out there ask me for stuff that they have no business asking me for.
Tonight I went to a K-Mart for a pair of sneakers and at the register the cerk asked me for my telephone number.
It is none of their business so I decided to have a little fun.
"I'm flatterred you want to go out with me. I'm three times your age, you know."
She looked startled. "I don't want to go out with you," she snapped back.
"Now you broke my heart!" I replied.
"What made you think I wanted to go out with you?" She asked.
"You asked me for my phone number. I figured you were going to call me after you got off of work," I replied.
"No. The STORE wants your phone number. I'm supposed to put it into the register," she explained.
"Well, I'm sorry. I don't have one," I said, aplolgetically.
"You don't have a phone number?" she asked, dubiously. "Everyone has a phone number."
"Well, I don't," I replied.
"Why not?" she asked.
"The judge took it away from me for drunk driving," I said, sadly.
"When my daddy got taken up for that they took away his driver's license," she said, "But he got to keep his phone."
"Oh, yeah. That musta been it. They took away my driver's license for drunk driving," I replied. "I guess they took away my telephone number for talking drunk on it."
"They can't do that," she said.
"Then how come I don't have a phone number?" I asked.
"Well, I guess you don't get to use your K-Mart customer card," she said.
"I guess not."
Just then my cell went off and I fished it out to see who it was. I saw it was a call I could answer a little later.
"I thought you said you didn't have a phone," she said, indignantly.
"I have a phone, I just don't have a phone number," I said.
"Then how do people call you if you don't have a phone number?" she demanded.
"I don't know, they just do," I shrugged. "I guess they just use their phone numbers or maybe they share theirs with me. Who knows?"
Then I paid for my sneakers and left.
The woman behind me looked like she was having one hell of a time not busting out laughing.
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
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
Monday, June 10, 2013
A while ago I read where some guy with a swastika tattoo
said he didn't want black nurses tending to his newborn.
OK, the man is a bigot but this is the United States and you can still be as ignorant as you want. If it was against the law to be ignorant than the jails would be stuffed cram pack full of liberals and other people that do not know how to count.
I guess because this guy was tattooed with a swastika has a lot to do with why everyone is upset. I suppose this might not be as big an issue if the guy was in a suit or something.
First of all the man was in his rights. Woman refuse to be attended by male OB/GYNs all the time and nobody gripes about that.
Secondly there is supposidly a patient bill of rights and a person is permitted to refuse service for any reason they want. I'm OK with that. You have the right to choose who you want to perform a medical proceedure on you and it isn't the job of the government to say otherwise.
My Primary Care doctor is a white male simply because he was on the list and was nearby so I tried him out and he has been pretty good to me over the years. He's sent me to a number of different specialists of different races over the years and I have not found one of them that made me uncomfortable.
On the other hand, actions have consequences and I have covered this before. When you base entry into schools on anything other than excellence you make a lot of people wonder.
Over the years there have been a lot of minorities that have gotten into colleges and medical schools because they happend to have been able to hop on the minority band wagon.
Actions have consequences.
I say this time and again that setting aside quotas for minorities is an insult to a race and it debases the minorities that get in there and compete successfully. This is because those that got into a school simply because of their minority status are not really trusted by a lot of people, including other minorities.
Nobody wants to have second rate care of any sort, especially medical care. People will often see a minority health care professional and wonder if they were one of those second-bests that got into their position because of political correctness instead of competency.
While the guy with the swastika tattooed on him is likely a plain and simple bigot and just doesn't like blacks I'd bet there are a lot of people that try steer clear of minority health care professionals because they don't want to risk being seen by someone that might be second rate.
You can't really blame them. I'd bet that an awful lot of the politically correct people out there change their tune when their health or the health of their loved ones enters the equation.
Frankly I really don't care who works on me if they're competent. It was an Indian that saved my life once and I cheerfully bust his chops and call him an American Indian.
One time I did this and got a lecture from some dumb tech that called me a bigot and chewed me out for being politically incorrect. I told her to shut the hell up and go find some other place to stick her nose. My doctor 'bout like to die laughing as she stormed out in a huff.
When she returned the doc told her that bigots seldom send people they don't like green T-shirts and pints of Jameson's two days before St. Patrick's Day. (I had done this a week earlier) She turned beet red when he said that.
Still, to be honest he came recommended by my primary care doctor and I know he weeds the hacks, quacks and butchers out before he sends me to someone. If he sends me to a minority than I know the specialist is good.
If I had to pick my own doctor I do not know what I would do. Likely I would ask around the nurses because they know. In fact I suppose my neighbor, Nurse Connie would be the first person I asked.
While I certainly would not refuse a doctor based on race, I will admit that I would ask around about a minority to make sure he was competent and not someone second-stringer that got into college on a set-aside minority slot.
If I find out that he's a first-stringer, I'll hire him in a heartbeat no matter what he is.
I can't blame anyone else for doing the same thing.
Then again if we'd pursue excellence instead of pandering to the politically correct set this tattooed guy wouldn't really have too much of a leg to stand on and would truly look as ignorant as he is.
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
OK, the man is a bigot but this is the United States and you can still be as ignorant as you want. If it was against the law to be ignorant than the jails would be stuffed cram pack full of liberals and other people that do not know how to count.
I guess because this guy was tattooed with a swastika has a lot to do with why everyone is upset. I suppose this might not be as big an issue if the guy was in a suit or something.
First of all the man was in his rights. Woman refuse to be attended by male OB/GYNs all the time and nobody gripes about that.
Secondly there is supposidly a patient bill of rights and a person is permitted to refuse service for any reason they want. I'm OK with that. You have the right to choose who you want to perform a medical proceedure on you and it isn't the job of the government to say otherwise.
My Primary Care doctor is a white male simply because he was on the list and was nearby so I tried him out and he has been pretty good to me over the years. He's sent me to a number of different specialists of different races over the years and I have not found one of them that made me uncomfortable.
On the other hand, actions have consequences and I have covered this before. When you base entry into schools on anything other than excellence you make a lot of people wonder.
Over the years there have been a lot of minorities that have gotten into colleges and medical schools because they happend to have been able to hop on the minority band wagon.
Actions have consequences.
I say this time and again that setting aside quotas for minorities is an insult to a race and it debases the minorities that get in there and compete successfully. This is because those that got into a school simply because of their minority status are not really trusted by a lot of people, including other minorities.
Nobody wants to have second rate care of any sort, especially medical care. People will often see a minority health care professional and wonder if they were one of those second-bests that got into their position because of political correctness instead of competency.
While the guy with the swastika tattooed on him is likely a plain and simple bigot and just doesn't like blacks I'd bet there are a lot of people that try steer clear of minority health care professionals because they don't want to risk being seen by someone that might be second rate.
You can't really blame them. I'd bet that an awful lot of the politically correct people out there change their tune when their health or the health of their loved ones enters the equation.
Frankly I really don't care who works on me if they're competent. It was an Indian that saved my life once and I cheerfully bust his chops and call him an American Indian.
One time I did this and got a lecture from some dumb tech that called me a bigot and chewed me out for being politically incorrect. I told her to shut the hell up and go find some other place to stick her nose. My doctor 'bout like to die laughing as she stormed out in a huff.
When she returned the doc told her that bigots seldom send people they don't like green T-shirts and pints of Jameson's two days before St. Patrick's Day. (I had done this a week earlier) She turned beet red when he said that.
Still, to be honest he came recommended by my primary care doctor and I know he weeds the hacks, quacks and butchers out before he sends me to someone. If he sends me to a minority than I know the specialist is good.
If I had to pick my own doctor I do not know what I would do. Likely I would ask around the nurses because they know. In fact I suppose my neighbor, Nurse Connie would be the first person I asked.
While I certainly would not refuse a doctor based on race, I will admit that I would ask around about a minority to make sure he was competent and not someone second-stringer that got into college on a set-aside minority slot.
If I find out that he's a first-stringer, I'll hire him in a heartbeat no matter what he is.
I can't blame anyone else for doing the same thing.
Then again if we'd pursue excellence instead of pandering to the politically correct set this tattooed guy wouldn't really have too much of a leg to stand on and would truly look as ignorant as he is.
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
Sunday, June 9, 2013
I wish the NAACP would just simply go away
because it has done it's job and is now just being a pain in the ass.
Call me whatever you want. I don't care anymore.
The organization was started with a pretty noble purpose.
"To ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination" is the mission statement I just got out of the Wikipedia people and I have no reason to doubt it.
I would have to say it has suceeded and should fold up, say "Mission accomplished" and dissolve leaving a pretty good legacy behind to be looked at by historical scholars.
Until somewhat recently they have done the black community a great service of busting through an awful lot and maybe we wouldn't be where we are without them. Historiaclly they have accomplished a lot.
But I guess that would mean that the leadership would have to go back to being anybodies again and once you have had a place of power you simply don't want to quit.
These days the organization seems not to have anyone out there in any numbers to say is persecuting blacks. Proof is that we now have a black man in the White House.
If all of this bigotry was still there we wouldn't have a black president.
OK, yes. There are still a few bigots out there and there will always be until we do away with stupid which isn't going to happen in the forseeable future. If we outlaw it the jails will be so full there will be nobody aavailable to guard them.
When a group forms to accomplish a mission and does there are generally a lot of people left over that stand around looking at each other asking 'what's next?'. The next step is what is popularly called a re-invention. The NAACP seems to have started in on this and the reinvention doesn't look very good.
A group that was fighting for equal rights and dignity in the workplace seems now to have embraced the Free $hit Army and seems more interested in taking from the populace that adding to it.
It wasn't very long ago that the group was supporting the dignity of work and being justly and equally rewarded for it and that in itself is a noble thing. It also extolled to their membership the need for being responsible in their daily lives and the need to set an example by contributing to the nation as a whole so as to be noticed as good people.
Over the past decade or so they seem to have changed and made somewhat of a point to make sure their membership gets their free $hit from government. In short it appears to me that they have stopped contributing and started collecting.
A decade or so ago I would watch the NAACP take on the cause of a person that had truly been treated unfairly. Generally the person was clearly in the right and was a decent human being with no impeachability. He or she would have all of the proper credentials and a pretty clean record.
Ever since they let Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton darken their door they seem to have been supporting some runny-nosed little hype or another. I haven't seen too many good people that have been shafted being defended recently.
Actually the NAACP isn't the only one that has accomplished their mission. There are a lot of them.
MADD is another one. They campaigned for passage and enforcement of drunk driver laws. The purpose, of course, being to make the streets safer. Founded in 1980 by Candice Lightner it grew and in short order it managed to get the mission accomplished.
Drunk driving laws were enacted and strongly enforced. They still are, yet after it had done what it set out to do it became much closer to a neo prohibitionist group that really does little to make the public any safer. In fact, Lightner-the very founder of the group- left the organization after its mission was accomplished after the organization reinvented itself.
The NAACP seems to be paralleling this because instead of folding itself up they have shifted focus and are now supporting causes designed to create what they wanted to stop in the first place.
Recently they have taken up the cause of justice for Treyvon Martin, a black teenager that was shot after apparently assaulting a Hispanic male. The initial investigation cleared the shooter, George Zimmerman who was brought up on charges after pressure from the NAACP and Al Sharpton among others.
The NAAACP should not have touched that case with a ten foot pole. Martin wasn't clean to begin with, but since the case crossed racial lines they jumped right in.
They ought to simply sit down, shut up and either shut down or go on standby mode instead of looking for problems or creating them where they do not exist.
People are getting pretty tired of them whipping out the race card and all they are doing is creating what they were designed to stop.
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
Call me whatever you want. I don't care anymore.
The organization was started with a pretty noble purpose.
"To ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination" is the mission statement I just got out of the Wikipedia people and I have no reason to doubt it.
I would have to say it has suceeded and should fold up, say "Mission accomplished" and dissolve leaving a pretty good legacy behind to be looked at by historical scholars.
Until somewhat recently they have done the black community a great service of busting through an awful lot and maybe we wouldn't be where we are without them. Historiaclly they have accomplished a lot.
But I guess that would mean that the leadership would have to go back to being anybodies again and once you have had a place of power you simply don't want to quit.
These days the organization seems not to have anyone out there in any numbers to say is persecuting blacks. Proof is that we now have a black man in the White House.
If all of this bigotry was still there we wouldn't have a black president.
OK, yes. There are still a few bigots out there and there will always be until we do away with stupid which isn't going to happen in the forseeable future. If we outlaw it the jails will be so full there will be nobody aavailable to guard them.
When a group forms to accomplish a mission and does there are generally a lot of people left over that stand around looking at each other asking 'what's next?'. The next step is what is popularly called a re-invention. The NAACP seems to have started in on this and the reinvention doesn't look very good.
A group that was fighting for equal rights and dignity in the workplace seems now to have embraced the Free $hit Army and seems more interested in taking from the populace that adding to it.
It wasn't very long ago that the group was supporting the dignity of work and being justly and equally rewarded for it and that in itself is a noble thing. It also extolled to their membership the need for being responsible in their daily lives and the need to set an example by contributing to the nation as a whole so as to be noticed as good people.
Over the past decade or so they seem to have changed and made somewhat of a point to make sure their membership gets their free $hit from government. In short it appears to me that they have stopped contributing and started collecting.
A decade or so ago I would watch the NAACP take on the cause of a person that had truly been treated unfairly. Generally the person was clearly in the right and was a decent human being with no impeachability. He or she would have all of the proper credentials and a pretty clean record.
Ever since they let Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton darken their door they seem to have been supporting some runny-nosed little hype or another. I haven't seen too many good people that have been shafted being defended recently.
Actually the NAACP isn't the only one that has accomplished their mission. There are a lot of them.
MADD is another one. They campaigned for passage and enforcement of drunk driver laws. The purpose, of course, being to make the streets safer. Founded in 1980 by Candice Lightner it grew and in short order it managed to get the mission accomplished.
Drunk driving laws were enacted and strongly enforced. They still are, yet after it had done what it set out to do it became much closer to a neo prohibitionist group that really does little to make the public any safer. In fact, Lightner-the very founder of the group- left the organization after its mission was accomplished after the organization reinvented itself.
The NAACP seems to be paralleling this because instead of folding itself up they have shifted focus and are now supporting causes designed to create what they wanted to stop in the first place.
Recently they have taken up the cause of justice for Treyvon Martin, a black teenager that was shot after apparently assaulting a Hispanic male. The initial investigation cleared the shooter, George Zimmerman who was brought up on charges after pressure from the NAACP and Al Sharpton among others.
The NAAACP should not have touched that case with a ten foot pole. Martin wasn't clean to begin with, but since the case crossed racial lines they jumped right in.
They ought to simply sit down, shut up and either shut down or go on standby mode instead of looking for problems or creating them where they do not exist.
People are getting pretty tired of them whipping out the race card and all they are doing is creating what they were designed to stop.
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
Saturday, June 8, 2013
Well, let's go into a mine field and open a real can of worms.
Right now one of the things that is in the news is the number of sexual assaults in the services. As usual congress is going to direct the services how to eliminate them and as usual congress is likely to screw things up to a fare-thee-well.
There is no excuse for a sexual assault and it is as simple as that. None. Saying that a woman asked for it is blaming the victim. OK, we have that established.
Women in the service were fairly rare until about 35 or 40 years ago. Now they are pretty much a part of the wood work and most of them do a pretty good professional job according to a lot of people I have spoken with over the years.
My experience with the fairer sex back in the day was likely more limited than the GIs of today. Mostly there were commissioned nurses, enlisted administrative types, a couple of commissioned administrative types and Katie who was a horse of a different color.
Katie doesn't count. She was a character and one of a kind. God love her. The woman had the heard and soul of a grunt but was a mechanic and was damned good at it.
Most of the female soldiers I dealt with at the time I had brief contact with. If I had to have an administrative thing taken care of or a payroll problem I would sometimes have a female soldier take care of it.
Because I was sometimes sent to Central Issue facility as an errand boy I would deal with female soldiers there. I remember one that was pretty professional and easygoing at CIF and she was pretty good about helping me square up property issues.
She was there when I cleared post and saved me an awful lot of grief when I went to turn my stuff in. I wound up clearing CIF in a few minutes instead of it taking hours like it generally did.
I'd done her a couple of simple favors and got paid back in spades. I think that over the time I knew her I had dropped off a couple of cans of coffee and gotten her some damned thing she needed. I don't remember what it was but I do remember she was grateful.
I was pretty unaware of sexual assaults back in the day. Not because they didn't happen. They did. I was simply in an all male artillery unit and didn't think about it at all.
As to be expected there were a few rumors floating around about this female soldier or that one. Most of the rumors about some of these women were pretty raunchy. This isn't one-sided. It is interesting to note that there were a number or respected women in the admin offices and the guys stuck up for them.
I had to deal with a maintenance company from time to time and there were a number of women assigned there. While most were respected a lot of them were considered to be shammers that hid behind their sex to get out of things they didn't want to do.
This wasn't limited to the maintenance company. A friend I went through basic with was at Carson and we met and he and his friend said that at the time there were a number of women that were shammers. When it came to anything but office work they were full of excuses.
I did have to deal with one of these one night when I was on CQ. She wandered into the barracks and went straight into the dayroom which was legal. It was the only place women were allowed in an all male barracks. She lasted about two minutes before I threw her out as she was plastered and simply had dropped in to pick up a couple of guys for sex.
She was followed out by a couple of the younger guys that reported she had serviced them sexually later when they returned to the barracks. I recall I logged that a female Pfc had come into the day room and had misbehaved and had been ejected. The next day the First Sergeant asked me about it and told me I had acted properly.
I guess she had created some headaches a few weeks earlier in a couple of the firing batteries, but Top didn't go into any detail.
Still, looking at the problems identified by the services today I wonder about a few things in the back of my mind.
Sexual assault is generally more about power and humiliation than it is sex.
I would like to know which females are generally the victims of these sexual assaults. While I suppose that women of all categories are victims of assault, I'd just bet that the majority of the victims are not the competent women that enlisted with the intention of getting with the program and serving. I won't get into why that is but it more often than not happens that way.
My guess for what it's worth is that a pretty good sized chunk of the victims of these sexual assaults are the substandard female soldiers to begin with.
Now for the perpetrators of these crimes against humanity.
Good soldiers do not sexually assault people. It's as simple as that. Any GI that sexually assaults someone is a substandard GI.
It seems to me that congress doesn't need to do a whole lot and that just about all they are going to do is pass a bunch of dopey rules and regulations and force a bunch of stupid mandates down the DoD's throat.
It would just be a whole lot easier, smarter and more efficient to tell the services to cull the substandard service members of both sexes. If they simply did that the overwhelming majority of sexual assaults would simply disappear.
Of course that isn't likely to happen because some substandard female is likely to call her congress critter after getting booted out and there is likely to be a big investigation and the usual gang of liberal do-gooders in congress will come charging in trying to make a name for themselves.
In addition to that the services all would show a marked improvement. Instead, congress will get involved and the morale and effiency of the services will likely decline.
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
Friday, June 7, 2013
I was used to help out at a church
I no longer bother with for reasons I will not get into but stupid fits in there.
One of my jobs was that I was the rummage sale checker outer of things that should not be in a church rummage sale.
It's pretty astonishing what kind of crap people will send off to a church when they hear they are having a rummage sale. You simply never know what you are going to find in boxes people drop off.
One day I was helping out by organizing the books that seem to be anpsrt of church rummage sales and discovered a couple of porn novels that someone unthinkingly threw into the box they sent to the church. I simply tossed them into the trash.
Needless to say one of the nosier people that churches sometimes breed fished them out and asked me why I pitched them. I knew if I told her she'd get all wierded out and I'd have to listen to her carry on after she made sure the books in question were in fact smut.
I got smart. I turned to one of the other women there that I knew had at least half of a brain. "Hey, Joyce," I said. "Tell the woman why a book named 'Of Nuns, Nazis and German shepherds' doesn't belong in a church rummage sale."
Joyce gave me a dirty look, but took the woman aside and the look on the woman's face as Joyce told her made me have one hell of a time keeping from laughing outright.
The woman left Joyce and went over and started folding clothes which is about 75% of the work of a church rummage sale. A few minutes later there was another panic attack from her and she held up several green objects.
I noticed she had been folding a Filson bird hunting coat and had noticed something in the pockets and had fished out a couple of loose shotgun shells. She looked sort of ashen.
"What are these?" she asked.
"Shotgun shells," I answered. I walked over and took them. "Sixteen gauge. Can't use them. Besides, they're corroded."
I took them from her and threw them in the trash along with the porno novels and went back to assorting the books.
"Are they dangerous?" she asked.
"Yes," I answered in a voice oozing with sarcasm. "One of them alone could destroy ten entire city blocks. Just leave them alone and everything will be fine."
Joyce smirked and we went back to doing what we were doing. The idiot of a woman wandered out and returned.
A couple of minutes later I a cop walked in and the woman rushed up to him and took him to the trash can and pointed.
"Yeah, so?" asked the cop.
"Aren't they dangerous?" she asked.
The cop was a pro. I saw him take a deep breath and reach into the trash can and fish the offending shotshells out and put them in his pocket and left.
As he was leaving I grabbed Joyce and the pastor who had just arrived and told them to follow me and stay out of sight and watch the cop.
As he went past the trash can on the sidewalk he reached into his pockets and dropped the offending shotshells into the trash. Joyce shook her head.
"A lot of being a good cop is making people FEEL safe," I said. "Now she feels safe knowing that the church isn't going to be blown to kingdom come by a crummy shotshell. Too bad they were 16 gauge instead of 12."
"Why is that?" asked the pastor.
"Because I own a 12," I replied. "It keeps me in meat. I generally use a rifle for deer, though."
Another woman, Jean-Ann said to the pastor. "The guys at the homeless shelter really like it when we serve venison. It always disappears."
The pastor nodded.
Meanwhile back inside one of the women had dumped out a plastic trash bag full of donated stuff and gasped.
"A gun," she said. "Is it real?"
I went up and looked at it and saw some caps were there among the goods and garbage. I picked both up and loaded it, shot it twice and tossed it on the table.
"Probably get a buck for it," I said, seconds before one of the women sent it whistling into the trash can.
"What's this?" asked another woman, holding up a bull whip.
"It's a bull whip," said Joyce.
"Two bucks," I said. "Any Indiana Jones fans out there will snap it up."
That wound up in the trash can. I fished it out and tossed it in a corner. "I can use that," I said. "I used to be pretty good with one. Besides the neighborhood kids are acting up."
That drew horrified looks from a couple of women and surpressed smirks from the rest.
I wandered over and saw the Filson bird hunting coat was marked $1. I tried it on and it fit. I reached into my wallet and pulled out $2, headed over and handed the pair of bills to one of the women and tossed the jacket into the corner with the bull whip. I still have it although I haven't used it in a while.
By this time I had the book rack pretty squared away and was getting ready to leave.
"What's this?" asked a woman. She held up a BB gun.
"It''s a BB gun," I said. "Guts are missing. It's trash."
I reached over and picked up an item. It was one of those things they used to sell in gift shops that you look into and see a picture. Most of them are landscape scenes but this one likely came from Hawaii and featured a hula girl. I tossed it even though she had a top on.
It had already been marked a quarter. While it wasn't really obscene I knew someone would complain. Joyce looked at me. "It came from France," I said glibly and she snickered. She knew.
Everything went back to normal for a few and the woman that had found the shotshells found yet something else to offend her sense of propriety.
"Whisky!" she said, holding up a half-pint.
"J&B!" I said. "I can use that for Saturday evening mass!" I wandered over and confiscated it instantly. Now, THAT was a keeper! I put the half-pint directly into my pocket.
Almost everyone, even the pastor chuckled. I wandered over to my corner and put it in the pocket of the Filson.
"Don't drink it until you get home," advised one of the women.
"I'll bet he can hold twice that entire bottle and still get home safely," said Joyce.
Then I went into a closet and snagged an extension cord, plugged it into the wall and headed over to the table full of electrical appliances and started seeing if they worked. Most did, but a few didn't so I trashed the ones that didn't work. There were a few of them.
The pastor, who had apparently gotten a rundown on the fact that I had a pretty good eye for stuff that didn't belong in a church rummage sale came up to me and asked me how I could recognize so many little things.
I really didn't know what to say and I was glad when Joyce overheard the question and bailed me out.
"He hasn't led a sheltered life," she said. It broke the ice.
"Listen, Pastor," I said, "Likely Joyce is right. When you think about things a little I played with just about all the toys you could as a kid, I hunt and fish and my career as a sailor puts me in contact with all kinds. A lot of the stuff I'm aware of is not necessarily things I partake in but it is background noise where I work."
He nodded and thoughtfully said, "I understand."
I don't think he did, though.
I guess the next time they scheduled a rummage sale a couple of the women asked my wife if I was around but I was slated to be at sea.
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
One of my jobs was that I was the rummage sale checker outer of things that should not be in a church rummage sale.
It's pretty astonishing what kind of crap people will send off to a church when they hear they are having a rummage sale. You simply never know what you are going to find in boxes people drop off.
One day I was helping out by organizing the books that seem to be anpsrt of church rummage sales and discovered a couple of porn novels that someone unthinkingly threw into the box they sent to the church. I simply tossed them into the trash.
Needless to say one of the nosier people that churches sometimes breed fished them out and asked me why I pitched them. I knew if I told her she'd get all wierded out and I'd have to listen to her carry on after she made sure the books in question were in fact smut.
I got smart. I turned to one of the other women there that I knew had at least half of a brain. "Hey, Joyce," I said. "Tell the woman why a book named 'Of Nuns, Nazis and German shepherds' doesn't belong in a church rummage sale."
Joyce gave me a dirty look, but took the woman aside and the look on the woman's face as Joyce told her made me have one hell of a time keeping from laughing outright.
The woman left Joyce and went over and started folding clothes which is about 75% of the work of a church rummage sale. A few minutes later there was another panic attack from her and she held up several green objects.
I noticed she had been folding a Filson bird hunting coat and had noticed something in the pockets and had fished out a couple of loose shotgun shells. She looked sort of ashen.
"What are these?" she asked.
"Shotgun shells," I answered. I walked over and took them. "Sixteen gauge. Can't use them. Besides, they're corroded."
I took them from her and threw them in the trash along with the porno novels and went back to assorting the books.
"Are they dangerous?" she asked.
"Yes," I answered in a voice oozing with sarcasm. "One of them alone could destroy ten entire city blocks. Just leave them alone and everything will be fine."
Joyce smirked and we went back to doing what we were doing. The idiot of a woman wandered out and returned.
A couple of minutes later I a cop walked in and the woman rushed up to him and took him to the trash can and pointed.
"Yeah, so?" asked the cop.
"Aren't they dangerous?" she asked.
The cop was a pro. I saw him take a deep breath and reach into the trash can and fish the offending shotshells out and put them in his pocket and left.
As he was leaving I grabbed Joyce and the pastor who had just arrived and told them to follow me and stay out of sight and watch the cop.
As he went past the trash can on the sidewalk he reached into his pockets and dropped the offending shotshells into the trash. Joyce shook her head.
"A lot of being a good cop is making people FEEL safe," I said. "Now she feels safe knowing that the church isn't going to be blown to kingdom come by a crummy shotshell. Too bad they were 16 gauge instead of 12."
"Why is that?" asked the pastor.
"Because I own a 12," I replied. "It keeps me in meat. I generally use a rifle for deer, though."
Another woman, Jean-Ann said to the pastor. "The guys at the homeless shelter really like it when we serve venison. It always disappears."
The pastor nodded.
Meanwhile back inside one of the women had dumped out a plastic trash bag full of donated stuff and gasped.
"A gun," she said. "Is it real?"
I went up and looked at it and saw some caps were there among the goods and garbage. I picked both up and loaded it, shot it twice and tossed it on the table.
"Probably get a buck for it," I said, seconds before one of the women sent it whistling into the trash can.
"What's this?" asked another woman, holding up a bull whip.
"It's a bull whip," said Joyce.
"Two bucks," I said. "Any Indiana Jones fans out there will snap it up."
That wound up in the trash can. I fished it out and tossed it in a corner. "I can use that," I said. "I used to be pretty good with one. Besides the neighborhood kids are acting up."
That drew horrified looks from a couple of women and surpressed smirks from the rest.
I wandered over and saw the Filson bird hunting coat was marked $1. I tried it on and it fit. I reached into my wallet and pulled out $2, headed over and handed the pair of bills to one of the women and tossed the jacket into the corner with the bull whip. I still have it although I haven't used it in a while.
By this time I had the book rack pretty squared away and was getting ready to leave.
"What's this?" asked a woman. She held up a BB gun.
"It''s a BB gun," I said. "Guts are missing. It's trash."
I reached over and picked up an item. It was one of those things they used to sell in gift shops that you look into and see a picture. Most of them are landscape scenes but this one likely came from Hawaii and featured a hula girl. I tossed it even though she had a top on.
It had already been marked a quarter. While it wasn't really obscene I knew someone would complain. Joyce looked at me. "It came from France," I said glibly and she snickered. She knew.
Everything went back to normal for a few and the woman that had found the shotshells found yet something else to offend her sense of propriety.
"Whisky!" she said, holding up a half-pint.
"J&B!" I said. "I can use that for Saturday evening mass!" I wandered over and confiscated it instantly. Now, THAT was a keeper! I put the half-pint directly into my pocket.
Almost everyone, even the pastor chuckled. I wandered over to my corner and put it in the pocket of the Filson.
"Don't drink it until you get home," advised one of the women.
"I'll bet he can hold twice that entire bottle and still get home safely," said Joyce.
Then I went into a closet and snagged an extension cord, plugged it into the wall and headed over to the table full of electrical appliances and started seeing if they worked. Most did, but a few didn't so I trashed the ones that didn't work. There were a few of them.
The pastor, who had apparently gotten a rundown on the fact that I had a pretty good eye for stuff that didn't belong in a church rummage sale came up to me and asked me how I could recognize so many little things.
I really didn't know what to say and I was glad when Joyce overheard the question and bailed me out.
"He hasn't led a sheltered life," she said. It broke the ice.
"Listen, Pastor," I said, "Likely Joyce is right. When you think about things a little I played with just about all the toys you could as a kid, I hunt and fish and my career as a sailor puts me in contact with all kinds. A lot of the stuff I'm aware of is not necessarily things I partake in but it is background noise where I work."
He nodded and thoughtfully said, "I understand."
I don't think he did, though.
I guess the next time they scheduled a rummage sale a couple of the women asked my wife if I was around but I was slated to be at sea.
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
Thursday, June 6, 2013
There are a couple of things
that every America male knows and one of them is that when he hears the Tarzan yell to start looking around because the elephants are coming.
Women will look around all confused, but every single male that hears it will instinctively start looking around because it means that pretty shortly there's going to be an elephant stampede and that is simply that.
There's a lot more truth to that than a lot of people may think. I know this for a fact. I've tried it near elephants and it gets their attention. I was at the zoo last spring near the elephant cage and curiosity overwhelmed me. I had the Tarzan yell on my cell phone as a ringtone and played it.
The first time the elephants looked to see where it came from and the second time a couple of them started trumpeting. I didn't play it a third time because I was afraid that there might very well be a stampede.
Still, I wonder if there is anything more recognizable as being American the world over like the good old fashioned Western movie.
Even a lot of people living in mud huts in the middle of nowhere know what a Western is and in a lot of parts of the world people that meet their first American face to face are surprised that he is not wearing a Stetson and carrying a six-shooter.
Seeing how the Good Old United States Cavalry comes to the rescue in a lot of Westerns I can't think that there are a lot of Third World people out there that hear 'Charge!' played on a bugle would start looking for a place to hide because they just KNOW that the US Cavalry is about to come boiling over the hill and that someone's going to get a pretty good whuppin'.
Of course, even back before WW2 the idea of the US Cavalry coming to the rescue was seated deep in our hearts to the point where it was mentioned in a Three Stooges short, 'Out West'. The Arizona Kid escapes his cell and gets to the Cav outpost and asks for help. He says to the colonel that he hopes they won't be too late.
The colonel replies, "Son, never in the history of motion pictures has the U.S. Cavalry been too late."
It really is that much a part of the American soul as is the lone gunman, either bad or good. I guess more often than not it was a good guy chasing a bad guy, but there are a number of variations.
Still, one kind of western that still makes the rounds is the good old fashioned Oater with plenty of "Head 'em off at the pass" chases and plenty of shooting. While these haven't been made in a while it is likely they are still shown in third world makeshift bijous from time to time.
Incidentally, because of Westerns an awful lot of people know what a tomahawk is. For example, in Afghanistan a few Rangers carried them as Rangers are sometime apt to do. I have heard from a couple of reports that the Afghanis recognize them on sight as being Native American weapons.
Seeing Afghanistan has somewhat of a blade culture, the bearers of these tend to be well respected as fierce warriors.
Still I suppose if I had to make a list of things that are pure, 100% American and are world known I would probably put the American Western pretty close to the top of the list.
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
Women will look around all confused, but every single male that hears it will instinctively start looking around because it means that pretty shortly there's going to be an elephant stampede and that is simply that.
There's a lot more truth to that than a lot of people may think. I know this for a fact. I've tried it near elephants and it gets their attention. I was at the zoo last spring near the elephant cage and curiosity overwhelmed me. I had the Tarzan yell on my cell phone as a ringtone and played it.
The first time the elephants looked to see where it came from and the second time a couple of them started trumpeting. I didn't play it a third time because I was afraid that there might very well be a stampede.
Still, I wonder if there is anything more recognizable as being American the world over like the good old fashioned Western movie.
Even a lot of people living in mud huts in the middle of nowhere know what a Western is and in a lot of parts of the world people that meet their first American face to face are surprised that he is not wearing a Stetson and carrying a six-shooter.
Seeing how the Good Old United States Cavalry comes to the rescue in a lot of Westerns I can't think that there are a lot of Third World people out there that hear 'Charge!' played on a bugle would start looking for a place to hide because they just KNOW that the US Cavalry is about to come boiling over the hill and that someone's going to get a pretty good whuppin'.
Of course, even back before WW2 the idea of the US Cavalry coming to the rescue was seated deep in our hearts to the point where it was mentioned in a Three Stooges short, 'Out West'. The Arizona Kid escapes his cell and gets to the Cav outpost and asks for help. He says to the colonel that he hopes they won't be too late.
The colonel replies, "Son, never in the history of motion pictures has the U.S. Cavalry been too late."
It really is that much a part of the American soul as is the lone gunman, either bad or good. I guess more often than not it was a good guy chasing a bad guy, but there are a number of variations.
Still, one kind of western that still makes the rounds is the good old fashioned Oater with plenty of "Head 'em off at the pass" chases and plenty of shooting. While these haven't been made in a while it is likely they are still shown in third world makeshift bijous from time to time.
Incidentally, because of Westerns an awful lot of people know what a tomahawk is. For example, in Afghanistan a few Rangers carried them as Rangers are sometime apt to do. I have heard from a couple of reports that the Afghanis recognize them on sight as being Native American weapons.
Seeing Afghanistan has somewhat of a blade culture, the bearers of these tend to be well respected as fierce warriors.
Still I suppose if I had to make a list of things that are pure, 100% American and are world known I would probably put the American Western pretty close to the top of the list.
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
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
More stupid coming from school administrators
One of the things I have seen over the past several years is the exponential growth of stupid and a lot of it is in the place where stupid does NOT belong.
I see a lot of it in schools.
There was a story of an major over reaction of a school administrator over a toy gun.
It would be one thing if the toy in question had any serious resemblence to a real firearm but it didn't. Back a couple of years ago I needed a decorator piece and took an airsoft .45 and resprayed it. To an inexperienced person it could have passed as a real pistol.
Had the toy in question been something like this I would have simply rised my eyebrows and shaken my head, but the toy in question was not one of these.
It was a little thing about the size of a quarter. A damned quarter!! Yes, I mean a United States piece of currency sometimes called the twenty-five cent piece.
What kind danger does this pose unless maybe the kid swallowed it.
I didn't bother reading the article in depth because I saw all I needed to see. We have an administrator that should be fired and branded so that no other school system will ever rehire him.
He ought to be sterilized so his DNA can not continue to infect the planet. If he has children, then THEY should be sterilized to insure the genes of their parents stupidity can not continue to infect the planet.
What ever happened to someone looking at a toy the size of a quarter and just simply paying no attention?
What ever happened to common sense?
I am at a loss at how we wind up with educators today or was until I thought about a few of my classmates that went into teaching.
They graduated from the same high school I did, went to a college nearby and then pulled a 'Welcome Back, Kotter', meaning they returned to the very high school they graduated from a few years earlier.
Duh! I wonder what these people brought into the classroom with them other than a bunch of liberal crap they learned in college. I would be surprised if any of them did anything besides go straight into the classroom after they graduated.
They could have done anything. Anything. For Pete's sake, if they had done anything of practical value between college graduation and starting their careers as teachers they would have been a lot better off.
They could have done a hitch in the service, planted trees in Oregon, hitchhiked across the country, or hung out in Mexico for a couple of years.
Even if they had done a couple of years in the French Foriegn Legion and deserted! It would have at least been something.
Years ago, I had a long dead friend that I was discussing the subject with. (Most of my friends from my 20s and 30s are dead now. By the time I was 35 I had been to over 50 memorial services and only about 4 or 5 weddings)
Anyway, my friend had no father and a mother that wasn't very well off financially and he started a small tree business while he was a high school freshman. He took business courses in high school and spent his high school career arguing with his business teachers.
The teachers were teaching theory and here was a kid that was in the middle of actually running a small business. The teacher was standing in a classroom teaching it while the kid was in the field doing it.
My friend wasn't running much of a business, really, but it was legitimate. He paid his taxes and did what he had to do.
There was a class discussion over insurance and the teacher was telling the class that they had to have insurance for everyone even though they were the sole employee.
Blaine pointed out that he had health coverage through his mother's workplace and pointed at a scar on his forehead. "Who do you think paid to stich this up?" he asked.
A case of a 16 year old kid with practical experience knowing a lot more than his teacher who had no practical experience.
I had a few pretty good teachers. They were mostly men with WW2 service under their belts.
Just as a sidebar here, WW2 produced a whole slew of teachers and many of them took their GI bills, got an education and went into the classroom.
You have to remember that we put 12 MILLION people into uniform and someone had to train the GIs. They simply took people with an aptitude and slapped a couple stripes on them and told them to teach.
Former civvie ham radio operators taught radio classes, people that already knew how to fly and had enough flight hours were run through a program and instead of being shipped out they were held over to teach flying.
A cousin of mine killed at Iwo was run through a couple of cycles at Parris Island and held back, given corporal stripes and was a drill instructor. A D.I. is a teacher. They are given a very short period of time to teach an awful lot. (He later put in for overseas service and was killed)
Anyway, these man brought a lot of practicality into the classroom and I think I tended to learn more from them, not only about the subject they taught but about life itself.
Looking back on things an awful lot of women that taught me brought little with them but a teaching degree from a liberal arts college and no life experience.
These days we hire teachers with no common sense because we look more at paperwork than we do what the individual truly has to offer in the classroom.
Incidentally, I mentioned the French Foreign Legion earlier in this post. If a qualified prospective teacher applied and had a hitch in the Legion on their resume they would go pretty far up on the list as far as I'm concerned. It is unusual enough to add something to a student's education.
So would a hitch in the peace Corps for that matter. Or a couple years living overseas. For that matter I would give credit for taking a couple years off to surf in Puerto Rico and be a beach bum. At least it isn't someone fresh out of school with no life experience.
The more I age the more I begin to believe that a lot of what passes for education these days is little more than a waste of time.
I am beginning to think that there ought to be more to a teaching certificate than college classes and that people ought not be permitted to teach until at least five years after they graduate.
I suppose it wouldn't cure everything but I think it would sure help.
At least educators wouldn't be flipping out over a toy the size of a quarter.
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
I see a lot of it in schools.
There was a story of an major over reaction of a school administrator over a toy gun.
It would be one thing if the toy in question had any serious resemblence to a real firearm but it didn't. Back a couple of years ago I needed a decorator piece and took an airsoft .45 and resprayed it. To an inexperienced person it could have passed as a real pistol.
Had the toy in question been something like this I would have simply rised my eyebrows and shaken my head, but the toy in question was not one of these.
It was a little thing about the size of a quarter. A damned quarter!! Yes, I mean a United States piece of currency sometimes called the twenty-five cent piece.
What kind danger does this pose unless maybe the kid swallowed it.
I didn't bother reading the article in depth because I saw all I needed to see. We have an administrator that should be fired and branded so that no other school system will ever rehire him.
He ought to be sterilized so his DNA can not continue to infect the planet. If he has children, then THEY should be sterilized to insure the genes of their parents stupidity can not continue to infect the planet.
What ever happened to someone looking at a toy the size of a quarter and just simply paying no attention?
What ever happened to common sense?
I am at a loss at how we wind up with educators today or was until I thought about a few of my classmates that went into teaching.
They graduated from the same high school I did, went to a college nearby and then pulled a 'Welcome Back, Kotter', meaning they returned to the very high school they graduated from a few years earlier.
Duh! I wonder what these people brought into the classroom with them other than a bunch of liberal crap they learned in college. I would be surprised if any of them did anything besides go straight into the classroom after they graduated.
They could have done anything. Anything. For Pete's sake, if they had done anything of practical value between college graduation and starting their careers as teachers they would have been a lot better off.
They could have done a hitch in the service, planted trees in Oregon, hitchhiked across the country, or hung out in Mexico for a couple of years.
Even if they had done a couple of years in the French Foriegn Legion and deserted! It would have at least been something.
Years ago, I had a long dead friend that I was discussing the subject with. (Most of my friends from my 20s and 30s are dead now. By the time I was 35 I had been to over 50 memorial services and only about 4 or 5 weddings)
Anyway, my friend had no father and a mother that wasn't very well off financially and he started a small tree business while he was a high school freshman. He took business courses in high school and spent his high school career arguing with his business teachers.
The teachers were teaching theory and here was a kid that was in the middle of actually running a small business. The teacher was standing in a classroom teaching it while the kid was in the field doing it.
My friend wasn't running much of a business, really, but it was legitimate. He paid his taxes and did what he had to do.
There was a class discussion over insurance and the teacher was telling the class that they had to have insurance for everyone even though they were the sole employee.
Blaine pointed out that he had health coverage through his mother's workplace and pointed at a scar on his forehead. "Who do you think paid to stich this up?" he asked.
A case of a 16 year old kid with practical experience knowing a lot more than his teacher who had no practical experience.
I had a few pretty good teachers. They were mostly men with WW2 service under their belts.
Just as a sidebar here, WW2 produced a whole slew of teachers and many of them took their GI bills, got an education and went into the classroom.
You have to remember that we put 12 MILLION people into uniform and someone had to train the GIs. They simply took people with an aptitude and slapped a couple stripes on them and told them to teach.
Former civvie ham radio operators taught radio classes, people that already knew how to fly and had enough flight hours were run through a program and instead of being shipped out they were held over to teach flying.
A cousin of mine killed at Iwo was run through a couple of cycles at Parris Island and held back, given corporal stripes and was a drill instructor. A D.I. is a teacher. They are given a very short period of time to teach an awful lot. (He later put in for overseas service and was killed)
Anyway, these man brought a lot of practicality into the classroom and I think I tended to learn more from them, not only about the subject they taught but about life itself.
Looking back on things an awful lot of women that taught me brought little with them but a teaching degree from a liberal arts college and no life experience.
These days we hire teachers with no common sense because we look more at paperwork than we do what the individual truly has to offer in the classroom.
Incidentally, I mentioned the French Foreign Legion earlier in this post. If a qualified prospective teacher applied and had a hitch in the Legion on their resume they would go pretty far up on the list as far as I'm concerned. It is unusual enough to add something to a student's education.
So would a hitch in the peace Corps for that matter. Or a couple years living overseas. For that matter I would give credit for taking a couple years off to surf in Puerto Rico and be a beach bum. At least it isn't someone fresh out of school with no life experience.
The more I age the more I begin to believe that a lot of what passes for education these days is little more than a waste of time.
I am beginning to think that there ought to be more to a teaching certificate than college classes and that people ought not be permitted to teach until at least five years after they graduate.
I suppose it wouldn't cure everything but I think it would sure help.
At least educators wouldn't be flipping out over a toy the size of a quarter.
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
Tuesday, June 4, 2013
Cowboy wasn't too bright
. He was very possibly a young man that had been born with a touch of Down's or something. He was a real pleasant person, not a mean bone in his body but simply had little in the brain department.
There was no doubt whatsoever that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration was going to come loooking for him to solve their problems.
He eventually screwed up and got himself killed and had his remains eaten by a bear but that is another story.
He lived in his boat in Dog Bay in Kodiak the same winter I spent on board my sailboat. In his spare time he would visit other boats and either help out or watch someone do something.
My favorite Cowboy story was the time he was watching a fisherman install a day tank for a stove in his boat. It was about a 20 gallon tank that was to provide stove oil to his stove for both heat and cooking.
The fisherman was a man that had sort of dropped out and changed careers following a messy divorce and previously had been some sort of an engineer before he dropped out to fish.
The fisherman spent the morning installing the tank and running the necessary piping and then spent the rest of the afternoon rewiring the boat to get the electricity to run the pump.
Adjusting the pump to the proper pressure to get it to supply the stove without either starving it for fuel or overpressuring the stove carburator finished out the day.
It was a pretty good piece of craftsmanship when I think back on it. The man obviously knew how to do quality work.
It was about this time I wandered on by to see what was going on as I had heard he was installing a stove fuel system.
I quietly boarded and looked in the galley and heard the final discussion as the fisherman patiently explained everything to Cowboy.
"Gee!" said Cowboy. "I wish I could do that kind of stuff. I would have had to mount the tank on the coachroof and let gravity feed my stove!"
It was then that I ever so quietly beat a hasty retreat.
It's not nice watching someone regarded as the village idiot humble someone like that.
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
Monday, June 3, 2013
Well, one of the younger bucks here just knocked up his girlfriend
which is something that still happens in this day and age.
I do not know if he is getting hitched as a result or not and I really don't care. What I do care about is that he coughs up his support so I don't have to.
When you think about it, in this day and age there isn't much of an excuse for this type of thing and when I look back there wasn't much of an excuse for this back in the day. There has been reliable birth control out there for decades and Planned Parenthood will generally supply it for zip.
Oh, well.
I was in Philly once and lost. I asked a pair of policemen for directions and while I was, a woman came up to them complaining. She started babbling that some guy must of ejaculated in the nearby city swimming pool and as a result her daughter had gotten pregnant.
The cop that was giving me directions looked over at his hapless partner that had to deal with the ignorant woman, looked at me and shook his head.
I looked at the cop and muttered quietly to him, Musta been awfully hard water,"
The policemen took me aside, and when we got behind the parked cruiser he broke up laughing and we watched his hapless partner have to deal with the woman. I heard him promise her to have the city look into it.
When the cop had finished dealing with the woman he came over to us and told me he didn't know whether to beat me silly or buy me a beer. They gave me directions and we left on good terms.
Anyway, these days I still find myself shaking my head when I hear that another one of the guys is going to become a daddy when he really isn't ready for it yet.
You'd think people would learn from the mistakes of others.
One thing about my coworker, though. He'll pay for his mistake which speaks highly of him in this day and age.
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
I do not know if he is getting hitched as a result or not and I really don't care. What I do care about is that he coughs up his support so I don't have to.
When you think about it, in this day and age there isn't much of an excuse for this type of thing and when I look back there wasn't much of an excuse for this back in the day. There has been reliable birth control out there for decades and Planned Parenthood will generally supply it for zip.
Oh, well.
I was in Philly once and lost. I asked a pair of policemen for directions and while I was, a woman came up to them complaining. She started babbling that some guy must of ejaculated in the nearby city swimming pool and as a result her daughter had gotten pregnant.
The cop that was giving me directions looked over at his hapless partner that had to deal with the ignorant woman, looked at me and shook his head.
I looked at the cop and muttered quietly to him, Musta been awfully hard water,"
The policemen took me aside, and when we got behind the parked cruiser he broke up laughing and we watched his hapless partner have to deal with the woman. I heard him promise her to have the city look into it.
When the cop had finished dealing with the woman he came over to us and told me he didn't know whether to beat me silly or buy me a beer. They gave me directions and we left on good terms.
Anyway, these days I still find myself shaking my head when I hear that another one of the guys is going to become a daddy when he really isn't ready for it yet.
You'd think people would learn from the mistakes of others.
One thing about my coworker, though. He'll pay for his mistake which speaks highly of him in this day and age.
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
Sunday, June 2, 2013
One of the things I like to see happen is private money
being put to use for something. I really don't care too much what it is.
I glanced at an article and I guess some private non profit outfit is still looking for Amelia Earhart who was lost trying to fly around the world in the eary 30s.
I guess the organization hired someone and they have used SONAR and located an airplane wreck out smack dab in the middle of nowhere and will probably try and identify it.
Whille I suppose if I felt like it I could write a 36 volume set on the search for her, it is not what I am writing about now.
I'm writing on the subject of private money and people using it for what they want to use it for.
A number of our richer citizens over the years have put their money to use trying to do various things ranging from good to evil and while I am a supporter of good things, I just like to see people at least get out and try to do something with their money.
If I recall, Ted Turner gave a humongous chunk of money to the UN a few years back. It was his money to do as he saw fit and he did something with it. While I can think of a few causes I'd rather have seen Turner fund, it was his money to give to the UN.
I like seeing big money foundations spend their money on smart people in the form of scholarships and the like as I think that an education is a good thing to have if it is useful. This holds true to engineering and the hard sciences.
I suppose that if a foundation wanted to spend money on special education that'd be fine, too. I notice that these days the amount of money the government spends on special ed seems to have gone up and while it is a humanitarian thing to do the truth is it is money spent we will never see get back to us.
In my opinion special education money should be used to get special needs children put in a position where they can do some good somehow. Sheltered workshops seem to be pretty good places, at least from what I have seen.
I had a cousin that was truly brilliant and managed to snag a full scholarship to Einstein Medical School in New York. While he died as a student there the idea of putting money behind brilliant kids is generally a pretty good investment. I'd just bet that my cousin, had he lived, really would have made a difference.
I suppose that while I am on the subject of putting money into brilliance it should be noted that the present system stifles talent. When have you ever seen a high school truly accelerate a kid?
Yes, they do have 'advanced placement' courses for some of the brighter kids but you have to realize that even most of the kids in the AP courses are just a bit brighter than their peers in the normal courses.
I would imagine that if you had a high school of about 3000 kids and hauled the brightest 2 or 3 kids there and truly accelerated them the rest of the parents would whine about their kids not getting their fair share.
I would love to see the outrage of a parent being told the truth that their kid is fairly bright but not truly brilliant. A lot of parents don't like to face the fact that their kid is fairly normal.
The result, of course, is that we dumb down a lot of things.
Enter private money.
This would be a great place to spend a little private money. The advantage to it being that the foundation can simply pick and choose the best and brightest and spend their money on them. It's their money to spend.
I had this discussion a couple of years ago and the guy I was talking to asked, "Well, what about MY son?"
"What about him? Pretty bright kid but I don't see him doing Quantum Physics problems or Quadratic equations in his head while he was in 7th grade. That's the kind of brain we're talking about. Not some kid that is simply well above average."
He wanted to argue and I brought him up short.
"You went to the same school your son did," I said. "They didn't even teach you to count because if they did you wouldn't be supporting political candidates that spend money we don't have. It's as simple as that."
He didn't like that but it really was the truth.
Too bad Ted Turner didn't put the billion toward a fund to nurture the top .01% of our kids. Instead of the money being divvied up between a bunch of Third-World countries where it's likely to be stolen by some warlord anyway it could have gone to making all of our lives a little better.
Still, it was Ted's money to do with it as he saw fit.
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
I glanced at an article and I guess some private non profit outfit is still looking for Amelia Earhart who was lost trying to fly around the world in the eary 30s.
I guess the organization hired someone and they have used SONAR and located an airplane wreck out smack dab in the middle of nowhere and will probably try and identify it.
Whille I suppose if I felt like it I could write a 36 volume set on the search for her, it is not what I am writing about now.
I'm writing on the subject of private money and people using it for what they want to use it for.
A number of our richer citizens over the years have put their money to use trying to do various things ranging from good to evil and while I am a supporter of good things, I just like to see people at least get out and try to do something with their money.
If I recall, Ted Turner gave a humongous chunk of money to the UN a few years back. It was his money to do as he saw fit and he did something with it. While I can think of a few causes I'd rather have seen Turner fund, it was his money to give to the UN.
I like seeing big money foundations spend their money on smart people in the form of scholarships and the like as I think that an education is a good thing to have if it is useful. This holds true to engineering and the hard sciences.
I suppose that if a foundation wanted to spend money on special education that'd be fine, too. I notice that these days the amount of money the government spends on special ed seems to have gone up and while it is a humanitarian thing to do the truth is it is money spent we will never see get back to us.
In my opinion special education money should be used to get special needs children put in a position where they can do some good somehow. Sheltered workshops seem to be pretty good places, at least from what I have seen.
I had a cousin that was truly brilliant and managed to snag a full scholarship to Einstein Medical School in New York. While he died as a student there the idea of putting money behind brilliant kids is generally a pretty good investment. I'd just bet that my cousin, had he lived, really would have made a difference.
I suppose that while I am on the subject of putting money into brilliance it should be noted that the present system stifles talent. When have you ever seen a high school truly accelerate a kid?
Yes, they do have 'advanced placement' courses for some of the brighter kids but you have to realize that even most of the kids in the AP courses are just a bit brighter than their peers in the normal courses.
I would imagine that if you had a high school of about 3000 kids and hauled the brightest 2 or 3 kids there and truly accelerated them the rest of the parents would whine about their kids not getting their fair share.
I would love to see the outrage of a parent being told the truth that their kid is fairly bright but not truly brilliant. A lot of parents don't like to face the fact that their kid is fairly normal.
The result, of course, is that we dumb down a lot of things.
Enter private money.
This would be a great place to spend a little private money. The advantage to it being that the foundation can simply pick and choose the best and brightest and spend their money on them. It's their money to spend.
I had this discussion a couple of years ago and the guy I was talking to asked, "Well, what about MY son?"
"What about him? Pretty bright kid but I don't see him doing Quantum Physics problems or Quadratic equations in his head while he was in 7th grade. That's the kind of brain we're talking about. Not some kid that is simply well above average."
He wanted to argue and I brought him up short.
"You went to the same school your son did," I said. "They didn't even teach you to count because if they did you wouldn't be supporting political candidates that spend money we don't have. It's as simple as that."
He didn't like that but it really was the truth.
Too bad Ted Turner didn't put the billion toward a fund to nurture the top .01% of our kids. Instead of the money being divvied up between a bunch of Third-World countries where it's likely to be stolen by some warlord anyway it could have gone to making all of our lives a little better.
Still, it was Ted's money to do with it as he saw fit.
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
Saturday, June 1, 2013
Yesterday's little post about the South got me thinking.
I'm tired of being called a racist because I am conservative.
Why don't we look at the truth.
http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/40889
http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/40889
Normally I write my own posts but this link puts things a lot better than I can.
Please note the quote from LBJ, the idiot that started the whole ball rolling not by giving people a hand up, but by giving them a hand OUT.
“I’ll have those ni&&ers voting Democratic for the next 200 years.” —Lyndon B. Johnson to two governors on Air Force One -It was over signing a Civil Rights bill he had fought for years.
The article points to the voting records of various elected officials and makes it clear that labeling conservatives as racists holds very little water.
While I have little use for LBJ, I do have to give Harry Truman credit for having enough guts to integrate the services. He didn't do this through congress. He took the bull by the horns and integrated it by Executive Order.
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
Friday, May 31, 2013
One of my nieces that live in the southern part
of the country made a comment on Southern Pride which like a lot of things I have no problem with. When I see the Stars and Bars I instantly think of the cause of States Rights.
Of course, someone that didn't like it tried to drag slavery and the usual cheap shot pile of crap into the argument to make my niece look small.
First of all, Southern Pride is generally about heritage, not hate. There are a number of things I like about the south. I am a Yankee by birth but enjoy grits once in a while and a lot more southern cusine than simple grits, too.
I'd generally rather have some southern dishes than a New England boiled dinner which requires no skill to prepare and has the taste and texture of mush.
There's a lot of other things I like about the south, too. They have a heritage of military service and generally provide the nation with more service people per capita than the north does. Don't believe it? Look it up.
Another thing I like about the south is that in general, the people are a little more mannerly than their northern counterparts.
Anyway, the person that tried to make my niece look bad and dragged slavery into the equation likely doesn't know a whole lot and likely can't think very well.
While slavery in itself is today and back then was wrong, there are an awful lot of misnomers about it. For one thing by the time the Civil War got started, slavery was a dying institution. Likely it would not have made it to the beginning of the 20th century as it was actually inefficient and costly.
It's also pretty likely that slavery would have taken firmer roots in the north if the north had been based on more of an agricultiral economy instead of manufacturing as at the time agriculture was more labor intensive than manufacturing was.
You have to look at the way technology was starting to take off with the beginnings of steam powered machines, some of which are still around today.
Keeping a bunch of people around the plantation to do agricultural work is a lot more expensive than meets the eye. Expense is the enemy of the profit margin.
First of all, slaves were not cheap. A good field hand was pretty expensive to buy and was pretty costly to maintain. A field hand needed to be fed three times a day to keep him in good health and if he got injured he required medical attention. All of this costs money and you can't just stop feeding, clothing and sheltering a human being just because the planting or harvesting time is over.
A slave requires 365 days a year worth of care to keep him healthy.
When you look at the amount of work you can get out of one human being, it really isn't that much. This holds true especially when you compare the amount of work you can get out of something like a tractor, which can do in a day what would take s whole slew of people a couple of weeks to do.
When you are done with a tractor you put it in the barn to sit where it costs you nothing. Not so with a human slave. The slave still needs to be fed and taken care of.
As far as beating a slave, it was a rare plantation owner that was stupid enough to do anything to put the health of a field hand in jeopardy. If the plantation owner had no sense of humanity, he could sure realize that hurting a field hand wasn't good for his wallet because an injured field hand can't work as well and a healthy one can.
Accusations of slavery being genocidal just do not make sense, either. You don't kill off your workers. If you do you go broke pretty fast.
Truth is, this isn't all that hard to figure out. Simply follow the money.
I didn't make this post to defend slavery. It was truly wrong and has no place in a free country. I simply wanted to put it in it's proper place.
I just get sick and tired of seeing a pretty good part of the country get raked over the coals for something that involved a minuscule part of the population that took ended about 150 years ago.
Incidentally, looking back on the Confederacy, they had a reasonable cause (States rights) and a better army than the North did. The reason they lost was because the North had a stronger industrial base.
With all of the industrial base that has moved down south over the past 50 or so years things could be a lot different id they decided to rise again.
To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html
Of course, someone that didn't like it tried to drag slavery and the usual cheap shot pile of crap into the argument to make my niece look small.
First of all, Southern Pride is generally about heritage, not hate. There are a number of things I like about the south. I am a Yankee by birth but enjoy grits once in a while and a lot more southern cusine than simple grits, too.
I'd generally rather have some southern dishes than a New England boiled dinner which requires no skill to prepare and has the taste and texture of mush.
There's a lot of other things I like about the south, too. They have a heritage of military service and generally provide the nation with more service people per capita than the north does. Don't believe it? Look it up.
Another thing I like about the south is that in general, the people are a little more mannerly than their northern counterparts.
Anyway, the person that tried to make my niece look bad and dragged slavery into the equation likely doesn't know a whole lot and likely can't think very well.
While slavery in itself is today and back then was wrong, there are an awful lot of misnomers about it. For one thing by the time the Civil War got started, slavery was a dying institution. Likely it would not have made it to the beginning of the 20th century as it was actually inefficient and costly.
It's also pretty likely that slavery would have taken firmer roots in the north if the north had been based on more of an agricultiral economy instead of manufacturing as at the time agriculture was more labor intensive than manufacturing was.
You have to look at the way technology was starting to take off with the beginnings of steam powered machines, some of which are still around today.
Keeping a bunch of people around the plantation to do agricultural work is a lot more expensive than meets the eye. Expense is the enemy of the profit margin.
First of all, slaves were not cheap. A good field hand was pretty expensive to buy and was pretty costly to maintain. A field hand needed to be fed three times a day to keep him in good health and if he got injured he required medical attention. All of this costs money and you can't just stop feeding, clothing and sheltering a human being just because the planting or harvesting time is over.
A slave requires 365 days a year worth of care to keep him healthy.
When you look at the amount of work you can get out of one human being, it really isn't that much. This holds true especially when you compare the amount of work you can get out of something like a tractor, which can do in a day what would take s whole slew of people a couple of weeks to do.
When you are done with a tractor you put it in the barn to sit where it costs you nothing. Not so with a human slave. The slave still needs to be fed and taken care of.
As far as beating a slave, it was a rare plantation owner that was stupid enough to do anything to put the health of a field hand in jeopardy. If the plantation owner had no sense of humanity, he could sure realize that hurting a field hand wasn't good for his wallet because an injured field hand can't work as well and a healthy one can.
Accusations of slavery being genocidal just do not make sense, either. You don't kill off your workers. If you do you go broke pretty fast.
Truth is, this isn't all that hard to figure out. Simply follow the money.
I didn't make this post to defend slavery. It was truly wrong and has no place in a free country. I simply wanted to put it in it's proper place.
I just get sick and tired of seeing a pretty good part of the country get raked over the coals for something that involved a minuscule part of the population that took ended about 150 years ago.
Incidentally, looking back on the Confederacy, they had a reasonable cause (States rights) and a better army than the North did. The reason they lost was because the North had a stronger industrial base.
With all of the industrial base that has moved down south over the past 50 or so years things could be a lot different id they decided to rise again.
To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html
Thursday, May 30, 2013
1000 rounds in the basement ain't squat
To a non-shooter or even a semi-casual shooter 1000 rounds sounds like an awful lot of ammunition the have kicking around the house but it really isn't.
You would be surprised how fast an active shooter goes through the stuff. During one season alone I shot over 4500 rounds for score and a lot more than that for practice, it probably totaled well over 12,000 if you added it all up. If I recall I used up well over 80 pounds of powder that year.
While that sounds like a lot of ammunition,it really isn't. Pistol shooters go through a lot more than that to stay in top form. I heard one active shooter what said he had gone through 20,000 rounds last year that the top contenders run through 20 to 50,000+ rounds a year.
Rifle and pistol shooting are legitimate sports and there are a number of people that engage in them regularly.
Most serious shooters handload their own to both get tailor made rounds and to save money, although components have gone up in price a shooter can still save a bundle if they load their own.
I bring this up because recently a visitor asked what was in a couple of ammo cans I had in my garage. He marveled that a person would have so much ammunition until I showed him my reloading bench and told him that what he was looking at were leftovers from when I was shooting service rifle competition.
Generally there were cases of the stuff stacked up and I think I had well over 5000 rounds stacked up at one time.
Often when I would get home from a match I'd simply store my rifle as I generally cleaned it at the range and reload what I had shot at the day's match. A match can run anywhere between 43 and well over hundred rounds and I'd have my reloading bench set up so as to go right to work.
Back when I was shooting .30 cal I'd just have to fill the powder drop and primer stick and have at it and it didn't take a whole lot of time to get caught up even though I was working with a single stage press.
I guess the reason I'm making this post is because there was a lawmaker that wanted to limit the personal ammunition a person had in his house to a small amount like under 500 rounds which is only a brick of .22 rimfire. A brick itself really isn't big at all. I can easily drop one into a pocket with room to spare.
Like a lot of lawmakers he has no clue as to what he is talking about and likely has never shot a rifle in his life and know nothing about the shooting sports.
A lot of lawmakers look at something they know nothing whatsoever about and instead of asking about things like my neighbor did, they panic and jump to conclusions and hurt people that have done no harm to anyone.
This doesn't just apply to things like ammunition. Lawmakers go charging into a lot of areas they don't have clue one about. They often try and regulate stuff like farm labor and try enact laws that interfere with something as sacred as a family farm by trying to tell farmers how old their kids have to be before they can help out on what is nothing more than a family operation and nobody else's business.
They have no clue as to how a family farm is run and no clue as to the family values they are charging in to legislate. There is really nothing wrong with a farmer getting his kids to pitch in and do a few chores around the farm, yet the idiots in congress will try to legislate things they have no knowledge of.
While I suppose there are legislators in office that should simply be kicked to the curb, there are others that ought to be shipped off to a farm somewhere and spend a couple of months busting their asses in the fields and seeing how things work before the make decisions that interfere with family values and family run businesses.
I suppose that isn't too likely to happen anytime soon but it would gladden my heart to see a senator with his head in a bandage stammering and stuttering about how he was only trying to get a drink of milk and the cow kicked him.
Maybe the cow would kick some sense into 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
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Running like hell today.
May post later.
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
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
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
I wonder what is going to happen next?
Last night I had a burger with a neighbor and it was a good deal as we chatted.
Today I have to get squared away and go back to making a living.
I'll get out of here pretty soon and grab a few last minute items at the store and of I go to my other life. That's where I spin the wheels of industry and keep people from having to walk home and freeze in the dark.
Someone once asked me what I did for a living and I told them that. "I keep you from having to walk home and freeze in the dark," I said. "I move oil."
A lot of people don't understand how things have to be moved around. They go to the steel mill or the sneaker factory and when the steel or sneakers are brought outside they figure it ends there.
What the forget is that in order to keep making steel or sneakers they have to be taken somewhere and sold. Over 90% of all things moved at some point move by water. It's the cheapest way to do things.
Countless times we have taken one barge, one tugboat, seven guys and moved over 100,000 barrels of oil from, say, Philly to New York harbor in about 24 hours. That's 42,000,000 gallons of product moved with a little under 1500 gallons of diesel fuel.
When you figure that a truck only runs, say, 8900 gallons you can figure the number of trucks, men and fuel needed to do the same job. Math is on you. Still, you can see that water is a lot cheaper.
It's even cheaper than rail.
Anyway, I'm off to spin the wheels of industry so as to make this great nation of ours a safe place for Americans to raise their children and carve a life out for them selves, their children and the generations a-comin'. There. Have some good Gabby Hays frontier gibberish to start the day 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
Today I have to get squared away and go back to making a living.
I'll get out of here pretty soon and grab a few last minute items at the store and of I go to my other life. That's where I spin the wheels of industry and keep people from having to walk home and freeze in the dark.
Someone once asked me what I did for a living and I told them that. "I keep you from having to walk home and freeze in the dark," I said. "I move oil."
A lot of people don't understand how things have to be moved around. They go to the steel mill or the sneaker factory and when the steel or sneakers are brought outside they figure it ends there.
What the forget is that in order to keep making steel or sneakers they have to be taken somewhere and sold. Over 90% of all things moved at some point move by water. It's the cheapest way to do things.
Countless times we have taken one barge, one tugboat, seven guys and moved over 100,000 barrels of oil from, say, Philly to New York harbor in about 24 hours. That's 42,000,000 gallons of product moved with a little under 1500 gallons of diesel fuel.
When you figure that a truck only runs, say, 8900 gallons you can figure the number of trucks, men and fuel needed to do the same job. Math is on you. Still, you can see that water is a lot cheaper.
It's even cheaper than rail.
Anyway, I'm off to spin the wheels of industry so as to make this great nation of ours a safe place for Americans to raise their children and carve a life out for them selves, their children and the generations a-comin'. There. Have some good Gabby Hays frontier gibberish to start the day 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
Monday, May 27, 2013
Here's a pretty good picture of the chair I redid.
Well, it's memorial day and I guess to most Americans it means a day off
and a barbecue.
A few years ago I parked an M-1 with a helmet on top of it on my lawn and watched the dog walkers pass by. A lot of people didn't care for that very much and walked across the street to avoid it. A few people got it, though and I'm glad I did it and at least made a few people try and think.
This is somewhat of a somber day because it isn't dedicated to veterans. It is dedicated to those that didn't come home.
If you are a veteran and someone thanks you for your service today, gently remind them that it is what Veteran's Day is for. Today is dedicated to those that didn't live to become veterans.
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
A few years ago I parked an M-1 with a helmet on top of it on my lawn and watched the dog walkers pass by. A lot of people didn't care for that very much and walked across the street to avoid it. A few people got it, though and I'm glad I did it and at least made a few people try and think.
This is somewhat of a somber day because it isn't dedicated to veterans. It is dedicated to those that didn't come home.
If you are a veteran and someone thanks you for your service today, gently remind them that it is what Veteran's Day is for. Today is dedicated to those that didn't live to become veterans.
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
Sunday, May 26, 2013
Yesterday I started re-seating another chair but only got halfway
because of constant interruptions. Most of these interruptions were a bunch of meaningless crap, as most interruptions in life generally are. There were no fires to put out, nobody to save, no attacks to fend off and the Cleveland Indians stayed in Cleveland and didn't attack the Piccolo wagon train. Most of the interruptions were rather meaningless.
One brief one was fair enough. A neighbor wanted something heavy loaded on his pickup. He had it ready and all I had to do was help lift it and push it into the bed of the pickup. It took less than two minutes.
I think that if the rain holds off a bit I'll go out and mow the lawn and get a few things ready for a return from the city life and things that I have to do to make a living.
I did shoot a match yesterday and started off with 400 points and only managed to give away 8 of them, finishing with a 392 and a middle of the road X-count. Not bad.
The club I belong to has 4 matches a month. Two of them are NRA Highpower/CMP service rifle matches. One is an offhand 100 yard match which you can shoot anything you want, any rifle, any sight. shot in the offhand position. The fourth match is a slow-fire match that you can shoot any rifle in that you want.
The slow-fire match is a fun match because the format is pretty flexible and generally shooters use it for practice to bolster up their service rifle abilities.
I elected to shoot a bolt gun and relax and take my time. It's matches like this that are no pressure fun.
The woman I was pulling targets for made it pretty easy for me in that she started off by shooting a 6X clean. I only had to get one color of paster out her her and didn't have to look all over hell for her bullet holes.
I had a couple of clean strings, too. I dropped five by fighting a sneeze which was stupid and then I let another one get away from me and dropped it into the 7 ring.
Actually the match started off pretty grim for me. I was given three sighters to shoot and the first one was a complete miss at 6 o'clock, and I shot the second and third one to confirm it. I put the crosshairs on the small group I shot and looked and counted the MilDots and saw I was shooting 4 mils low and put 4 mils of elevation on it. I was rewarded with my first shot for score being a tight ten. I just added .1 of elevation and .2 left windage and I was good to go from there on.
The rest of my ministry kit came in. I got my official ID card in the mail. I am now good to go if I have to perform the Big Wedding. I think my nephew is still kidding my sister about how I bought a turban to perform the ceremony in.
With almost 100 outgoing QSL cards in the mail there is going to be a pretty good sized deluge of incoming QSLs in the mail when I get back. I said in an earlier post that I'll start getting them in a glut that will taper off and then they'll start coming in dribs and drabs for months.
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
One brief one was fair enough. A neighbor wanted something heavy loaded on his pickup. He had it ready and all I had to do was help lift it and push it into the bed of the pickup. It took less than two minutes.
I think that if the rain holds off a bit I'll go out and mow the lawn and get a few things ready for a return from the city life and things that I have to do to make a living.
I did shoot a match yesterday and started off with 400 points and only managed to give away 8 of them, finishing with a 392 and a middle of the road X-count. Not bad.
The club I belong to has 4 matches a month. Two of them are NRA Highpower/CMP service rifle matches. One is an offhand 100 yard match which you can shoot anything you want, any rifle, any sight. shot in the offhand position. The fourth match is a slow-fire match that you can shoot any rifle in that you want.
The slow-fire match is a fun match because the format is pretty flexible and generally shooters use it for practice to bolster up their service rifle abilities.
I elected to shoot a bolt gun and relax and take my time. It's matches like this that are no pressure fun.
The woman I was pulling targets for made it pretty easy for me in that she started off by shooting a 6X clean. I only had to get one color of paster out her her and didn't have to look all over hell for her bullet holes.
I had a couple of clean strings, too. I dropped five by fighting a sneeze which was stupid and then I let another one get away from me and dropped it into the 7 ring.
Actually the match started off pretty grim for me. I was given three sighters to shoot and the first one was a complete miss at 6 o'clock, and I shot the second and third one to confirm it. I put the crosshairs on the small group I shot and looked and counted the MilDots and saw I was shooting 4 mils low and put 4 mils of elevation on it. I was rewarded with my first shot for score being a tight ten. I just added .1 of elevation and .2 left windage and I was good to go from there on.
The rest of my ministry kit came in. I got my official ID card in the mail. I am now good to go if I have to perform the Big Wedding. I think my nephew is still kidding my sister about how I bought a turban to perform the ceremony in.
With almost 100 outgoing QSL cards in the mail there is going to be a pretty good sized deluge of incoming QSLs in the mail when I get back. I said in an earlier post that I'll start getting them in a glut that will taper off and then they'll start coming in dribs and drabs for months.
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
Saturday, May 25, 2013
I started redoing my chairs yesterday.
I know it is a crappy cell phone picture but it's all I can come up with.
The cane on my chairs has worn out and I simply replaced it with 1/4 inch manila.
.jpg)
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
Friday, May 24, 2013
As usual I am awake and hitting the keyboard.
Yesterday I did the grocery part of the ship's grub shopping and did OK. I guess Monday I'll get the meats and produce. I might do it this way again in the future because it makes things uneventful.
I was pushing around a single cart for a change and didn't have to answer any questions as to why I was buying so much grub at once.
I have little planned today and it is rainy so I guess I'll just try and work some DX today and see what happens. It is actually a slow process because I am not trying to cram my logbook full of QSOs just for the sake of making them.
I'm sniping. I am picking out the stations in entities that I have not worked before. It requires a lot of listening and little talking which makes things interesting.
I suppose for someone else listening to it in the background it is just plain noise but I do have a neighbor that actually asks me to turn the rig on when he visits because the background noise reminds him of his time in the service.
I know what he means as sometimes I turn it on for background noise. It's on now and I'm awaiting the voice of Jda on 14.332.
I don't have a whole lot to say today except that I have another 5 or 6 QSL cards to send out. and my project is coming along.
I might make a better post later on today.
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
Yesterday I did the grocery part of the ship's grub shopping and did OK. I guess Monday I'll get the meats and produce. I might do it this way again in the future because it makes things uneventful.
I was pushing around a single cart for a change and didn't have to answer any questions as to why I was buying so much grub at once.
I have little planned today and it is rainy so I guess I'll just try and work some DX today and see what happens. It is actually a slow process because I am not trying to cram my logbook full of QSOs just for the sake of making them.
I'm sniping. I am picking out the stations in entities that I have not worked before. It requires a lot of listening and little talking which makes things interesting.
I suppose for someone else listening to it in the background it is just plain noise but I do have a neighbor that actually asks me to turn the rig on when he visits because the background noise reminds him of his time in the service.
I know what he means as sometimes I turn it on for background noise. It's on now and I'm awaiting the voice of Jda on 14.332.
I don't have a whole lot to say today except that I have another 5 or 6 QSL cards to send out. and my project is coming along.
I might make a better post later on today.
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
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
