The Old Men are planning on another desperate act

There is now a scheduled meeting of the desperate criminals of the Grandfather's Club coming up and the three of us have decided that they'll never take us alive. 

At the last meeting last Labor Day we decided that we would keep our eyes open for a big, giant gas ball to make our stand on if we get caught. We were also supposed to be on the lookout for a trio of Tommy guns for the big shootout.

I have found neither and I suppose the other two haven't, either. There seems to be a distinct shortage of big, giant gas balls and Tommy guns these days. One of us has found something we can use at our next meeting, though. It comes in a Mason jar.

The Grandfather's Club is a criminal organization I belong to consisting of two grandfathers and myself. It is dedicated to giving about 6 or 8 grandchildren something special every summer. We do this by recklessly endangering their little lives.

We take their grandkids up north to Amish farm country and give them a ride in the bed of a pickup a couple of times each summer on sultry evenings.

We wind through little country back roads and let the kids feel the wind and smell the odors of hay, manure and fresh air. The kids love it. They will remember it for their entire lives.

Of course, the authorities don't approve but that's just too damned bad. They can kiss our collective asses over this one. We are American Old Men and Americans should grow up having been driven through farm country in the bed of a pickup on summer evenings. This is where we drew the line some years back.

We drive the kids up in cars and then one car takes the lead, the other one takes up the tail and the kids ride in the bed of a pickup like they're supposed to.

We wind around slow country roads and reasonable, safe speeds for an hour or two and when its over the kids get back into the cars and get dropped off. Then the three of us meet at my place and strike a blow for liberty. Generally it's a snort of bourbon.

We have done this for a number of years now.

Last year at the last meeting one of the youngsters had grown up and gotten his learner's permit so we were able to strike TWO blows for liberty as the kid did the driving. He took George home after George had a couple.

Now he has his full-fledged driver's license and we'll be able to strike as many after-action blows for liberty as we want to. He's now the designated driver. He can take George and Pete home. Then again maybe this isn't a good idea. He may not be ready for this yet.

 A few years ago George took him to Allegheny General and exposed him to the horrors of the maimed and disfigured children in the Three Stooges ward. Yet still he may not yet be ready to deal with the cackling and stupidity that is sure to accompany three old men as they get into a Mason jar of 87 proof 'shine.

Generally the drink has been bourbon except for the time Pete brought that hideous bottle of rotgut rye. However, the next meeting the proffered beverage will likely be moonshine as one of us has found a Mason jar full of it somewhere that is very well made.

Of course, moonshine is illegal but I think that it is a fitting beverage for us to strike a blow for liberty with because we're already criminals guilty of conspiracy to endanger and corrupt children so we might as well make busting us worth their while.

I suppose we haven't located a decent big giant gas ball yet. We're still looking for Tommy guns. We may have to settle for three Mattels we get off of eBay. I think I know where we can get roll caps to feed them if we go the Mattel route.

On the other hand we seem to have made progress because George has found a pretty good violin case to carry one in and all three of us have pretty snappy looking Old-School fedoras. Our faces have enough age in them so they actually look pretty good on us.

Last fall the kid looked perplexed during out meeting while we were discussing future plans for upcoming criminal activities. That came to a close sometime around St. Patty's Day when I ran into the kid while out shopping.

He saw me and came up to me.

"'White Heat. James Cagney.'" he said, sheepishly. "Made it, Ma! Top of the world!" 

I laughed delightedly. "You saw it!"

"You old guys are a bunch of goofballs. That movie was made in 1933," he said. "Long before any of you guys were born!"

"Yeah, but the classics never go out of style," I replied.

"It was pretty good," he said. 'Now I know where you guys get your lines!"

He's a pretty good kid and I think he'll turn out OK.

"Tell George I said hello and tell him I said to have a cold one with you either on Memorial Day or the Fourth," I said. "Someone's gotta make a criminal out of you!"

"You better tell him that," he laughed.

"I will." Fact is I went home afterwards and did. I called him and told him he ought to have a beer with his grandson come Memorial or the Fourth. He agreed.

George is a real desperado. He's the kind of guy that will probably hand his grandson a cold beer and have one with him on the back porch in flagrant violation and total defiance of state laws that have been enacted for our safety and  protection by our duly elected officials.

Why, I'd go so far to say that George probably doesn't have a tag on his matteress. He most likely tore it off! He's that kind of guy.

He laughed. "I already have a fedora and a black shirt and a white tie!" he boasted. "And it's a real Old School fedora. Not one of those dopey little hipster kinds."

"Good for you, Kid," I said. "Keep your eyes peeled for gas balls and Tommy guns for us to make our stand with."

He laughed. Then he asked why his father was so stuffy about our little over the hill gang.

"You're still young enough to see through a lot of the bullshit," I said. "George, Pete and I have grown past it. Your dad is stuck in middle age and is caught up in it. Maybe if you hang out with us some of it will rub off on you and you'll survive middle age with fewer problems. Right now your biggest problem is likely who to go to the prom with."

"Hmm. There are a couple of girls there I'd consider as a prom date. I wonder which one to ask?"

"Simple.  The one with the biggest tits," I said and walked off leaving him to think about that one for a while.






https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjzKiEs_pHI





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The Obama Presidential Library

 passed by during a Nebraska parade the other day. It was a float of an outhouse.

OK, like it or not, Obama is our POTUS and I suppose it's disrespectful. That's nothing new for Americans. People have said disrespectful things about various presidents before. 

Truth is I am not surprised because the man has a 29% approval rating as I write this according to an article I read yesterday. That means that 71% of Americans don't think he's doing a very good job. Franklly I'm surprised his approval rating is as high as it is. His entire presidency has been a failure.

Of course, the few people that are still enamored with him decided that the way to protest the outhouse/presidential library was to use the last act of desperation.

They're playing the race card.

Needless to say, the race card is getting worn pretty thin these days and not a whole lot of people are paying attention to it. I'm not. I don't think that I'm alone, either.

Right now I suppose that I'm branded as a racist. I disagree with the president's policies. That may change if Hillary or Elizabeth Warren get elected. If that happens I'll be branded a sexist. It will have nothing to do with reality, it will just be the left's feeble way of trying to destroy the credibility of anyone that disagrees with them.

A few years back I was accused of being an anti semite because I expressed an opinion that the NRA was right in an issue that came up. The woman that accused me of this lost when I pulled out a JPFO membership card.

Of course, the next step was the waterworks and "I didn't know you were Jewish..." (I'm not. Gentiles can join.) I wasn't kind as the waterworks generally turn me into a heart of stone. I learned that trick years ago. When the waterworks get turned on, go in for the kill.

For anyone that gives a damn and wants to dig, my opinions have been posted here and anyone is free to dig through them. I've been a supporter of Dr. King for since childhood.

I look forward to the day a man will be judged by the content of his character and not the color of his skin. Truth is, it's a lot closer to that day than it was when I was growing up.

In fact a few years ago my presidential hopeful was Condoleeza Rice. I like the woman and the way she thinks. I think she'd have made a good POTUS but that is just me.

The offended Obama supporters instantly started screaming about how racist the float was.

Let's get down to the bare truth. The president has a lousy approval rating. He's done that entirely on his own. He has gotten his disapproval rating based on his actions and not his color.

Sorry, the race card just won't play here.

Are there bigots that don't like the man because of his color? 

I'm certain there are a handful, but I do not think their number is high enough to effect the fact that the president's approval ratings are in the dirt right now. There will always be bigots. Deal with it. There are also black bigots that don't like whites, too. Things work both ways.

The truth of the float is that it is a protest of the president's approval ratings and nothing else. You can put away the race card. It doesn't apply here.

The president has put his approval ratings down the crapper on his own. Race has nothing to do with it.





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I'd like to see the public sector unions take a hit

One of the things I like to see is public sector unions take a hit. A HARD hit.

Even FDR back in the day opposed letting the public sector organixe, saying that allowing it would permit the unions to hold the American public hostage.

He was right and over the years the unions have, time and again. From what I can say I have seen, most of this has been the teacher unions. Every so often they close down some school system or another with a strike.

The Air Traffic Controllers tried to paralyze the entire nation once demanding a 32 hour work week among other things. President Reagan brought that to a screeching halt, firing the union and blacklisting most of the membership from further Federal service for life.

A good call on Reagan's part.

One of the things the people in the public sector seem to have forgotten is that they work for us. Recently there was a Wisconsin recall election and the encumbent managed to keep his job.

The recall election was headed by several unions, including the public sector unions there. The people of Wisconsin decided that the long term demands of the unions would wind up raising state taxes 10% per annum and decided that they wanted to keep their money. Can't say as I blame them.

One of the things that the public sector have done is bargain early retirements for themselves. The officials in office went along with it most likely because they knew that the payoff would not happen during their terms in politics and it was easier to let it slide and leave the mess to someone else.

Pensions originally were something paid to people that had gotten too old to work and were fairly small amounts that would enable them to live out the few years they had left with a little dignity.

In return it was generally conceded that the public sector people would work for a little less money in exchange for security and the small pension.

Teachers are an example of this. Back in the 60s they didn't make a whole lot but got a decent benefit package and a retirement pension when they got too old to work anymore.

I had teachers in their 70s that came in every day and did their jobs. One was a track coach and he was about six days older than dirt. He must have been well into his seventies ad coached track. Actually he was quite a character.

Pensions were not designed to take someone in the prime of their career and park them on the golf course for the rest of their long lives

One of my pet peeves is people that do not know how to count. This includes almost anyone that is in elected or a union office.

The numbers for 20 and out pensions simply do not work. A couple of private unions have tried it and have found it doesn't work.

At 50% of a persons pay it works out to a 25 year old guy starts getting paid out at 45 years old and we'll assume he dies at age 85. It's close enough and makes the numbers easier to deal with and still gets the point across.

He works 20 years, collects half his pay in a pension for the next forty years and when it is over and done with, unadjusted for inflation, you have paid him 40 years pay for 20 years work.

Of course, at age 45 he can still find another job, pull another 20 and out pension and double dip. Sounds pretty good unless you're the one paying for it.

Truth is, paying someone to hit the golf course in their forties is just plain wrong. We're going to have to rethink government pensions as we simply can't afford them.

Of course, this can be put aside until we figure out what to do with the hordes of people that are sucking off of the government tit for simply doing nothing.





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Back in the 60s

 when I was a scout I remember hearing that there were more white tail deer in the country than there were when the Pilgrims landed.

The other day I read where the white tail population in 1900 was about 500,000 in the country and is now around 32,000,000. That's a lot of animals.

My guess is that the bulk of this growth has been since 1946. That's when the post WW2 building boom began and that likely had a lot to do with it.

A lot of deer live in suburbia. I have a herd that pases through my back yard and every year a doe gives birth to her fawn about 25 yards away from my back window.

I suppose part of the reason the deer like my back yard is because there is a lot to eat there. The reason is likely that every fall I take an old lawn mower down there and level everything. The grasses, weeds, suckers saplings and about everything gets leveled. Come spring the process of growing starts again. This leaves the deer with nice shoots and suckers to dine on.

The people that learned about animals from Walt Disney would say that deer live in climax forests but that's not true.

If you want to see the deep population expode simply clear-cut a hillside or climax forest. Level it and walk away.

Nature will take its course and the shoots and suckers will spring up and provide forage for Bambi. The new growth will provide a lot of food for the deer and the availability of food means the deer population will increase.

Another reason the deer population has increased is because they are sought after as game animals. Personally, I find 'em pretty good eating. Low in cholesterol and fat and generally pretty tasty. 

Yet there are an awful lot of poor, misguided souls out there that don't really understand a whole lot about animals, hunting or nature.

When I lived in Kodiak I managed to impress a fair number of tourist lasses by showing them Bald Eagles up close. I'd take them to the dump. Sometimes I'd put a particularly rotten piece of meat or fish and put it on the hood of my pickup and watch him land on it.

Same for bears. Bears hit the dump while making their rounds, too. Bears gotta eat, too. Just like eagles.

Yet try and explain things to Disney educated person and you'll get shouted down practically every time. Generally because it is because they do not understand money.

Most likely the reasons for the explosion in the deer population is a combination of hunting licenses and the construction industry.

Hunting licenses bring in a lot of revenue to the various state fish and game departments. They use a good portion of that money for conservation measures to help the herd grow and stay healthy. A lot of money is made and spent on this.

Another reason for this is that the construction industry from the loggers on up create a situation for new growth that enables deer to thrive by creating forage for them.

Recently logged areas generally create the new growth that the deer love to eat and that enables the herds to grow.

Another thing I have noticed is the growing number of deer in residential neighborhoods. A big part of that is likely that residentlal neighborhoods with occasional vacant lots and unusable lots provide forage and limited protection for the herds.

A number of people with bigger lots have changed from mowing the entire lot to permitting a part of it to go back to its natural state. That adds something to the deal.

Yet if you ask one of the educated by Disney fools out there about the deer population in the United States most of them will tell you that the herds are dying off at a tremendous rate and the culprits are construction and hunting.

Go figure.

Writing this reminds me. I have to keep my eyes peeled this spring for the doe. I want the young kids across the street to see the fawn like they did last year.


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I owe a young man a post here.

I was talking to your parents about some of the things I used to do years ago when I was sailing. I mentioned that when I was looking for work I would wander up to the bar in a new town and listen and ask around about the price of various illegal activities.

If the price of vice was high, I stayed there as there was likely honest money to be made. Busy people are often too busy to do some of their own work so they hire people.

All in all it was a pretty good way to judge the economic situation of a town from a grass-roots level.

Most of these places were small boom or bust towns along the Inside Passage between Alaska and Washington. They were logging or fishing towns.

I'll admit that I did spend a lot of time in bars. This sounds a lot worse than it is until you learn about Alaskan bars.

When sommeone thinks of a bar they think of a place where people sit on stools and drink. Stateside that's pretty much it. In Alaska in the 70s and 80s they did that...and a lot more than that.

They were meeting houses and a lot of networking took place there. People looked for people to hire and people looked for people to work for there. Seeing someone sitting at a table doing paperwork of one sort or another was common place. I remember sitting next to Captain Frank while he was filling out his Social Security application. He said he wanted to fill it out in a place where he could think.

Seeing someone Sunday morning at a table reading the Sunday paper was common, too.

They also served as short term banks. I once borrowed money to finish a job I was working on and it was repaid in jig time. The guy I was working for was out of town and a week later was pleased to see I had finished his porch and when he paid me, I paid off the loan. The bar owner that handed me the money knew my customer and knew I he was good for it.

Another time some clown paid me on a Friday evening in cash for a job I did. It was a wad big enough to choke a horse and I didn't want to pack that much cash around all weekend.

I approached the owner of the bar and told her that I needed a safe place to stash my wad until Monday. She put it in an envelope and put it in her safe for the weekend. Monday I picked it up and put it in the bank.

As I have said, much of my earlier life was spent in small little places in Alaska. It drew a lot of interesting and varied people. Some were saints, some were out and out devils but the most of them were somewhat in between.

I suppose I could say I was a saint because I am writing this little essay but I won't. I won't lie to you. I was like most everyone else, I was in between. 

I made a part of my living commercial fishing and it was an interesting thing to do because so many people in it came from so many interesting backgrounds.

One interesting pair out there to watch was a West Texas grammar school dropout and an East Coast Annapolis graduate with a master's in some kind of higher mathematics. It would surprise you to find out that the mechanical genius of the pair was the Texan. He had little formal education but was a wonderful baling wire and junk pile artist that could keep anything mechanical running.

The Annapolis grad ran the books and had a knack for making money grow. It was a good team.

Knowing those two added to my value system. I learned that education is a nice tool to have, but there are a lot of people out there that have a lot to offer the world that don't have much of a formal education.

I learned to judge a man by his abilities and talents and not necessarily by his formal education. Ask your dad about this. I'll bet he met a few pretty damned good NCOs that didn't have much in the way of formal schooling. His NCOs were the hands-on guys that got things done.

I also met a Harvard grad that chose the rugged, dangerous life of a fisherman  instead of working ashore in an office. There was also a Rutgers grad that I knew that was a trapper. In town this guy was a total klutz and a drunk. In the bush he was astonishing. He fit right in like one of the animals. He was some kind of a math major but chose to take a different path.

The common interest of making money from the sea brought a lot of very different people together. I fished on one crew where one of the guys was deeply religious and another was a heroin addict. The skipper shoreside was an out and out drunk but didn't touch a drop underway. Then there was a guy that was a shoreside occasional pot smoker that would occasionally dabble in cocaine.

And me. I would occasionally drink a little too much beer and raise a little cain ashore. On rare occasions it got out of hand and four of the five of us would put to sea on the verge of having poisoned ourselves with too much liquor.

After pulling a pimplebrained stunt like that a couple of times I smartened up. I didn't stop drinking beer, I simply learned when to quit.

The truth is that a small Alaskan town has all kinds in it and at the time was pretty much like a frontier town in the movies. There were all kinds in Kodiak and most llikely there still are now.

The difference between our neighborhood and Kodiak is that we all had to share the same stores, the same restaurants, and the same facilities. We were pretty much all stuck in the same boat.

At Joe's (yes, it really was Joe's) Diner one day I sat an a table with a friend of mine and noticed the other diners sitting around me. The Burough Mayor was sitting with the City mayor, at the next table was a pair of prostitutes. The next table held three fishermen, one was slightly drunk. The owner of a local business and a customer of his sat at another. The fifth table was occupied by a couple of housewives.

You never knew who you'd meet at Joe's in the morning.

It was an interesting way to live and I got to meet all kinds face to face.

A big part of what made me what I am today is that I made halfway decent choices based on what I saw. For example, I saw what happened to drug users. I mentioned the heroin addict I fished with. He's long dead. He died of an overdose which seems to be the way junkies go. They keep chasing the rush like moths around a candle. Eventually they get burned and pay with their lives.

I avoided the drug scene not because I was afraid of the drugs but because I saw that almost all heavy drug users seemed to always have the kind of problems I didn't want to have. They were always being ripped off or beaten up. The never had anything worth having because everything they made went straight into their arms or up their noses. Getting arrested periodically was a given.

Seeing a huge fishing settlement check for thousands of dollars disappear into the thin air of drugs was something I saw happen quite a bit. It was sad to see.

A man would bust his ass and risk his life only to come ashore and put his entire earnings up his nose in the form of cocaine.

There was a lot of underground gambling going on and I steered clear of that. I saw early on that the only people making any money (they made a LOT) were the keepers of the game.

It didn't take a lot to see that the players led a pretty much sad life of debt and unhappiness. Back in the 80s I saw a guy lose well over $10,000 in a couple of hours at a poker game.

What is interesting to note is that I knew a guy that played for love of the game. He entered the game with a set amount of money he could afford to lose gracefully and when he went bust his game was over. No borrowing, he simply went home.

Oddly enough he seemed to win a lot but never kidded himself. One day after I had heard he had won pretty big I asked him how he had made out over time playing poker.

He laughed and admitted that he had probably lost a lot of money over time. He played strictly for recreation and never with 'scared money'. Scared money is money you can't afford to lose.

My gambling (if you can call it that) was limited to shooting an occasional  game of pool or playing cribbage for beers. It was mostly a way to pass time waiting for someone.

It was their choice and I made mine not to get involved. As an old man now I am glad I made that choice.

Another choice I made after a couple of close calls was to give up winter fishing because it was just plain too dangerous. It proved to be a good choice because the last boat I fished crab on went down with all hands. Five good men died when the boat rolled up during a storm.

I spent about a decade in Kodiak and during that time I would up attending about 50 funerals or memorial services. I also went to only three or four weddings. For a man in his late 20s and early 30s that was just plain wrong. It should have been the other way around.

Life is all about choices. You can make bad ones or good ones. The good choice you make today can effect you for your entire life and make life pretty easy. It can even save your life.

My choice to stop commercial fishing in winter time saved my life as I would have been aboard my last boat when she went down with all hands. I doubt I would have been a 'lone survivor' and if I had been it's likely I would have been crippled for life. The sea can be quite cruel.

A bad choice can stick with you for life and plague you forever. A real bad choice can end your life early or even instantly.  

I have an old friend that is busted up and living pretty much hand to mouth in a cabin in Washington State. He could have been comfortably retired but he chose to squander his money. He did quite well during the Bering Sea boom in the late 70s and early 80s. Shorting the IRS and having to repay with  penalties and interest didn't help any, either.

He chose poorly.

I took a different path than a lot of people and have no regrets. I got an informal education a lot of people don't have and have been to places and done things most people only get to see on the Discovery Channel.

Your dad took a pretty interesting path, too. He got to see a lot of things and do stuff most people never will. He's a good man. His experiences in Bosnia helped shape him and so did the time he spent in Germany with your mother. I'll bet your mother learned a lot in Germany.

Because I took the road less traveled in life I was exposed to a lot more than most people on a daily basis. Life in Alaska was pretty good to me yet it brought on a certain air that is sometimes hard for people to take.

One ot the things I liked the most were the people. Most of them were pretty independent hardy souls that believed in taking charge of their own lives. Many were pretty big risk takers. There was a lot more liberty there than there was in the States at the time.

It was fun being around loggers, fishermen and other outdoorsmen.

I suppose it comes from having been exposed to a lot while I was in my 20s and 30s. 

The next time you look across the street take a look at the old guy that lives there. He spent a lot of time around a lot of temptation and didn't succumb to it. It takes a lot to be surrounded by things like that constantly and not fall into the traps all around you.

He didn't fall for the 'everybody's doing it' line. He plotted his own course and steered his own ship.

I suppose I haven't done as well as I could have, but I haven't done all that badly, either.


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I just saw an article that reports

 that there are more people collecting from the government in one form or another than are working full time.

I'm not going to get into the details except to say that full time working Americans have gotten to be a minority.

It is ridiculous.

We've gotten to the point where over half of us are dependent on the government and the remaining less than half are expected to have to bust ass to foot the bill. 

Insanity.

I stopped working overtime some time ago and contemplated taking a pay cut simply to cut down on the amount of tax I had to shell out every payday. It is simply my way of trying to help starve the beast.

Of course, we can see that the people dependent on the government are good with this because if they were not they would be on the work force.

Retirement is beginning to scare the holy hell out of me because I am rapidly seeing my savings being eaten by inflation. 

I also see that social security and various government pensions are going to be eroded by inflation in the future. It's likely to be a slow erosion at first, as it is now. Still it will not be long before the $500 you worked overtime to save and nest egged away for the future is only going to be able to buy you a loaf of bread.

We now have busted 17 TRILLION in debt and the president wants the debt ceiling raised even more.

Now there are two ways we can pay that debt off. One is by eliminating foreign aid, social programs and entitlements. The other is through inflation. We just inflate the currency and pay it off with cheaper dollars.

Of course, that ruins a lot of people that have busted their asses to save and get ahead but I suppose neither the government nor the Free $hit Army give a damn.

They've been too busy taxing the corporations into either poverty or into moving.

A ham operator, an American ex-pat a while back is in the telecommunications industry and was telling a couple of us that the telecommunications industry has taken billions out of the country. 

It makes sense. When you are talking about having to either take the money off shore somewhere or fork over a huge chunk to the government it's a simple no brainer.

You simply take the money and leave.

We, as a people have grown slovenly and dependent on someone else. There was a time not too long ago when as a people we were fiercely independent of government.

I guess that time is past and we have grown dependent on other people, but don't get too used to it. A system can't last very long unless a lot more than 49% of the people pitch in.




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Someone else's comment on yesterday's post.

I posted a link to yesterday's post on another website and a kind reader took the time to comment. I'll share it here. You know who you are and thank you.





You've got the basic economics of it, though the herbivores are just as important, and regarded with equal animosity, by the locals. They eat crops and the farmers need land and wild plants. One of the reasons the giraffe herds are shrinking is that the people cut Acacia trees for firewood. It's illegal to do it. The law is not enforced. Micro loans are one of the ways they've managed to maintain an environment that's acceptable to the animals. 

For those who don't know what micro loans are about, they're small loans, less than $100.00, that the locals use to maintain their lifestyles, start small businesses, eetc. Years ago, do-gooders got the idea that if we threw money at Africa, everything would be wonderful. They sent trucks and tractors and harvesters and all the modern farming machinery that a wealthy dumbass could imagine. Financing was arranged and the farmers promptly defaulted. It was the same as buying a $200,000.00 Bentley to deliver pizza. You can't justify the investment by the output of the farms. 

It can cost $10,000.00 just for the tag to hunt the large African species. One argument I had with liberals was about the economic benefits derived from the hunters. The liberals said that the natives would never see a penny from the hunting license revenue. That's true. Government officials will steal it. 

The hunters will also hire porters and guides from the area. These people get paid by the hunting party. They keep the money. It maintains the local economy, partly protecting the herds because the people who live there all year earn cash from the hunters. No animals means no hunters means no money. I don't know enough about the effects of eco-tourism to make an informed decision about it. Since it appeals to liberals, my opinion is that they're a bunch of condescending assholes who tell the locals what to do. Practicality is lost on the modern liberal. It's more "enlightening" to gawk at an impoverished village like it's part of an art gallery. 

Then there's the meat. A Cape Buffalo can reach 2,000 pounds. They're not well liked because they kill 200 people every year. The locals will use every bit of that animal for food, tools, clothing, and shelter, and you can't take it home.


He also sent me a link explaining the micro loans he mentioned. You might find it interesting. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueAFVVKvS9g

I am not in a spot right now where I can stream a video very well so I can't comment on it.


I will add something to the above comment regarding hunting in Africa. There are a number of species that some African nations forbid the hunting of in their respective countries.

The reason for this is that the herds have likely been thinned out too much by poachers. They are making efforts to permit the herds to grow back so as to bring in the revenue that accompanies legalized hunting of these animals.

Why?

Simple. Because hunters bring in money.




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I just saw a Facebook page

 where some little hottie 19 YO Texas cheerleader is posing with a number of animals that she killed in Africa.

As a hunter and occasional back in the day deer poacher (poaching deer is a Saxon thing. Most people won't understand) I have no desire to go to Africa and shoot elephants, lions or rhinos.

I would, however love to go to Africa and photograph the anmals as I really have no desire to hunt them but would like to see them.

Anyway, the young lady that has posted her hunting adventures is getting clobbered by a bunch of the PETA set and people that really have no clue.

There is a reason there are still lions, leopards, rhinos and zebras left in Africa and the reason is that hunting them is in demand.

To put a point on it hunting has given these animals value and as a result they are well protected and managed. There's just too much money involved to let them become extinct.

Local Africans don't really care if there are lions or leopards left. The big cats there simply eat the goats and other animals that the locals raise to eat. Much like bears in cattle country, these animals cause the locals grief and if they had their way they'd simply slaughter them.

The reason they still exist is because hunting them has given them value. People want to go to Africa and hunt them, either with a gun or a camera.

The paradox here is that the fact that there is a demand to hunt them is the reason they are even alive as a species.

Hunting an African big-game animal is not cheap. It brings a lot of money into Africa. Safaris are damned expensive. This isn't pheasant hunting in the lower 40 of a local farm.

Much of the conservation of the game itself is paid for by the various trophy fees and taxes paid by hunters. Without that money there would likely be very little in the way of conservation programs.

The animal harvests are carefully managed to provide healthy herds simply because without them the hunting and accompanying money will drop off. When the money drops off the conservation programs drop off and when that happens the animals will likely face extinction.

If you look at a lion the way a cattleman looks at a wolf you will see that it is nothing more than a pest to be eliminated. This holds true especially if you are an African herding goats and have your herd chewed up periodically by a local lion.

The solution is simple. Shoot it.

While the wolf is a protected species in places you can bet your boots that when a cattleman finds a couple valuable cows chewed up by wolves he's going to take action. Likely he'll pull the varmint rifle down off of the rack and hunt himself a few wolves. Illegal or not, he's going to defend his herd. The wolf will rot in a ravine somewhere.

Shoot, shovel and shut up. Legal or not, the wolves are going down if the rancher has his say. Same holds true for his African counterpart. The difference is that the African herdsman is likely to be compensated for his losses. A professional hunter will take care of the problem for him and make a few bucks to boot, along with taxes and trophy fees. 

Incidentally, people are unaware that elephant meat is eaten in Africa and when someone shoots an elephant it is generally taken to a cannery or given to local villagers to butcher. The meat gets generally eaten.  It does NOT taste like chicken. It is somewhat like moose or elk.

Most other species also provide meat for villagers, too. In many countries the hunter is not allowed to take it with him. It goes to the villagers.

What will likely happen to the big game animals in Africa when hunting stops and the value of the animals drops to nothing is they will be killed off by locals.

While some fool in a city somewhere sees nature and hunting from the point of view he saw when he saw Bambi as a kid, he really has no clue whatsoever. The reality in this world isn't portrayed well by Disney.

While that little girl is being rat-packed by a lot of ignorant people I will admit that as a hunter I have no desire to hunt in Africa.

However, I'm not going to slight her for it.


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One of the things I do when I do business with youngsters

 is make damned good and sure they get paid instantly. While I may wait until I see someone to pay them for something I make it a priority to chase down the kid and pay him off as soon as possible.

There are reasons for that and is that I want to keep a 100% rating with him so he knows I am one of the good guys that says what he means. I want them to want to do things for me and treating them right insures it. Kids like straight shooters.

Once Mrs. Piccolo was having back pains and I was headed to sea. I made arrangements with one of the kids to mow the lawn a couple of times when I was away, making sure he knew he was to be paid by me personally when I got home.

The deal was that at the end of the first week he would give the grass a 'mullet', meaning he would do the front and sides. He was also to do the job when my wife's car was not in the driveway. I didn't want her home when he did the job, preferring to keep my wife busy trying to solve the mystery of the freshly mowed lawn. On the second week he would do the entire thing. He said that $15 would cover it. I figured that the lawn was a 30-45 minute job and this was about right.

I got home at about 8 pm and drove past the house. Seeing a good job done, I glanced as I passed the house and knew the backyard was done. I went straight to his house and knocked and handed him a twenty, explaining the extra $5 was for gas as he had used his family mower.

The kid was elated and until he left for college he made an occasional few bucks here and there, mainly shoveling snow in the winter.

While I am generally militant about getting bills paid, I tend to be a little more militant with paying youngsters as it makes them eager to work for you when you need something done.

Last year I hired a kid to take care of my cat while Mrs. Piccolo and I were away. The kid knew I would take pretty good care of him when we returned and in return the kid took damned good care of my cat. 

His mother told me he'd get up an hour early and run over and feed and play with the cat and right after school he'd make a beeline to my house and play with him for a while and then do his homework at my kitchen table, taking little breaks to play with the kitty.

I paid him a little extra for going above and beyond and you'd have thought I was a real hero.

The kid lives close by and now when I want something done all I have to do is whistle.

It's the little things in life that make it a lot easier.

Update: I wrote this a while ago. Since then I was at sea and got a call from Mrs. Pic asking me about the pile of gravel in the driveway. I had made a deal with someone a while ago and he had paid his end of the bargain by dumping a pile of pea gravel in my pea gravel driveway. I guess I had forgotten about it but he hadn't.

While Mrs. Pic wasn't blocked in completely, it was a nuisance for her.

I made a call to a certain mother and told her to have her son call me. Ten minutes later her son called me and I gave him instructions.

When Mrs Pic got back from her errands I was treated to a call wanting to know who spread the gravel and carrying on about what a good job he had done wanting to know who to pay. I told her I'd handle it.



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I just read where a doctor

 had black woman try and play the race card on him when she found out her co-payment went up.

Apparently she claimed it went up because she was black. 

I do not know why the good doctor didn't show her a picture of the President-the man the health care system is named after- and ask her what color he is. 

That's is most likely what I would have done.



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The legal profession isn't fooling me for a New York minute.

They are pretty much a self-perpuating racket.

One of my favorite yuks is the old saw about the lawyer that moved to a small town and starved.

Then another one moved in and they both got rich.


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Behind every teenage anti-establishment fad you can find a number of fat guys in suits getting rich.

Which I have no problem with.

I remember the sixties with the tune in turn on and drop out attitude running through the country. Every little anti society hippie wore the badges of the era and the anti establishment movement.

Bell bottom jeans were the norm and the Levi's company made quiite a killing as did the various other companies keeping the little tykes in the proper hippie uniform of the day.

Little guys like barbers tended to lose out while the very corporations the hippies claimed to hate got richer.

The music of the era was another important part of the era and the musicians of the time kept the movement supplied both entertainent and anthems for the movement... for a price.

Musicians and record companies waxed fat and there were a lot of kids out there with $1000/ year record habits. It was a lot of money when you consider that a family income of $10,000 a year was considered big money.

Of course the record companies were certainly willing to feed the anti-establishment movement with albums simply because they knew they had a good market to feed.

Right now we have an 'Occupy Wall Street' movement out there bellyaching about the cruelties and unfairness of the system.

Keep your eyes open and watch what happens.

Somewhere along the line you'll see fat guys in suits getting rich off of the movement.



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There is a billboard

 I pass on the way to work that asks people to name seven different kinds of berries.

I can do a little better than that. Here's nine.

Boysenberries

Blackberries

Raspberries

Strawberries

Blueberries

Blackberries

Salmonberries

Cranberries

And 

CHUCK BERRY!!

I miss Chuck Berry. He's 87 years old now and doesn't get around too much these days, but back in the day he played pretty good Old School Rock n' Roll.

And that is all I have to say for today.


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OK, Suzie Q.

 You want to protect children and keep them safe.

You propose doing this by disarming responsible citizens so their firearms can't hurt children. Let's say for sake of argument you manage to do this.

Then what?

The truth is that now children are going to be a whole lot less safe because anyone that feels like it can do as they please without fear of repercussions. Yeah, sure, you can call the law and they'll arrive there after the fact and proceed to scrape up the mess.

There is a name for people that rely on the various police departments for their personal security.

They call them 'victims of violent crimes'.

For some reason there are a lot of people out there that thing they are morally superior for being victims rather than taking responsibility for themselves and their loved ones.

It wasn't long ago when an acquanintance was relative victimized by an assailant that injured him so bad he wound up with a steel plate in his head. The victim said he saw it coming.

I asked him if he felt that being armed might have kept him from being injured.

He replied that had he been armed the situation might have escalated and someone could have been killed.

I told him that if he had escalated the situation with a little firepower he most likely would not be walking around with a steel plate in his head. 

He looked confused.

The truth is that most likely nobody would have been injured had the victim pulled out some firepower. The thug with the pipe that did the hitting most likely would have cut and run.

When someone ups the ante to the point where there is too much for them to lose they generally fold. 

As for protecting children?

I wonder how many people would ever try victimize an armed Mama Bear with her cubs.


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I just read

where some of the politicians in New York are upset that Remington is leaving and setting up shop in Huntsville, Alabama.

They complained that Alabama is stealing from them.

Well, DUH! Whoda ever thought!

Actions have consequences.

The very politicians that are crying about Remington leaving New York after a 200 year run of business there are the very same gang of idiots that passed the SAFE act outlawing a part of Remington's business. I would imagine taxes are a part of this, too.

How stupid can you get?

It would be one thing to run a large company out of the state and stand up to New Yorkers and say "Good riddance" to the company. That's one thing.

It's completely another thing to run them off and stand there agape. The latter is prima facia evidence of stupidity. Any elected official that complains about the Remington move is an idiot and should not be in office to begin with.

Actions have consequences and because the clowns in Albany passed the SAFE act some buisnesses have moved out. What did they expect?

When you interfere with a business and take their ability to make money away from them they move.

Huntsville right now has already started planning for Remington's arrival. The local schools are offering training programs in the machinist trades and gearing up for the opening of the Huntsville plant.

Ilion, on the other hand is likely bracing for a depression.

Of course every liberal knows that poverty and joblessness is a cause of crime. Crime in Ilion will likely rise and the very thing SAFE was designed to prevent will probably be the cause.

Then again what do you expect from New York liberals, anyway?





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Headquarters batteries were generally pretty wild

 but in a different sort of way.

The firing batteries had a lot of basic cannoneers in them which means a lot of average guys. Headquarters batteries had a lot of specialists in them which meant that there was a higher percentage of the best and brightest assigned to it.

A Headquarters battery had surveyors and an Fire Direction Center in it. Along with a commo section and a few other odds and ends.

Surveyors are triangulators and the FDC guys are mathematicians. People that are not artillerymen really do not understand the calculations needed to put a round on target. The math involved is astronomical.

Things like bore wear of the guns themselves, the rotation and curvature of the earth and the gyroscopic motion of the projectile had to be taken into consideration. That's just a small part of it.
I'm not going to get into it here, maybe later.

Still, a headquarters battery tended to field the best and brightest young men that the artillery had.
It demanded the best and brightest officers the artillery had, too.

While the general get drunk and get into a fight downtown sort of thing was not as common in headquarters battery, one has to remember that we are still dealing with young men in their teens or earrly twenties. They were no different than any other group of young men. They raised hell every chance they got. The guys in HHB were a little more imaginative in the hell they raised.

Several years ago I met a German man that had been injured on the Russian front and had been ressigned as a guard at various Stalags. I asked him which duty was the most difficult. He immediately replied that shot down aviators were the most difficult because they were the best and brightest. They never stopped coming up with new angles and escape plans. He said they had to work overtime to keep ahead of them.
It was pretty much the same for HHB types.

When they raised cain it was a lot more imaginative than it was in the firing batteries.

I was going to post what a couple of the guys did one night down town but maybe I shouldn't. I don't know if the statute of limitations has passed.


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Yeah, right. Hillary is the same as we are.

She may fool a lot of other people but she isn't fooling me for a second.

She seems to want to lead us to believe that she's a regular Abraham Lincoln and grew up in a log cabin.

If she's so regular then how come she hasn't gone on some cooking show and shown us how she makes tuna noodle casserole?



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One of the things that irks the hell out of me

It the way some people justify things that are just plain wrong.

Take the clown I met a while ago that is an Occupy Wall Street type. He was bragging about 'sticking it to the man'.

Apparently he had managed to steal some equipment from a telephone truck and bragging about how he had struck a victory for the common man or some other such baloney.

I guess he wanted to brag about how he was some kind of hero.

Of course, this didn't go as well as he had planned.

"So you're standing here bragging about breaking into a parked truck and stealing the tools that some working stiff uses to feed his family. Is that what you're bragging about? You're telling everyone here that you're a common thief, correct?"

He didn't like that very much.

"So you stole some working man's tools and didn't think for a second that he's going to have to report the theft and most likely the poor slob will get in trouble for it," I continued. "What's worse yet is that you're bragging about it."

He hemmed and hawed a bit.

"If someone broke into your house, car, whatever, and stole from you I would never hear the end of it," I continued.

I turned to leave and from the looks of the people around me I knew they were looking at this guy in a different light.

People try justify crimes with all sorts of excuses but the way I see it, if you take something that doesn't belong to you then you are a plain and simple thief.


*********
In other news I just made a QSO with Andorra, an interesting country between Spain and France.

Andorra requires all men between the age of 21 and 60 to either own or have access to a rifle.

They are also the longest belligerent with Germany during WW1. They were not part of the Versailles treaty and technically stayed at war with Germany until 1939.





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One of the things I have seen over the years is professional politicians that seem to move around a lot.

The Clintons seem now to be a New York family of sorts even though Bill was once the governor of Arkansas.

The Kennedys of Massachusetts seem to have gained a foothold in New York a while ago.

It seems that in a politicians career that they try to move around to where they can get their agenda pushed through.

The Founding fathers figured that the people would just send locals to congress for a term or two and then they would return to private life.

Not so anymore. Now we have career politicians.

This $shit just plain ain't right.



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I got my birthday back. The Pentagon can kiss my ass.

Here's part of the back story:I was actually 22 at the time.


I have also sent a form into the Pentagon a couple of months ago and not heard from them.



I found my old battalion is still in service but they are now a training battalion. No guns for them anymore. I also got their phone roster.

Now anyone knows that the key to a successful foray is to recon the AO. I got on the horn to a couple of the various S-1, S-2 and S-3 shops in BnHQ and gave one of them a call. A sergeant answered.

I explained what happened to me forty years ago and asked how to get in touch of the Headquarters Battery First Sergeant. I was informed that the new battalion format had no Headquarters Battery anymore. I would have to talk to the First Sergeant of one of the lettered batteries.

I asked for a suggestion for which battery's First Sergeant to ask for and he told me that he'd ask First Sergeant Gabon and gave me his number. I wrote it down.

I also asked him what the consensus of the Sp/4 Mafia would be in this instance. He told me to stand by a minute and in the background I heard him say, "You gotta hear this guy, Sir. He served in the battalion about 40 years ago. This is funny as hell!"

Less than a minute later he was back and said he handed me off to a Sp/4. I heard the sound of being put on speakerphone and I told him what was going on. He recommended First Sergeant Gabon. Two other voices chorused agreement.

The sergeant took the phone back and asked me why I hadn't called the Sergeant Major and asked him. I told him that my Sergeant Major was the kind of fool that worried about unbuttoned pockets in the middle of a firefight. The sergeant laughed like hell.

"You still know your way around and artillery battalion," said the sergeant. 

"See if you can buy me some time so I can get to Top Gabon before Eagle Six Actual gets wind of this. This is strictly an NCO thing," I said. "I don't want a bunch of officers getting involved and ruining it."

"Wilco," said the good sergeant. "Sir, you DO know your way around an artillery battalion!"

"Household Six thanks you. She's tired of being called a cougar at every family gathering. This ought to fix it," I said.

Two minutes later.


"First Sergeant Gabon," answered the phone.

So I proceeded to tell the First Sergeant the sad tale of woe and the case of the missing birthday and in the middle of the explaination I accidentally called him 'Top' and apologized.

"YOU man call me 'Top'. He said. "It would be an honor! You are making my day." Clearly he was enjoying himself.

"Thank you," I replied.

When I was done explaining how I needed my birthday back for social security and to keep my nephew from calling my wife a cougar and all the other good stuff he laughed.

Then he asked me about what my First Sergeant was like back in the day.

"Short of formal education and full of immense native wisdom," I replied. "And also had the most important qualification of all."

"What is that?" asked First Sergeant Gabon.

"He could easily beat the ever loving holy dog snot out of everyone in the entire battery with one hand tied behind his back." I replied.

"Birthday reinstated," laughed Gabon.

"Thanks, Top!" I said. "Incidentally I did my homework and you were deemed the man for the job."

"Oh?" he asked.

"I called battalion and asked the Sp/4 Mafia which First Sergeant to call and you were the unanimous choice," I said. "I asked for the guy with the biggest fedora and the widest lapels. The sergeant that answered the phone hooked me up with a couple of them."

"The Sp/4 Mafia recommended me? Wow! Thank you," he said.  I knew I had made his day.

"Thank, YOU, Top and have a good day," I said.

"I will, thanks to you," he replied and I hung up.

I now have my birthday back and in a few months I will stop being 22 and become 63 years old.



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A month or so back I wrote the G1 section of the Pentagon

to try and get my birthday back.

Back in the day my First Sergeant took it away from me as a field expedient to get headquarters off of our backs. I was accused of diddly bopping around with my hands in my pockets while trying to fish a quarter out of them to buy a Coke.

Someone gave me a copy of the personnel form and I filled it, sent it in and got no answer. My guess is the Sp/4 mafia opened it and threw it out.

Anyway, I want my birthday back and I guess I'll just have to try another tack. I found my old outfit's address and a phone number to get through to the First Sergeant there.

Right now it is too early to give him a call but I am going to as soon as I can. A First Sergeant took my birthday away from me and a First Sergeant can give it back to me.

We'll see how this one goes.

Stay tuned.  


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Waffles this morning

Every now and than I opt for waffles as they are actually easier than pancakes as my waffle maker is a no stick kind.

I'm up early because a friend of mine needs a hand this morning and I want to make sure I have a good breakfast in me before the action starts.

Running fast this morning.



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Ahh, yes. It's post time.

There is a section in the backyard that I didn't mow and it has been that way for almost a month. I did it for the rabbits that seem plentiful this year.

This year is a summer of rabbits and thistle. Especially the thistle. 

So far it has been a rainy summer and between the rain and shine things are growing. Three days ago I weeded the flower garden and it looks like I'm going to have to hit it again pretty soon.

The thistle has run wild, too. I'm tearing that up and watching it return. I have a friend that lives in a condo and has a little area outside she plants. This year she hasn't been able to and the thistle took over with a vengeance.

For a while the patch looked like something Morticia Addams would grow but the thistle bloomed and it doesn't really look all that awful.

My marigolds are coming along.

I have a few things to do today and I think I'm going to start as soon as I publish today's posts. I have grub to get and some household stuff. The cat hair must go.

 nmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmnj cat across the keyboard.

The little guy is getting pretty slick these days come dinnertime.

I would cook my meal, put it on the plate, feed kitty and run like hell to eat fast so as to keep Kitty from sitting next to me and trying to steal from my plate.

Kitty has gotten slick. He knows his food will be there after he raids my plate so that trick doesn't work very well anymore.

Anyway, that's all for today.



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One of the things I believe is that the more government tries to help the more they hinder.

All they seemed to have done over the past few decades is screw up everything they touch.

Look at Social Security and the mess that it is now. Believe it or not, it was actually working until the early 60s when the Johnson administration plundered it ans spent the entire thing in under two years on failed War on Poverty programs.

The government is totally irresponsible with the money we pay them. As soon as they see a pile of it they immediately look at it and try and find a way to steal it and spend it foolishly.

Generally they give the money to people that are too lazy or stupid to make their own.

Giving money and power to those people in office makes about as much sense as giving teenage boys car keys and whisky.

   


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Happy Sunday morning

I spent yesterday weeding the flower beds which is par for this year. It is going to be a wet summer if things do not change. It is one of those summers where everything will grow but a decent lawn.

Weeding was a bitch. It seems that the thistle are trying to take over the world this year. It would be easier to yank everything BUT the thistle and have an Addams Family garden. I could run around snipping the buds off of the roses also like Morticia Addams did.

The Marigolds look OK but I guess I got the small variety. A couple of years ago I planted from seed and they were like little trees. They were huge.

I suppose that if things stay like this I will have to mow the lawn every four or five days.

Even the deer are a little strange this year. I've seen them running through the yard for no apparent reason. That is a little strange.

I have a few things to do today. One of them is find my cell phone that seems to have mysteriously disappeared. I do not have a good feeling about this. My guess is that it is lost forever but I'll hunt for it today.

As I was writing the paragraph above something came over me. I got up and went over to the couch and lifted the cushion and there it was. Thank God. It must have slipped out of my pocket when I was watching TV with kitty.

I have a canteen cup that's about half full of change that I might cash in today. I'll think about it. Thew last time I did this I wound up with about $50. 

These days have been chilly in the mornings and I have only had one good summer sweat so far.  It makes me wonder about global warming. Global cooling seems to be more like it in the Pittsburgh region. 

One of the things I notice about the hypocrisy in the hippie types is that they want to tell OTHER people what to do. At Lowe's I ran into some hippie chick that gave me an unsolicited lecture on the evils of Roundup weed killer, which I seldom if ever use. I was looking at the ingredients on the bottle when she gave me the lecture.

Anyway I saw her with one of the particularly nasty brands of insect killer in her basket. My guess is that ants give her the heebie jeebies and she found them entering her house.

Two-faced twit. She is what we used to call a D.C.I.T. when I lived in Kodiak. I won't tell you what the acronym means.

ANyway, that's today's post.









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

Yesterday was very hard on me.

Yesterday I wrote about the jerk down the street griping about the construction going on a couple doors down.

Shortly after the old bastard left, the guy renovating the house showed up with a small crew and shortly after a concrete truck showed up and they began pouring a nice looking concrete walkway.

They did a great job but this is where things got hard for me as I have not grown up yet but have to act like I have.

There isn't a man alive that hasn't walked past fresh concrete and wanted to put his initials in it. Men may say they have grown up and put their childish thoughts away but for the most part these men are liars. It is an instinctive thing for men, much like dogs marking their turf on fire hydrants

Of course, a child will do such a thing ans a man won't but they still think about it.

Rather than torment myself I simply went shopping for a few things and when I got home the concrete had likely set up pretty good.

My guess is that they will remove the forms tomorrow and fill in the dug out part with fresh dirt.

This guy is going whole hog on the place but is taking his time. It is going to be worth the wait.


I just found the DVD 'Song of the South' that I was planning on watching. I forgot to take it to work with me as I was planning on watching it at sea. I'll watch it and report on it.

Yesterday I saw a 12 year old kid wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with "A goal without a plan is a dream" which seems pretty cool to see on a kid that age. He's goin' places.

In other gnus, I got a pretty good steak and plan on having it tomorrow night.

That is all.







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

Patience

The old goat down the street was going for his daily walk. I wish he would start his walk in the other direction because he is a pain in the ass.

Anyway he saw me and started griping about the house a couple down and across the street. It's owned by a small time contractor and it is his spare time project, meaning he sweats his ass off every weekend from sunrise to well after dark every weekend.

The old bastard was griping that the guy was taking too long to get the work done.

"Blind and stupid is no way to go through life, Pops," 

He got pretty upset when I sad that and demanded an explanation.

"Ever been in that house since he bought it? I asked.

He hadn't.

The man had gutted it and entirely rebuilt it. New plumbing and new wiring, everything up to snuff and up to code. Outside he had already some some serious landscaping and there is more to come.

All of it First Class work.

I told him that if he couldn't see what the place was going to become he was blind and stupid.

He got angry again. He complained that the guy was taking too much time to get the job done.

"He's a small time contractor," I said. "He works spare time, evenings and weekends and works like a dog. Give him a break."

"Yeah, but,"

"But what?" I interrupted. "You heard someone stole some highway yellow paint from the city again?"

That got his attention because a while ago someone poured about 10 gallons of paint on his lawn. When he cried to me asking why someone would do such a thing I told him that the kids likely did it to give him something to do instead of being a pain in the ass.

He started to get really upset and I pointed out that he would be a wise man to be patient with the contractor and grateful, too. After all, the place could have been bought by a house flipper and would be basically unimproved.

When someone is making your neighborhood better shut up and let him.






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

I am home now and have a bunch of stuff to take care of

Today I will become a plumber and fix a leaking pipe.

 I also have a FUBAR computer to deal with.




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