I just read where about 300 priests are being listed as pedophiles.

I'm not going to get into the pedophilia part here. It's disgusting enough but I can understand part of it. I can't understand the pedophilia part but I can sure understand why pedophiles would gravitate towards the priesthood, scout leadership, youth groups and so on.

All you have to do is remember why Willie Sutton robbed banks.

Willie Sutton robbed banks because that's where the money is. The parishes and youth groups of all sorts are where the children are.

Scouts and other youth groups have had this problem for years and they solved it simply by making it clear that any shenanigans would be reported MOST riki-tik and they'd throw the book at anyone caught. There's also probably a pretty good reason the Cub Scouts have den MOTHERS. 

I guess the church is a different story. I'm sure this kind of thing has been going on for decades if not centuries. The priesthood is a natural place for a pedophile to hide. On top of that the priesthood used to enjoy the trust of practically everyone, Catholic or not.

The part that bothers me worse than the crime is the cover up. 

Penn State had a pedophilia incident with Jerry Sanduski as the pedophile and the great guy, 'Papa Joe' Paterno was covering for that sick bastard. Papa Joe at least had the decency to die when this all came out. He was not a great guy. Great guys do not cover for pedophiles. They expose them. Joe Paterno was no better than Jerry Sanduski.

The Church has been covering for these people for years for no good reason. First they are trying to uphold the integrity of the priesthood and for the past several decades they have been hiding thing to avoid lawsuits. It's been a cowardly approach that has done neither.

Exposing Father Tom and turning him over to the criminal justice system IS going to cause lawsuits and IS going to damage the integrity of the priesthood. Get over it.

An isolated incident is recoverable from and the resulting lawsuits will be expensive but won't really break the bank. That can be recovered from.

People are generally pretty good about things if they are kept on the up and up. While they will want to see Father Tom strung up, they will realize it's an isolated incident and the higher ups in the Church are not tolerating it. Father Tom diddled a kid and now he's off to the slam for the next two decades. Tough.

This also sends out a message to those that would consider committing similar crimes. Get caught and it's off to the joint for a nice, long rest at the Cross Bar Hotel. Most of those that considered something like molesting a kid will think twice.

While it didn't prevent the incident the very fact that the higher-ups sent the bum to jail where he belongs does a lot of good to smooth over things and retain the integrity of the priesthood. It also does a pretty good job of minimizing lawsuits. A lot of people will not bother to sue if they see that justice was served. 

On the other hand, there is nothing worse than a cover-up. The cover-up is generally regarded as being worse than the original crime. It is looked at as the higher-ups condoning and accepting the original crime. The system in effect is saying it is no big thing to let someone molest kids. A cover-up not only exonerates the criminal, it condemns the entire system.

A cover-up brings on a condemnation of the entire priesthood and the Church itself. As I sit here I have seen a couple of posts on another board made by Catholics that are looking for another place to worship. I can't say as I blame them. They look at the entire system and it appears rotten to the core.

How far up the chain it goes I can't say with 100% certainty but if I ventured a guess it probably goes straight to the top. I daresay the Pope is at least aware. The fact that he hasn't publicly come out and condemned these perverts speaks volumes.

If I were to venture a guess I would say that the Pope has kept quiet about this because he has taken the advice of a few cardinals that have been so insulated from the public that they are outright stupid. It's a case of follow the money. They want the Pope to quietly let this slide so as to avoid expensive lawsuits.

Of course, when something like this finally does surface the number of lawsuits will go through the roof. People demand justice. If the criminal system doesn't provide it people will do something else. If the Church covers for these perverts and the criminal justice system doesn't get to work then it's lawsuit time.

Jurors have kids, too and they are just as outraged as anyone else. A jury is probably going to be pretty generous in awarding the Catholic Church's money to the outraged family of a molested child. They will likely pick a number and start adding zeroes until they either run out of paper or get writer's cramp. It's going to really be costly and could possibly bankrupt the Church.

People are going to look at the Church the same way they look at Joe Paterno. They are going to be angry because it has enabled and covered for child molesters which is looked at as a crime worse than murder. A molester has harmed our children. While most people can at least understand the motives for murder, they go completely insane over crimes against children.

I don't think too many people are upset over the fact that the priesthood has a history of drawing perverts. Like my earlier analogy to Willie Sutton, the Church is where the children are.

What makes people go totally rabid is that it looks like the Church has given these people a place to hide.

The Church has brought this on themselves and this is yet another case of you can't fix stupid











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One of the most gracious things I have ever heard about

was the young man that took a family friend to his prom.

He had come home from school one day. His mother was sitting there with a friend drinking coffee and his mother asked him what he was going to do for the prom. He told her he was planning on not attending.

His mom's friend told him he'd be disappointed later on in life if he didn't go and admitted that she had missed her proms and had felt bad about it for years.

The young man actually had a logical reason for not wanting to attend. He figured why waste the time and money going to the prom with someone he wasn't likely to have anything to do with after graduation. I felt the same way back in the day.

Later that evening he was talking to his mother who told her that the family friend had been bothered by not going to her prom.

So the son went over to the friend's house and talked her into going to the prom with him.

Now apparently this young man shares my mischievous sense of humor. He told nobody who he was taking to the prom.

When he showed up with a woman twenty odd years his senior he simply referred to her as 'my date' or 'my girl' and left it at that. She picked up on it and referred to him as 'my sweetie'.

In short they both kept his entire class guessing and the pair of them had a great time.

He never did let the cat out of the bag and the only reason I know about this is because his mother told me about it about twenty years after the fact.

The woman finally got to her prom and I'd bet it's a lot more memorable than if she had gone as a teenager.

The young man's reasoning for not wanting to go in the first place was he didn't want to waste time and money on someone he'd forget about in six months which makes sense.

This way he had a prom memory that would last a lifetime and also fulfilled someone else's dream.

  







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Further adventures in retail stupidity.

I was checking out.

"Phone number, please."

"I don't have one."

"Why don't you have a phone?" she asked.

Nosiness. She was being nosy so immediately I knew God had put here here for my entertainment.

"It was taken away from me," I replied.

"Why? What did you do? she asked.

"For making obscene phone calls to attractive, melon firm young women," I replied.

"Oh, my God! What did those poor women do!?" she said, shocked.

"They invited me over to do what all of the sick, disgusting, twisted, depraved things I said I wanted to do," I replied. "A couple of them lived in an out of the way place I was unable to find so they reported me for being all show and no go so they took my telephone away!"

I heard a voice behind me. "You can call me anytime." I turned and saw it came from a sweet looking little old lady when I looked at her she laughed like hell.

The clerk turned beet red and mumbled something about using the store's phone number, took my money and I left. The old woman was still smiling.

Not bad for off the top of my head. 







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I do beieve today will be a day of mini projects.

Organize the key rack and toss out the unknown or useless keys.

Pick up the odds and ends on the work bench.

Clean out a cold air return.

I think I'll just tackle the dopey little things that just get put off for years or even decades


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The Dog Days of August are upon us.

which is something that happens every year.

I just finished reading a book about the capture of the U-boat U-505 which was captured on the high seas in 1944 by the US Navy.

It was pretty interesting to see how the tide turned on the German U-boat fleet and it really didn't take long. By late '44 the U-boats were no real menace anymore.

Interesting read.

Lately I have been getting my reading from my Kindle for about a buck a book which is a pretty good deal. I can't drive to the library and back for under a buck.







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How not to catch hell for leaving the toilet seat up.

It's really quite simple.

Keep a spray bottle handy and hidden somewhere. A water pistol will work just fine and when you get up to pee in the middle of the night lift the seat, pee and lower the seat. Then take the bottle and soak the toilet seat liberally.

After she sits on a wet seat a few times you won't have to worry about it anymore. She'll start leaving the seat up.



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One of the things I have learned is when to use the telephone

and when to hop into the pickup and do business face to face.

If I really want to get something done I will hop into the pickup, drive down somewhere and do my business in person.

There is a damned good reason for that. It makes it a lot harder for a person to lie to you when you are face to face than lie to you over the phone.

You are far more likely to get things done face to face.


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Policies and useless paperwork create their own problems.

Back when I was in the service I was an armorer for a while. I ran a small arms locker and was responsible for the small arms of an artillery battery.

If anyone went to a range to shoot anything I was there and as a result got to shoot up the excess ammunition. There was sometimes a lot of it and I wore out a few machine gun barrels in the process. I also shot out the bore of my own issued rifle a time or two.

I also threw enough leftover hand grenades to make my arm pretty sore for a few days. That's a lot of hand grenades.

This is because the paperwork to turn in unused ammunition was a real nuisance. It was a whole lot easier to shoot it up. I was also quietly offered a can of it for personal use. I knew better than that. I didn't touch that offer with a ten foot pole. Besides I didn't have a rifle that could us the ammunition. I simply shot it up at the range and we turned in the brass.

This is no real military secret.

Sometimes someone would just ditch a some of the leftovers somewhere. Burying a few cans of ammo somewhere is not unheard of. The people that do this are rarely caught. In fact the only time I ever saw anyone get caught was the time one lieutenant ratted out another (a captain designee, no less)out of jealousy. The squealer had been passed over for promotion and his classmate had been promoted. Actually if I recall correctly the actual crime had something to do with faking paperwork.

Admittedly they are very hard on people where ammunition is involved. The lieutenant and two sergeants were booted out of the service.

Still, It's whole lot easier to ditch stuff than turn it in and when that happens people simply ditch stuff.

Military bases have had this problem for at least a century.

I remember listening to an old timer that was a B-17 waist gunner telling me about chucking ammunition out over the desert gunnery range. "Crates, cans and bandoleers" he said, with a chuckle.

At least back in the day the practice was pretty much limited to basic small arms ammunition and not explosives like grenades which could cause huge problems down the road. I'd venture it's the same way now.

I would imaging that virtually every military firing range probably has something buried in or around it somewhere. 

Over the years I've heard a couple of stories about Camp Perry prior to 1969. Prior to 1969 the National Matches were run by the army and they supplied just about everything. They supplied housing, bedding, ran a mess hall, and even supplied rifles and ammunition.

One guy told me about helping a couple of sergeants bury a small quantity of .45 pistol ammunition and another guy claimed to help bury an unknown quantity of .30 Match ammunition down in the butts somewhere. Both these men were WW2 vets and are now dead and gone.

At Perry I'm sure the practice stopped when people started having to supply their own ammunition simply because it was their personal property and they simply took unfired ammunition home with them.

Today the army only supplies small amounts of ammunition for one or two matches if I am not mistaken. It's generally civilian made match ammunition and very hard to get so they probably are careful with it and account for it carefully. My guess (guess) is they take the leftovers back for use with the marksmanship unit.

I have heard two stories of guys actually digging some of this up. Both got small quantities of .30 Cal Match ammunition and because most of the cans had not rusted through completely most of the ammunition was perfectly shootable. 

One of the guys said that he took all of the cans, rusted or not because he didn't want to leave any evidence behind. He said he ditched the unshootable ammo by burying it in his back yard somewhere. In a way he actually did the government a service by doing this because eventually the government is/was going to have to deal with this one way or the other. What he carted off reduced the eventual problem, at least a little bit.

Still, the fact remains that all of this happens simply because the process of turning it in makes ditching the stuff somewhere a pretty attractive option.

This kind of thing isn't just a military or an ammunition problem. It occurs in a lot of other places, both in government and in the civilian sector. There are any number of things that happen that parallel this headache. 

If someone gets the wrong part in a business it's often a whole lot easier to toss it out and reorder. If the policy says the part must be turned in and there is little paperwork or ballyhoo it's likely the part will be turned and and returned to its source. If the procedure for returning it involves time and trouble the likelihood of the part getting tossed increases in direct proportion the the amount of hassle it takes to do the right thing.

Most people actually do want to do the right thing and will if it isn't really too inconvenient. 

The old saw of 'No Good Deed Goes Unpunished' holds true here. 

Of course every time good deeds are punished, the good deed doers stop doing good deeds. I am guilty of this. I suppose most of us are.

Not a week goes by when I am not telling someone to "Make it easy for me!"

If more people and organizations would make it easier to do the right thing we'd all be better off and more of us would do the right thing.





   




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I bet his galls the hell out of teachers.

Earlier I posted this somewhere else




Earlier today I was talking about teachers and the as usual I pointed out that some of the BEST teachers I ever had all had the same first name It was 'Sergeant'.

Most had never set foot in a college classroom, some had not finished high school and one of the best teachers I ever had was a sharecropper's son that barely finished grammar school.

What brought the subject up was someone told me their kid had a teacher with a lisp of some sort.

One of my NCO teachers had a terrific classic stammer but nobody DARED tease him about it. If you did he would take his stripes off and challenge you to go outside and meet him with no rank showing. Rumor was he had knocked a smartass unconscious with a single punch while earlier. I believe he did.

The true test of a teacher is NOT if he can get you to pass a test and forget about it a week later. The true test is when a person can remember what he taught fifty years later.

Last year one of the younger guys in the neighborhood wanted to learn how to use a compass. I went with him through the basic parts.

For the life off me I had forgotten the memory aid until I recalled Sergeant Clark teach the memory aid.

T-t-t-true
V-v-v-virgins
M-m-m-make
D-d-d-d-dull
Companions.

That one stuck! I do remember he never had a problem with the bigger words.

True
Variation
Magnetic
Deviation
Compass.

It's about converting a compass reading to true or magnetic reading.

Say what you want, but I learned from the BEST.

They could be loud at times, they could be profane at times, they could have a cooling touch to someone that was injured. They would gladly risk their lives and careers for a student if they thought he was worth it and most were.

That being said, I damned well want to know why a guy without even a high school diploma and a bad stutter can take a class of youngsters and turn them into pretty good soldiers in 13 weeks AND how someone with the same educational background can turn those new soldiers into entry level craftsmen able to do their jobs under fire yet the American educational system has 12 years to teach kids to read and graduates kids that can't.

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I see where Governor Cuomo and company have levered the banks and insurance

companies not to do business with the NRA.

There is now a lawsuit against New York which the NRA may very well win. It would mean New York will be on the hook for an awful lot of financial damages which the citizens and taxpayers will be forced to cough up.

Governmental institutions are supposed to stay out of the political fray but have not been for quite some time and it is beginning to show. The FBI running pre election investigations on political candidates, the abuse of the IRS by using them by a standing president to audit opposition are just a few examples of the weaponization of government entities.

It's time that the elected officials be held accountable.

It's not their money that is going to have to be paid out if they lose a frivolous lawsuit. It's OURS. The NY pols will have a lot of 'splainin' to do to the people of NY if the NRA gets a huge settlement. Oh, the irony of it! Governor Cuomo having to cut a huge check to the NRA!

Of course Andrew Cuomo doesn't give a damn if New York loses a humongous lawsuit. Why should he? It's not his money. It's not costing him a dime.

If/when the NRA sues the State of New York the name Andrew Cuomo should be on the list of defendants so if the NRA wins Cuomo has to look forward to moving into a spot under a bridge somewhere after he leaves office.

If politicians could be held personally liable then things would change. They would be a lot less willing to risk taxpayer money.

It would be fun reading a 'from riches to rags' story.


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What constitutes an alcoholic?

This subject has come up several time over the years among the guys over either beers or coffee. 

I have heard numerous definitions and finally I came up with one that actually seems to hold water.

Some people say much of it is not the quantity someone drinks but the reason they drink. For others is is the amount that people drink. For some it is the when and why and others yet put a schedule on it. For example someone that drinks every day.

The Gospel According to Piccolo states that any person that drinks more then their doctor does is an alcoholic.

If your doctor is a hardened quart a day man and you drink a six pack nightly you're OK. If you drink more than a quart of hard liquor a day you have a problem.

On the other hand if your doctor is a teatotaler and you have a beer on July 4th, a glass of wine with Thanksgiving dinner and an eggnog at Christmas he's likely to decree you as a full blown rummy. 

The worst scenario possible is having a recovering alcoholic for a doctor. If that's the case you're in trouble because you are a full blown rummy if you even drive past a liquor store more than once a year.




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I have to be more careful about

fishing a fork out of the sink because if I don't check carefully the first bite of breakfast winds up tasting like cat food.

I did it again this morning.




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Using a good law for a bad purpose

There was a scene in the movie The Man who Would be King  that Sean Connery's character that became a king was holding court and dispensing justice. One of the cases he dealt with was a goat herder that in effect was prostituting out his wife.

The King sentenced the man to whatever and then added another thing to the sentence 'For using a good law for a bad purpose'.

I don't look at a law for how it can be used. I look at it for how it can be abused. The example I use every so often are the state level laws regarding organized crime or RICO laws.

The federal laws are more explicit and not as subject to abuse as some of the state laws are so we can toss them aside.

Most people know what organized crime is. In a criminal organization there is a hierarchy. In the mob it's capos, lieutenants, soldiers etc. In outlaw motorcycle clubs there are officers of various levels. It is actually organized crime and a real criminal organization.

It is clearly not a group of four college students pooling a couple buck to chip in to buy a bag of weed for the big party.

However, one DA tried to wallop a couple of college kids by arguing that the kids had organized themselves to buy an illicit narcotic.

While illegal to buy the weed at the time it was clearly not organized crime. It was youthful stupidity and was probably worth a $100 fine at best.

I heard the judge rightfully tossed the case as he should have. While the jury could have refused to convict, unfortunately juries are ignorant of their duties. They seem to continue to convict people solely on 'a preponderance of the evidence'. This means that juries fail to take into consideration one other thing that is actually their duty, which is 'Does the law apply here in this case?'. 

The fact remains that good laws can be used for bad purposes. 

I am not one for laws but it should certainly be legal for someone to sue the government and government officials personally for using laws enacted in good faith for bad purposes.   


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The woman that run the National Matches

probably do not have asses when the matches are over. That's because they have worked them off.

Over the years I have wandered past the CMP offices after a late night out and have seen them sleeping at their desks or sacked out on the floor of their offices trying to catch a nap before another day of just plain hard times.

They certainly deserve a lot more credit than they get and I remember the year I was signing in and saw some jerk 

Normally I stay out of things but I walked into that one ready to swing. The first words to the clown were, "Hey, Asshole!" and he started to say something before I cut him off with a "Those women  work their asses off to make everyone happy. Give them a break. Shut up or put up and meet me behind the building."

Those women didn't deserve being mistreated simply because some moron didn't get squadded with his buddy pals. 

About an hour later this clown started to rearrange the barracks to suit his taste. 

The guy was griping about the housing assignment people. I started to say something I was interrupted by someone else that had his gear moved and was incensed. So were a couple of other guys and they all rat packed him and he cringed and backed off.

The job of organizing thousands of shooters at several matches is really a chore, either the matches themselves or the housing of competitors. The people that make this work, mainly women are swamped.

Sometimes the job needs a little help and I well remember the time me and an indicted co-conspirator  pranked the girls a bit.

I had someone with me and I took his arm as we entered to register. I was wearing dark sunglasses and carrying a white cane. I was led to the first stop the Sp/4 t the desk took one look at me and offered to fill the forms out for me. Apparently they had been briefed to help the handicapped. I gave her my information and she filled the forms in.

My co-conspirator then led me over to the CMP girl who looked shocked. She asked me if I could shoot without eyesight.

"Last year I hit the target twice," I said cheerfully and added indignantly "Every single one of my rounds landed safely in Lake Erie." 

My co-conspirator added, "His target puller blows an air horn when it's OK to shoot and he shoots at the sound."

She looked dubious.

Just then I lowered my sunglasses. "Shhh..." I said, "I'm just working on my excuse for if I don't do very well this year."

I thought she would die laughing and I know I had made her day and gave he job a little well needed help.








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I did not shoot at Perry this year

which is fine. I have had a myriad of things to deal with this summer, none of which I will get into on a public forum.

For the past couple of years the teams have been using optics, quad rails and the like which is certainly a change. The price of an M-16/AR 15 type service rifle has soared if you want to stay competitive with the teams. The price of the optics alone has exceeded what most of us have put into our entire rifles.

For a lot of us that means we simply can't afford to keep up anymore.

However, those of us that are Old School iron sights shooters are permitted to use our old iron sight rifles which for me is fine. I don't shoot the President's 100 anyway. I'm more of a Garand Match/local club kind of guy. 

I have wondered over the years when the technology duel would seriously begin and sure enough, it happened. I saw it coming a few years back when the services switched to the ACOG systems. These sell on the civilian market for about $1700 a pop. That's more than most shooters have in an iron sighted rcompetition service rifle.

Service rifle shooting was the way to go for someone on a budget which is a part of why I avoided building a serious match rifle or a space gun. Micrometer sights are expensive and so is custom gunsmithing. Out of the box service rifles were much more affordable and a piece out of the box was certainly good enough to take a person to Master or even High Master if one carefully hand loaded.

It is what it is and the ACOGs are actually a pretty good deal for GI Joe as they make it easier for them to engage the enemy which is what military rifle shooting is all about. I can't slight it.

I also have to keep in mind that the CMP has to mirror current service rifle updates because military competitors SHOULD be using what they carry. It's really not right to make service people have to learn how to use antiques to compete in matches that are supposed to reflect current trends.

I suppose I can still compete on a club level with my old iron sighted rifle. Actually I could compete at Perry with it. They do permit irons.

Incidentally the Garand, Carbine, Vintage Sniper and Military Bolt Gun matches still are very affordable. One can get a pretty good shooting Garand from CMP for the thousand dollar range and compete with it.

For what it's worth the CMP Garand match is pretty much a no/low pressure match and is a lot of fun to shoot. A lot of clubs have Garand matches, too.





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Happy last day of July

Tomorrow is going to be August. Where did July go?

The cat is busy checking things out and woke me up a few minutes before five which is OK.

I have made a few changes and seem to actually be sleeping a little better. For one thing I have pretty much eliminated alcohol in any amounts. I did have two beers and not finish the second at Camp Perry with the Marine team. However that was in the very early evening.

I've also been traveling a lot on family business and have been busy this summer. 

Still, I have cut back on my eating and  seem to have lost a little weight. I should get a little more exercise this summer though. 

All in all things are looking pretty good.

It's rather funny about the Marine teams I see at Perry. I have never seen and enlisted Marine get out of line. The only Marine I saw get out of line several years ago was an officer that couldn't keep his mouth shut. 

Someone once asked me why the Marine team usually gets beaten by the Army Marksmanship Unit.

The AMU is a dedicated full time outfit under the Army Recruiting Command. The shooters are there full time polishing their skills.

The Marine team is really only a very small cadre that has other duties at Quantico and the team is augmented by summer pickups that have done well in the Marine fleet matches.

It's surprising that the marines do as well as they do under those circumstances.

Even the years I don't shoot at Perry I make it a point to go and visit the women of CMP the Marine team and a couple of vendors on commercial row that I have known for years.

Visiting the team reminds me that there are a lot of damned fine young people out there and is sure has changed since the early years after 9-11. For several years after 9-11 visiting the team could be a pretty painful thing when I started playing the who do you know and how is so and so doing. There were a lot of casualties early on. It hurt hearing that one of the guys you met the previous year had been torn up or killed.

What is interesting is the attitudes the service people have. Some are trying to climb the ladder and make a full career out of it. Some are planning on getting out.

I actually heard a pair of sergeants griping because they got promoted which sound odd unless you look at their side of it. One was going to leave after his enlistment expired.

Booth agreed that they would have loved to have the option of being career corporals because they loved being team leaders as opposed to squad leaders or platoon sergeants. I can see this.

However the up or out policy makes it impossible. A person get promoted to Staff Sergeant in ten years or less or they get out. I have very mixed feelings on the policy. Back in my day a GI had 12 years to make Staff Sergeant or it was adios.

A couple of years ago I met a Staff Sergeant armorer that said he'd accept promotion to Gunnery Sergeant but that was it. He wanted no part of being a Master Sergeant because that meant the end of his career as a gunsmith. He liked working with his hands and like many people hates paperwork. Master Sergeants in his field administrate and that wasn't his bag.

I can certainly understand that as I am no King of the Filing Cabinet, either.

Many years ago there were career privates and corporals. I read a book by an old Marine that had been run through boot camp by a pair of corporals that both had over twenty years of service. Corporals were bad dudes back then.

I can see the attitude of the two sergeants. They enjoy running small teams of men because they get to know them well.

I can see why one of the two is getting out. He'd be miserable as a platoon sergeant  filling out forms and training schedules. I hope he does well on the outside.



  




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I ought to write a damned book about my shooting career.

But I should not let it get published until after I am dead and gone.







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Missed one

That sucks


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Yesterday fell apart.

Every time I started something it was interrupted.

Nothing got finished.

Oh, well. Today's a new day.



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Maybe today I will actually take in and complete a project.

It probably won't be outside, though because it is raining.

I might write a couple of letters.

I am behind on things and this might be a good day to catch up, although I have a LOT of things to take care of.

Even though I am off work I am a lot busier than I would be at work. 




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One of these days soon

I am going to write a letter to Vladmir Putin and post it here.

I have found one more good reason we should have peace between us and the Russians.


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The TV is on in the background and a lot of is is crap.

If you are going to make something believable then you ought to have your facts straight.

If an aviator in 1943 was shot down and managed to escape with the help of the underground there was no way in hell they were going to let him fly combat missions again.

Also, flyboys were not trained in espionage and other sneaky stuff. 



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Andrew Carnegie is today's subject.

I went to the local library looking for something a while back and being in the Pittsburgh area, the local library simply made a call downtown and got what I was looking for. The called the Andrew
 Carnegie Library and lo and behold, it had what I wanted.

I am not going to get into the side of Carnegie that was pretty tough on building his empire. I am just going to cover a part of what he did as he grew older and realized he couldn't take it with him.

In his later years Andrew Carnegie gave away entire libraries. Between 1883 and 1929 Carnegie gave away 2509 complete libraries both to the public and to universities.

It was his money to do this with and that's what he did with it. I have no problem with that whatsoever. Not one dime of government money was involved. 

Back then a free library was a lot more than it is today. Old Andrew didn't just give away a pile of books when he gave a library. He gave knowledge. Knowledge is power.

Those libraries were open to the public and anyone that wanted to could use them. Before high school and college became attainable those libraries provided a lot of education for the common man. 

They provided incalculable numbers of self educated people and permitted numerous people to better themselves. Some of whom opened businesses or made pay raises for themselves by being more valuable to their employers. No knowing how many fortunes were made by self educated people.

The libraries also provided countless hours of escape and R&R for a lot of people that decided to escape between the pages of a book.

Oh, yeah. For what it's worth. Self education works.

While I didn't use a Carnegie library, I did get my hands on books to study with and passed the necessary tests to earn my Captain's license without ever going to an academy. Later I learned that I could have gotten all of the books I needed at the Carnegie Library downtown.



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Take a look at the parking lots of ship yards and

look at the vehicles. You'll see an assortment ranging from new and expensive to total crapcans.

A lot of the newer expensive cars in the lot are owned by the shipyard workers. They make pretty decent money and they certainly earn it.

Then take a tour of the workers. If you know what to look for you'll see some real talent, especially the fitters.

The fitters are the guys that take a flat piece of steel and turn it into a twisted. curved shape that fits perfectly into a complex on the vessel that's being built. They fit it into shape, tack weld it and carefully leave the proper gaps between the various pieces for the welders to An awful lot of what they do is by eye and it is damned hard work. They're generally paid well for it.

The fitters are followed by the welders. There are skilled welders that actually weld the pieces together. They are skilled, shipyard certified welders that know their jobs. 

The fitters generally come from the ranks of the welders and the welders are occasionally self taught but most come from apprenticeships, community colleges and other sources. I have met a couple that actually came from the federal program called the Jobs Corp. Most come from community colleges or apprenticeships of one form or another, though.

I've met a couple of motivated souls that started as laborers, found someone to teach them and got themselves certified.

It's one hell of a hot, dirty job and generally the people that do this are paid well for their expertise. These are valuable people.

I met one woman that was there welding and asked her what her tale of woe was. I dryly asked her the usual question of "What's a nice young girl doing in a place like this." It was a particularly hot late July/early August miserably hot and muggy day. The area was heavily littered with dozens and dozens of empty water bottles.

She flipped up her mask and showed me a face that needed a good washing and a few smudges of makeup to be quite pretty. She grinned and told me that she had two kids and was married to a jerk and she was tired of living with him just to get the rent paid.

"I don't need his money anymore. I have my own," she said.

"Marry me and I'll take you away from all of this," I said. My voice was oozing with sarcasm.

"No way in hell!" she chuckled. 

A number of these guys were minorities, some were not and almost to a man they were proud of their skills and their abilities. Some were married, some divorced and it was the same assortment of families and family problems you'd see anywhere else.

Let's go back to the parking lot where there was quite an assortment of vehicles. The bulk of them were fairly new and a little on the expensive side. Many of which were owned by the fitters and welders. Some of them were pretty middle of the road and were owned by the apprentices and low end laborers. The crap cans for the most part were owned by the fitters and welders and were second or even third cars. They drove them back and forth to work so as not to get their good vehicles all dirty on the  way home from work. Any of the married men that do this probably own three cars.
One for the wife, a decent car for himself and a beater to get back and forth to work with. 

The shipyards are not alone but they do serve to show people that you don't need a college degree to make a decent living.







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Guest writer today

I saw this on Facebook and there are no copyright issues I know of. 

I found it to be interesting.

The election of Donald Trump has added to the schism in America greatly and has gotten worse. I will admit that Trump is a crude New York real estate mogul but he really isn't a whole lot of the things he is accused of.

The part that really leaves me scared is that many on the left would cheerfully accept a nuclear war if it meant Trump would be booted out. Be careful of what you ask for. Mike Pence is the Vice President. 

I did not write this, I wish I had.

To all the people who let this election break up families and friends let this sink in I think the last civil conversations we had occurred just days before November 8, 2016. You were supremely confident Hillary Clinton would win the presidential election; you voted for her with glee. As a lifelong Republican, I bit down hard and cast my vote for Donald Trump. Then the unimaginable happened. He won.
And you lost your freaking minds.

I knew you would take the loss hard—and personally—since all of you were super jacked-up to elect the first woman president. But I did not imagine you would become totally deranged, attacking anyone who voted for Trump or supported his presidency as a racist, sexist, misogynistic, homophobic Nazi-sympathizer.

The weirdness started on social media late on Election Night, as it became clear Hillary was going to lose. A few of you actually admitted that you were cradling your sleeping children, weeping, wondering what to tell your kindergartner the next morning about Trump’s victory. It continued over the next several days. Some of you seriously expressed fear about modern-day concentration camps. Despite living a privileged lifestyle, you were suddenly a casualty of the white patriarchy. Your daughters were future victims; your sons were predators-in-waiting. You threatened to leave Facebook because you could no longer enjoy the family photos or vacation posts from people who, once friends, became Literal Hitlers to you on November 8 because they voted for Donald Trump.

I admit I was a little hurt at first. The attacks against us Trump voters were so personal and so vicious that I did not think it could be sustained. I thought maybe you would regain your sanity after some turkey and egg nog.

But you did not. You got worse. And I went from sad to angry to where I am today: Amused.
As the whole charade you have been suckered into over the last 18 months starts to fall apart—that Trump would not survive his presidency; he would be betrayed by his own staff, family, and/or political party; he would destroy the Republican Party; he would be declared mentally ill and removed from office; he would be handcuffed and dragged out of the White House by Robert Mueller for “colluding” with Russia—let me remind you what complete fools you have made of yourselves. Not to mention how you’ve been fooled by the media, the Democratic Party, and your new heroes on the NeverTrump Right.

On November 9, you awoke from a self-induced, eight-year-long political coma to find that White House press secretaries shade the truth and top presidential advisors run political cover for their boss. You were shocked to discover that presidents exaggerate, even lie, on occasion. You became interested for the first time about the travel accommodations, office expenses, and lobbyist pals of administration officials. You started counting how many rounds of golf the president played. You suddenly thought it was fine to mock the first lady now that she wasn’t Michelle Obama. Once you removed your pussy hat after attending the Women’s March, you made fun of Kellyanne Conway’s hair, Sarah Sanders’ weight, Melania Trump’s shoes, Hope Hicks’ death stare; you helped fuel a rumor started by a bottom-feeding author that U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley slept with Donald Trump. You thought it was A-OK that Betsy DeVos was nearly physically assaulted and routinely heckled. You glorified a woman who has sex on camera for a paycheck.

You have learned all kinds of new things that those of us who didn’t willfully ignore politics for the past eight years already knew. For example, we already knew that illegal immigrants were being deported and families were being separated.

Some of your behavior has been kinda cute. It was endearing to watch you become experts on the Logan Act, the Hatch Act, the Second Amendment, the 25th Amendment, and the Emoluments Clause. You developed a new crush on Mitt Romney after calling him a “sexist” for having “binders full of women.” You longed for a redux of the presidency of George W. Bush, a man you once wanted imprisoned for war crimes. Ditto for John McCain. You embraced people like Bill Kristol and David Frum without knowing anything about their histories of shotgunning the Iraq War.

Classified emails shared by Hillary Clinton? Who cares! Devin Nunes wanting to declassify crucial information of the public interest? Traitor!
But your newfound admiration and fealty to law enforcement really has been a fascinating transformation. Wasn’t it just last fall that I saw you loudly supporting professional athletes who were protesting police brutality by kneeling during the national anthem? Remember how you fanboyed a mediocre quarterback for wearing socks that depicted cops as pigs?

But now you sound like paid spokesmen for the Fraternal Order of Police. You insist that any legitimate criticism of the misconduct and possibile criminality that occured at the Justice Department and FBI is an “attack on law enforcement.” While you once opposed the Patriot Act because it might have allowed the federal government to spy on terrorists who were using the local library to learn how to make suitcase bombs, you now fully support the unchecked power of a secret court to look into the phone calls, text messages and emails of an American citizen because he volunteered for the Trump campaign for a few months.
Spying on terrorists, circa 2002: Bad. Spying on Carter Page, circa 2017: The highest form of patriotism.

And that white, male patriarchy that you were convinced would strip away basic rights and silence any opposition after Trump won? That fear has apparently been washed away as you hang on every word uttered by James Comey, John Brennan, and James Clapper. This triumvirate is exhibit “A” of the old-boy network, and represents how the insularity, arrogance, and cover-your-tracks mentality of the white-male power structure still prevails. Yet, instead of rising up against it, you are buying their books, retweeting their Twitter rants and blasting anyone who dares to question their testicular authority. Your pussy hat must be very sad.

But your daily meltdowns about Trump-Russia election collusion have been the most entertaining to observe. After Robert Mueller was appointed as Special Counsel, you were absolutely convinced it would result in Trump’s arrest and/or impeachment. Some of you insisted that Trump wouldn’t last beyond 2017. You quickly swallowed any chum tossed at you by the Trump-hating media on MSNBC, the New York Times and the Washington Post about who was going down next, or who would flip on the president.

For the past year, I have watched you obsess over a rotating cast of characters: Paul Manafort, Donald Trump, Jr., Jared Kushner, Carter Page, Reince Priebus, Jeff Sessions, Michael Flynn, Steve Bannon, Sam Nunberg, and Hope Hicks are just a few of the people you thought would turn on Trump or hasten his political demise. But when those fantasies didn’t come true, you turned to Michael Avenatti and Stormy Daniels for hope and inspiration. It will always be your low point.
Well, I think it will be. Each time I believe you’ve hit bottom, you come up with a new baseline. Perhaps defending the unprecedented use of federal power to spy on political foes then lie about it will the next nail in your credibility coffin.

The next several weeks will be tough for you. I think Americans will learn some very hard truths about what happened in the previous administration and how we purposely have been misled by powerful leaders and the news media. I wish I could see you as a victim here, but you are not. I know you are smart; you chose to support this insurgency with your eyes wide open.

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Actually it's CAPTAIN Piccolo, thank you very much.

The Coast Guard changed the license format some years ago but there is an old certificate type hanging on my wall. The other kind is in my travel bag.

It says: License to U.S. Merchant Marine Officer on it along with the various motor, steam and sail vessels I am authorized to operate. To put a fast point on it, I am Captain Piccolo.

I don't sail as an officer on the authority my license, I sail under the authority of my document as a rating. My choice.

I did not have rich parents with political connections so King's Point was not an option, and neither were any of the state Merchant Marine academies. I earned my license as what is called a 'Hawsepiper'. 

After I moved from Alaska to where there are no commercial fishing jobs I found the opportunity to sail on tugs as an ordinary seaman.

As soon as I got aboard the tug I started scouting around and seeing what I could do to increase my short money wages.

The opportunity was there and I went for it.

In a little less than a year I was no longer an ordinary. I was an Able Seaman with a Tankerman's endorsement and I was off the tugs and onto an oil barge moving oil. My income had more than doubled.

A couple months after that I sat for my Captain's license and became Captain Piccolo. I sailed on my license a couple of times but opted to stay on barges moving oil. It fit me better. There was less stress and it is actually kind of fun and the money is pretty good. I'm reasonably content.

There were six of us that were hired together. Over the years some of us run into one another. Let's look at the six.

Two have left the industry for greener pastures, leaving four of us still sailing. I have done what I am doing so that leaves three to account for. One has done quite well and is running a huge tug for another company, leaving two to account for.

The remaining two are still entry level ordinary seaman that are miserable and behind my back call me a brown noser and a kissass because I have gotten ahead and they have not after more than a quarter century in the industry.

Let's look at those two and look at the difference between us.

On my first trip I spoke with captains and crewmen and found out the options I had in the business. The didn't, being satisfied to watch TV and loaf during their off-watch times.

The captain and mate let me have the run of the books and other publications on the tug and I spent my off watch time with my nose in a book. When the trip ended and I was at the office I wandered in and asked a port captain for some advice and he handed me several books to study and told me there was opportunity. I took the books home with me and studied at the kitchen table.

I also sent out copies of sea time request forms along with an SASE to every single skipper I had ever fished with in Alaska.

Mutt and Jeff were spending their off time at the club putting dollar bills into Bubble's thong or pounding down draught beer at Moe's.

When I returned to work after my three weeks off I returned the books and was handed another pile of books. I was told to keep about half of them. It should be carefully noted that all of this cost me nothing. The port captain said he was glad to help.

After my second tour on the tug I requested a letter of service. When I got home there were several sea service forms waiting me and it was road trip time to the Coast Guard exam office where I sat for and passed my lifeboatman endorsement. I was still an Ordinary but had the hard part of the Able Seaman's test behind me.

Meanwhile Mutt and Jeff were smokin' and jokin' and when they found out I was a Lifeboatman they laughed at me and said I was wasting my time. Meanwhile Bubbles at the club got richer. 

A month later the company opened a tankerman training program for tankerman and I applied but found out I was ineligible because I had not worked there long enough. I asked to take the basic math test saying that the next time the program opened it would save time. They agreed.

I sat down and carefully worked each problem several times and wound up getting 100%. Based on the fact that I was the only person that took the test that maxed it I was granted a waiver and a month later I was in the classroom. Note that I was being paid to attend class.

When I finished the classroom part I went to the Coast Guard exam center and tested not only for tankerman but also for Able Seaman. I had studied for AB on my own at home and during off watch.

I took a battery of tests, did well and now had an AB/Tankerman ticket. and following a couple of training tours I was released and my paycheck instantly doubled. Mutt and Jeff said I was a brown noser and a kiss ass. 

Two months later I arranged all of my sea time and other paperwork and sat for a limited captain's license. I was now Captain Piccolo.

While I only sailed on the license a couple of times I keep it renewed in case I want to use it for something. I sail under the authority of my AB/Tankerman's ticket and I have had a pretty good career.

I found a spot, saw opportunity and took advantage of it.

Mutt and Jeff after over a quarter century are a pair of very bitter men that constantly gripe that it's not fair that they are still chipping paint, mopping floors and cleaning heads. Yet neither of those two have bothered to take advantage of the opportunities open to them.

Meanwhile Bubbles has taken the money they put in her G-string and went to hairdresser school and has since opened her own styling salon. 

I wrote this because someone was pointing out the age old wage disparity situation where the CEO makes a bundle and the lower entry people make very little. 

People with brains and initiative generally don't last very long in entry level jobs. They take the initiative and go places.

People may laugh at working at MacDonald's but it's a lead pipe cinch that many managers and franchise owners started out flipping burgers for peanuts and are now doing pretty well. 









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Did you bring enough gum for everyone?

asked my homeroom teacher when I was in 8th grade.

"Whadda you anyway, some kind of communist off-brand type?" I shot back. "Everyone in this class can go out and rake leaves and make money so they can buy their own gum."

He turned purple and immediately gave me a detention, of course.

When the last student left the room for the busses to go home he looked at me.

"You were 100% right," he said. "And no, I am NOT a communist. I will never again ask a student if he brought enough for everybody. Still, you can't chew gum in class."

He never did that I remember and he let me go right after the last bus pulled out.

I walked out, crossed the street and stuck my thumb out. As luck would have it the person that stopped to pick me up was headed to Scituate Harbor and made a minor course change and dropped me off at the bus stop.

I was there long before the bus got there and walked the last quarter mile.





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Whoops!

Almost missed a day!



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We spend a fortune on special education and nothing

on the talented and truly gifted kids.

It's a shame and in a way by doing so we are reinforcing failure. The slow kids are really not going to do very well no matter what we do or how much we spend on them. It's a plain and simple fact of life. A kid with an IQ of 75 can only do so much. All the money in the world isn't going to change that one iota.

While I am not against having Special Education teachers train these kids to be as good as they can be it's really unfair and simple bad business to hold the truly talented back.

It is the truly talented that are the ones that will find a cure for cancer, open up space, invent a longer lasting low energy light bulb and in general make huge contributions to the planet.

Instead we leave these kids in a classroom held back and bored to tears instead of letting them simply run and go as far as their talents can take them.

A lot of schools have so-called 'Advanced Placement' classes for those that are in, say, the upper 10 or 15% which is fine. However I am not looking at those kids, I am looking at the maybe top 2%, the truly exceptionally sharp youngsters.

These are the kids we should yank out of the traditional school system and let them learn as much as they can and as fast as they can. If some young genius can learn calculus in second grade then let him. Don't hold him or her back! Let them run!

Leaving some truly brainy kid in a normal classroom is a waste. It wastes talent and quite often stifles it. There are probably a quite a number of truly talented kids that get bored and start acting up. Can't say as I blame them. I'm sure that some of them grow so bored they simply drop out of school.

I say that we ought to stop worrying about the slower kids and instead of spending pies of money to prop up individuals that really are not going to go anywhere that we take a little money out of Special Education and plow it into the truly brilliant.

It's a damned good investment that should pay excellent returns as opposed to Special Education that doesn't have nearly the return rate.










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I guess I am just a 128th of an inch to the left of anarchy.

A of of the laws we are subjected to are pure unadulterated bull$hit designed to take money out of our pockets.

A while back they lowered the limit to .08 and found that there was no difference in traffic accidents between the new .08 and the old .10. instead of putting it back they left it at .08. They did this for revenue generation purposes. That's a crock.

Nobody has a right to endanger the public so we do need laws to keep drunks off of the streets. It's fairly inarguable. Drunk drivers kill a lot of people.

Now let's define drunk driving.

The way I see it, drunk driving is just that. You are impaired, behind the wheel of a car in gear with the engine running on a public thoroughfare. You are actually operating a vehicle on the road while being under the influence. Fair enough.

Now let's look at what drunk driving is not.

It is not a person sacked out in the back seat sleeping it off. Actually this tends to create drunk drivers because if one stands to get a DUI for sleeping there he really ought to get the hell out of there and get home where he can sleep with no fear of being arrested.

It is not some guy on a lawn tractor mowing his lawn no matter how drunk he is. He's on private property and is harming nobody. He is only a danger to himself which is none of the government's business. He is creating no clear and present danger to the public.

If two people under the influence are in the cab of a pickup they are not both drunk drivers. There can only be one driver. The other person is a passenger. The passenger is committing no crime. Yet that's the law in one state.

Much of what passes for drunk driving is not. 

The old line of 'keys in the ignition' means little or nothing. It does not prove intent and even intent really means little. A case of someone sleeping in the back seat with the keys in the ignition really is evidence that the person was making a fairly honest effort not to endanger the public. He doesn't need to be arrested. He needs to be left alone so he can get some sleep. Yet in a lot of states he's going to be carted off to the pokey.

While I am using the current DUI laws as an example, a lot of this attitude carries over to other things. Many laws are just used to generate revenue. Seat belt laws are a pretty good example. The public is in no way endangered if someone doesn't want to wear a seat belt. Maybe the driver is, but it ought to be his choice.

If government needs the money than either stop spending (preferable) or honestly raise taxes. 









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Yesterday was a mess.

I was home earlier and in a mean funk. My neighbor had the day off and came by and offered to take me for a tour which I accepted.

We were about 35 miles and stopped for a bit. When we started up there was a loud thunk and voila! A ball joint broke.

He had AAA which wound up saving him a bundle as we needed a tow.

Anyway, it looked pretty grim as neither of us could figure how the driver was going to be able to get the pickup on the flatbed without tearing up everything.

I'll be damned but the driver pulled out a couple of pieces of 2x4s and between that, a floor jack and the way he operated the truck itself he got it on board without a single scratch much less a torn up fender.

It was a joy to watch such a fine craftsman and when he was done I dryly asked him if he had learned how to load damaged vehicles at Harvard. I said I didn't know that Harvard taught such craftsmanship.

He beamed.

Most people  don't see things with the same eye that I do. They don't understand things like weight distribution, friction and the like. A lot of people only know shuffling papers and think that people that do things like run a flatbed are of lower intelligence.

There are not a whole lot of people coming out of college that have the ability to run a piece of machinery that well and we certainly need people like that.

As usual, the 'My son's going to college' set doesn't respect those that decide to make their careers doing skilled things and sometimes look down on those that do.

This country needs fewer woman's dance studies majors and more skilled craftsmen. We have a shortage of vo-tech schools out there. The ones we have range from excellent to dismal.

My guess is the excellent vo-tech schools out there don't spend as much time teaching specific trades as they do craftsmanship.

A craftsman can generally pick up a trade with minimal instruction.

The guy running the flatbed truck could probably pick up a hammer and Skilsaw and do a pretty good job of building himself a halfway decent place to live if he decided to. He understands craftsmanship and understands that a house is simply a bunch of parts that are assembled. He'd probably make a few mistakes along the way but when he was done he'd have a pretty good house to live in.

While a lot of people don't have the aptitude for that kind of work, many do and a lot of these people wind up in college and find themselves deep in hock with a useless degree hanging on their wall.

While we certainly need engineers, scientists, mathematicians and the like, we also need hands on guys that can actually do things. There is nothing wrong whatsoever with someone working with their hands.

We really don't need any dance studies majors or underwater basket weavers, though. 

As for the guy complaining that he couldn't get a job with a Master's in puppetry we can simply say that you can't fix stupid. 








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

Hmmm....

So we begin another day.

The deer are out back and have just left having eaten a few things. No problem here. They leave the flowers alone and that makes it fine by me.








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

Started the day off chasing DX

to no avail as things are dead now.

DX lately has been spotty because we are on the downside of the solar cycle. Better days are coming.

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Last night I got asked to get a propane bottle filled for a neighbor and I will. She's a good neighbor has always been helpful.

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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

Something came up and it occurred to me

that during my lifetime there were still a few surviving Civil War veterans.

I do remember a few Spanish American war vets and quite few WW1 veterans.

Of course, my parents were part of the WW2 generation.

Still, it shows we are not all that far removed from the Civil War as we think. In my lifetime I could have shaken the hand of a Civil War vet.


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