.
Years ago at work I grabbed some new underwear and it was a 12 pack. For the hell of it I took a marker and put the months of the years in big letters across the seat.
They stayed at work until I retired and before I left I threw a bunch of stuff out as it had gotten pretty raggedy.
I must have missed a set because the pair of shorts I have on now says 'July' on the seat.
Monday, February 3, 2025
What's the problem? What's going on? I mean what's the deal here, huh?
I am watching the congress critters going stark staring ape$hit over Elon Musk's audit of USAID. I'm getting all sort of reports of expenses that don't make sense or are an outright fraudulent expenditure.
It doesn't take much of a brain to know that $40 million to Iran to spread diversity in Sesame Street in Iran sounds kind of fishy. Diversity includes LGBTQ+ and Iran takes a rather dim view on gay activity. It's punishable by death in many instances.
The President of Ukraine says he doesn't know where over 50% of the money sent there has gone to. There's a nice Charlie Chan mystery maybe he can solve that one.
Years ago a friend was incensed when he heard congress had appropriated $250K for a study of why little kids fall off of bicycles. That was a crummy quarter mil. Now we're talking billions.
The thing I would like to know is why so many congress critters are protesting Elon Musk digging around and auditing things. It makes me think that if if Musk keeps digging he's going to ruin their gravy trains.
The left can scream all they want to but there is one thing they can't deny. We, the people have a right to know where and how our tax money is being spent.
Keep going, Elon! Dig deep and follow the money down to the last person that got any.
If I managed and office situation downtown
I do believe that instead of having people work 9-5 like they have done for years I would try running 6-2 instead.
It would make life a lot easier as far as dealing with traffic goes. Anyone that has ever driven through the city between 5 and 6 am knows that it's a ghost town and the traffic isn't too bad at 2pm, either.
I'd try it for 6 months because that's probably how long it would take for everybody to get used to it.
Being able to be home by, say, 3pm would make it easier for people to shop, too.
Still, there are only 24 hours in a day and we have to manage them.
Saturday, February 1, 2025
I think I am going to stop trolling people over Donald Trump
because it's just plain too damned easy. It's like picking on a toddler.
It really is. All I have to do is say "Donald Trump just signed and executive order saying (Fill in some absurd $hit here)
The one that brought this to a halt was when I went into a convenience store I am at a regular at and said to the clerk "Donald Trump just signed an executive order that in all unisex bathrooms that women have to put the seat up after they use it."
The clerk knows me. He laughed like hell unlike the person behind me that screeched "He can't do that" and went off on a wonderful meltdown.
Working at a convenience store needs a little help now and then and I am glad to help out. They know I'm just trying to make their day a little more tolerable. Some jobs sometimes need a little help.
Today when I went into the store the clerk asked me what Trump was up to and I said, "I'm not trolling with Trump anymore."
"Oh? Why is that?" he asked.
"Because it makes me feel like I sucker punched a retard," I answered.
He laughed like hell and commented that I certainly have my pride and said, "I understand completely."
It really is like sucker punching a some poor disabled kid. It just ain't right.
People are stupid. Many believe whatever they hear.
When Trump froze the overseas money the other day I saw more people freak out that Grandma was going to get thrown off a cliff.
When I heard it I just looked into it and quickly found out that no payments to Americans were being interrupted.
We are living in an age of hysteria.
We have information at our fingertips and STILL too many people believe whatever they hear and/or what they want to hear.
To find the leaks turn off the faucet.
Which is what Trump did when he froze overseas funds.
It didn't take long for a rather large number of people to balk and try to undermine him. Most of them are currently 'on leave' pending investigation, meaning after the investigations they will likely be fired.
Trump was smart enough to know not to fire them outright and have them take him to court to get their jobs back. He's going to fire them the correct way. Possibly during the investigation one or more may sing and drag a few more along with them. What's also a likely scenario is they will be paid off to keep quiet. This will be interesting to watch.
Someone mentioned it as being an old plumber's trick I have used before. To find the leaks you simply turn off the faucet. The leaks become obvious. Well played, Mr. President.
Now let's take a look at RFKjr dealing with Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, both of who have taken a LOT of money from Big Pharma.
It was hilarious. Both of them wanted to know about if he'd take money from Big Pharma and he threw it right back in their faces. It was hilarious watching both of them get indignant and lose it when RFKjr pointed out that both of them had taken large sums of money from Big Pharma. Neither of them could squirm out of it. Both of them got really indignant and ranted and raved. I laughed.
Both of the really lost their minds and ranted and raved about the money they had received from Big Pharma. Bernie screaming he had never been given money from a CEO. I suppose in a way that's probably right. The CEO didn't come and personally hand him a check.
Bernie and Pocahontas both made themselves look really stupid.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
What would also be hilarious is a Senator that lives only on his $174,000 salary and health benefits, period. Camping in a cramped 1 BR apartment and driving a jalopy back and forth to work. No free haircuts and massages, no nothing. After taxes he'd have $122K to live on. That ain't much in DC. Likely he would shop at Goodwill for suits to wear to work and part time at a convenience store during recesses.
As for reporting gifts there would be one. "I helped some guy get his car started so he gave me a bottle of Jim Beam."
Of course he'd be able to have certain legitimate office and travel expenses paid, which is more than fair.
He'd be the most hated person in Congress.
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