As a sailor

I am required to have various licenses and documents.

Back when I started, my Merchant Mariner's Document (Z-Card) was free and supposidly good for life. My license was good for 5 years and renewal took about an hour.

Now I have to have a Transportation Workers ID Card (TWIC) on top of a license and document. 

The TWIC ran me $135 and the license renewal cost me about the same plus the price of a physical, passport photos and an 8 hour car drive.

When they charged me the first time I really was angry but I am not anymore. Although the Coast Guard has made it a lot more difficult to get these documents I guess I'm the one that needs them and uses them to make my living with so unless they drive the price up a lot higher I really have nothing to gripe about.

Someone posted a picture of a national park next to the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico and asked which one should be cut from the federal budget.

I said both and pointed out that a modest user's fee should be enough to offset the expenses of the National Parks.

We're in hock up to our ears. We actually should have a small surplus if everything was going right but the people in Congress have set up so many programs and giveaways that we are spending more money than we are taking in.

A LOT more money than we're taking in.

I have no problem with paying a small user's fee to go through Yosemite or Yellowstone because it isn't like I am going to go through the park every three or four days. Parks like that are generally a once or twice in a lifetime thing and spending a few extra bucks here to do something isn't a lot to ask.

Another thing that the feds ought to do is get out of the social programs business and delagate it to the states. Let the states or even the counties decide what kind of social safety nets they want to pay for.

For one thing it will be a lot cheaper because being run by the states means there will be a lot less bureaucracy involved and that means a greater part of every dollar spent is going to go to where it is supposed to instead of being eaten up by federal bureaucrats.

It also means that there is likely to be less fraud because it will be easier to spot and be dealt with. It seems like just about every federal program out there has a lot of people riding the gravy train that ought not be on it.

I see this in Philly all the time and don't like it one bit. 

One other thing, too is that if a state didn't want to implement a social safety net plan they don't have to. I suppose there are a few states out there that do not want to do this which is up to the voters of that particular state.

This also means that the taxpayers of that particular state that doesn't want to have a safety net would not be forced to pay into the federal system for something they don't really want.

I am a sailor in private enterprise and I have seen that a number of companies pass a lot of responsibilities down the chain to us guys on the boats and it is because we are the ones in the position to see what is going on firsthand and call the shots.

The same holds true for a lot of things. When the Great Father in Washington decides things they are light years from the places where things are going on and have to rely on a lot of reports from down the chain and to put a point on it, many reports are either inaccurate or patently dishonest.

The people in Washington seldom get to the bottom of things before they make a decision and they are more often than not off base in some form or another when the final decision is made.

In the services there is generally a Sergeant Major in every battalion sized or larger unit. While a lot of them are chair warmers, a Battalion Commander that gets a good one has something special.

A good Sergeant Major is seldom in his office. He is out and about looking things over and keeping his hand on the pulse of the battalion and is constantly reporting his findings to the BnCo. I know of few if any congresscritters that have people directly in the field that they can rely on.

Occasionally one hears of a Cogresscritter going off on a 'fact finding mission' but generally that is little more than a way of getting the taxpayer to take him somewhere he wants to check out for personal reasons.

Any fact finding mission that even stops at Bangkok is instantly suspect as far as I'm concerned. It is a red flag because Bangkok is the commercial sex capitol of the world but I digress.

The point is that generally congress is making decisions with little or no information, or worse yet, with bad information.

Back to the original part of the post and that is the part where we are going to have to start coughing up hard earned cash for what used to be freebies.

We just better start getting used to it.




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One of the things I like about ham radio

 is that I get to leave all of the bullshit behind and communicate with people from all around the world and all that matters is ham radio.

I just got through to Algeria tonight and they are having a 50th anniversary special event on the air and I suppose that when I can get around to mailing the request for a QSL card I will likely get one from them and have yet another entity bagged.

I tried to bust through to Kuwait the other night but got mashed down in the pile up which is fine. I'll punch through to him the next time.

Right now the project is to get 100 countries confirmed on paper. Sometimes this takes time. My QSL card from India took several months. Italy was no prize, either as the mail system there is supposidly a mess. 

The Contessa (she sounded like one) I QSO'd just outside of Rome told me that it took 45 days  to receive the card I mailed the following morning. She sent me a wonderful letter and several postcards along with her QSL card.

I call her the Countessa because she sounded like one. Who knows? Maybe she was a 350 pound woman wearing a burlap grain sack but I sort of doubt it. She sounded too polished. Betcha she looks like Sophia Loren.

My Worked All States project I had a few problems with because a few of the hams were lazy on returning QSL requests. It finally came together and I was awarded a certificate dated 2 July 2012 by the ARRL for this minor doing.

I would have had the certificate months earlier but it took time for the QSL cards to trickle in. I noticed as I get a little testy that the guys that were slow were generally big shots. The working guys for the most part QSL'd fast.

I sent a request to Tonga after a morning contact that came as a surprise. I doubt I'll get an answer as the guy sounded like he was in a mud hut babbling away on a radio that belonged to the missionary he had just eaten for lunch. He sounded like he was bombed on some kind of coconut hooch.

I envisioned a spear stuck in the ground next to a fire with the missionary's slowly shrinking head hanging from the spear and a pile of bones next to the fire.

Still, I have over 100 DX contacts and although I don't have all the cards I will still keep adding to the pile and working DX stations until I have 100 cards to show the card checker and then send my couple bucks to the ARRL for my certificate.

I started the post by saying I get to leave all the crap behind me and I do because there are not a whole lot of hams out there that have a whole lot to say about religion and politics on the air.

Granted on 80 meters there are a couple of political nets that are on the air but they generally keep to themselves and keep it in the family so to speak. They'll generally QSL anyone that wants them to and in the past couple years as a ham I have heard one big outrage.

That was when someone that didn't share the same political views as the net tried to jam them. He didn't seem to last long because I suppose that someone either reported him to the FCC or maybe took direct action. A straight pin through coax does the trick nicely.

I go on the air to get away from the religion and politics that seem to be everywhere and it is a joy to chat with someone on a friendly basis even though he may be sitting in the capitol city of someplace that is on Uncle Sam's list of bad boys. I had a nice contact with Moscow a while back and it was pretty neat.

About thirty years ago I was training to fight the Russians and it's pretty neat that I can get on the air with them now and there is only a common interest in radio communications to share with them. Religion and politics be damned.

I'm thinking of writing the CO of the small Japanese Maritime self-defense force on Iwo To which everyone knows as Iwo Jima. There is a garrison there of 400 Japanese servicemen and I'd just bet you that a couple of them are hams.

I'd sure like a QSL card from Iwo To. I had a relative killed there during the fighting and I suppose it would be a neat thing to have a card from there.

While I am out at sea the QSL cards come trickling in and when I get to my mail it is often in the middle of the night. I put the bills and other headaches aside and go straight for the incoming QSL cards. I can deal with the rest of the mail in the morning.

Anyway that's my post for the day.

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it is the middle of the night I an free for a brief period.

This is one of those little free periods that pop up from time to time.

Recently I have had a little vandalism to the blog from some self-rightous soul that decided to censor me by deleting my hanging copy. I won't get into this save to say that it was the work of an insecure person that I once tried to help.
8888888888888888

Over the past few years I have seen a lot of things I really do not like to see being done by rabid atheists whom I consider to be just as much trouble as rabid Muslims and rabid Christians. They're all a pain in the ass and I'd like to put them all on an island with a huge pile of chain saws and let them have at it.

We would liven things up by telling them that the survivors would be allowed to board a ship anchored in a bay. 

After the survivors were on board, we'd sink the boat.

Please note that the operative word in the above statements is 'rabid'. I bear no ill will to those of any religion or none religion that simply practice their faith quietly and do not try and force their values on others.

I have listened to atheists scream about the Ten Commandments that are outside of some courthouse somewhere and wonder why they simply don't read them and think a bit.

Commandments 1-3 pretty much cover the presence and acknowledgement of God which I can see. Number four is keeping the Sabbath holy and they could simply consider that to be a day off from work which ain't a bad deal as everyone likes a day off every once in a while.

Seven through ten are pretty much a pretty good code of conduct of life and you don't have to have a whole lot of religiosity to know that sleeping with someone else's wife, ripping people off , killing off each other constitutes the bulk of the problems we have on the planet.

Instead of trying to remove the Ten Commandments, the atheists really ought to simply take 4-10 as a pretty good practical code to try and live by. We'd all be better off.

Seven out of ten ain't a bad deal when you think of it. In fact, in this day and age seven out of ten of just about anything ain't a bad deal.

Truth is a lot of rabid atheism is nothing more than the work of a bunch of mean spirited people that ought to get their asses whipped.

The First Amendment guarantees us freedom OF religion. It does not guarantee us freedom FROM religion. You can't go around trying to destroy other people's faith.

Then again, they can't try and force you to believe, either. 

If you look back at the Founding Fathers most of them had religions, and most of them were Christians. A couple of the people that pitched in and stuck their neck out were Jews. In short the country was basically founded in a Judeo-Christian manner, making sure that they respected the rights of everyone else.

The Founding Fathers encouraged the practice of religion and made it clear because they knew that a lot of people had braved the perils of crossing the Atlantic and setting up shop here simply to get out from under the burden of a state religion.

Anyway, these days it seems like there are a group of rabid atheists running around and trying to get nativity scenes yanked from the public eye. I suppose that they have some sort of legal point in this. Maybe they can replace them with a Christmas tree or something and make it a non-religious holiday and I suppose I could stomach that. Then again there are those that consider that to be not enough.

They want the tree down. What's next? A public execution of Santa? I would not be surprised. I can picture Santa up against a wall with a blindfold and a cigarette. Betcha someone finds coal in their stocking after that one.

Over the years I have wished an awful lot of non-Christians a merry Christmas and have not really received a whole lot of complaints. Here and there you are likely to meet someone so mean and petty to be insulted but it doesn't seem to happen.

One of the people I have wished a Merry Christmas to is a Hindu and smiled. "Thank you for sharing your holiday with me," he said. What a wonderful attitude! I suppose it is a matter of time before he wishes me a happy whatever the Hindu holiday is. Frankly I would like to see that happen sometime. I'll help just about anyone celebrate their holiday.

From what I have seen of rabid atheists is interesting. Some of the worst ones I seriously think are not so much simple people that do not believe in a deity, but those that DO believe in a deity and are so mad at him for something that they deny his existence out of spite.

They are so mad at whatever god they believe in that they go through life tearing him down and insulting him every chance they get and try ruining things for everyone else. Maybe they got the wrong brand of bicycle one Christmas. Who knows?

Other rabid atheists are simply people that don't believe that simply have mean spirited and petty natures. Again here, the operative word here is rabid.

The majority of those out there that are simply non believers that simply go about their business and live their lives quietly as live and let live people. To these I wish the best as they cause no problems and bear no ill will to anyone else.

Before I end this post I have to warn an awful lot of self-righteous Christians that are gloating as they read this that they had probably keep their mouths shut because one of these days I am going to write a post on what a pain in the ass they are. 




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Here we go again. So how come

Islamic clerics are not shouting "It's not us!" at the top of their lungs after the Boston bombing?

This is another act of Islamic terrorism in this country and while it is not on the hideous level of the 9-11 attacks, it is a pretty good, solid hit on us.

While I am loathe to jump in and blame all Muslims for this kind of thing it sure looks like hell and provides an awful lot of food for the haters out there that just have to hate. Truth is it can easily be made to look justified.

I have posted about this before and pointed out that not all Muslims are involved in this and likely the Islamic community is not involved because generally all most people are interested in is making a living and raising a couple of kids. They have better things to do than murder people.

Still, it makes one wonder when the Muslim community stays silent after one of them perpetrates a heinous act like that and the rest of them do not speak out against it.

Like it or not, even though Islam is the fastest growing faith in the country, we are still basically a Judeo Christian country and Muslims are often looked at with suspicion. Especially after 9-11 when the Muslim clerics were silent then, too.

If the Muslim community wants to shake the suspicion that is aimed at them they are as a community going to have to take responsibility and stand up and scream that they are not the problem and the problems are caused by an irreverent minority.

Until that happens the entire Islamic community will likely be viewed with suspicion.

I suppose there will likely be attacks on Muslims here and there and while the people that commit the attacks are ultimately responsible, they could avoid the issue before it happens by simply being outspoken.

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So it is the middle of the night

and I am up and I suppose I will be for several more hours.

My match yesterday was terrible mainly because I didn’t do my part. I really did poorly which means I likely still shoot better than most.

I have not had my service rifle out to a match in about 3 or 4 years and I found out that precision shooting especially with irons is a perishable skill. I also found out my eyesight has gotten a bit worse over time.

The ammo I was using was put together back in ’04 for crying out loud. I found I still have boxes of it leftover from the year I went nuts and shot about 5K rounds for score and about an additional 3 times that for practice.

I did manage to get a clearer sight picture by breathing deeply several times between shots. I could actually see the sight picture clear up as I forced more air into my system.

My rapids were actually halfway decent groups which surprised me pleasantly but they were not centered.

When all else fails, go back to the basics. I think I’ll break out the Garand and try that for a match or two. It is an old trick I used to use when things got bad. Once I get good with a Garand then everything seems to fall into place.

Anyway, I broke the ice and I am back to shooting again.

It felt pretty good and I found out that I had been missed by the guys.

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Pressed for time

I'm up a little early and already jamming. I took a few minutes to post today.

It's got the makings of a good day and I have to get started in a couple of minutes. I'm shooting a match today and likely will not do well because I feel pressed for time. I hate being harried but maybe when I get there I'll settle down.

Yesterday I started to teach my neighbor to handload and it was a series of screwups. I do not know why yet but I managed to get two-count 'em-2 cases stuck in the resizing die even though they were well lubed.

I'm guessing it was either soft brass or his chamber is bad because the last quarter inch I had to use slightly more pressure than I do on my own brass.

Anyway, I taught him the principles and then we ran out of time.

My employer sometimes offers me overtime and I rarely take it. The personnel guy keeps telling me to think of the money I'll make and I always answer back with "Think of all the time I'll lose."

All the money in the world won't buy time.

While poverty certainly sucks and people will do almost anything to avoid it there are times I'd rather be poor and have the time to do what I want.

It's really a trade-off. You have to have enough money to support yourself and making the money costs you time.

The way I look at it, when you work for someone he is simply buying your time and paying you at a rate that you are willing to sell your time for.

I'll write more on this subject later.




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Not much but it is a post

It's about the time I generally take my morning coffee out into the driveway and watch the neighborhood start to spool up.
I watch some of the mothers send their kids off to school and people shove off for work and with any luck the bitch several doors down sees me and frowns. Nothing like starting the day off knowing you have pissed someone off just because of who you are.
On the other hand, there are always several people that smile at me and wave as they go out to spin the wheels of industry. Countering the bitch that scowls at me, I will also have to be honest and add that there is nothing like having someone wave and smile you just because of who you are.
Every so often someone might stop for a few seconds and either ask me what's going on or tip me off about something or another but most people simply wave. Someone stops every few days. Generally it's the lady that works in a nearby shop.
She has a reputation of being a gossip but in truth she knows a lot of people and has kept me out of hot water a time or two by keeping me posted about things. Last time it was a police trap at a certain stop sign.
I guess this is life in the burbs and it ain't all that awfully bad. In fact it's pretty good. I have been blessed with pretty good neighbors. When I put up a 43 foot vertical antenna in my back yard a couple of them dropped what they were doing and helped me erect it.
In a lot of other neighborhoods they would be raising hell and calling it an eyesore. Anyway it pays dividends to be a best friend/worst enemy.
As I type I am enjoying a venison steak dinner and as I usually do, it's a meal of basics. Venison, cole slaw and a O'Doul's as I plan on going out tonight and do not drink and drive as hitting a bump and spilling one's beer is considered to be alcohol abuse. There's another steak in the reefer and it looks like it ought to go pretty good with a couple eggs in the morning.
Oddly enough, one of the biggest pains in this area is stop signs as half the people with corner lots and a stop sign in front insist that everyone passing through comes to a complete and total stop and then waits a couple of seconds.
The hippocracy of it is that the same guy that raises hell about HIS stop sign will blow through every sign he encounters.
I got stopped at one once for failure to stop completely even though I likely had and got a warning. I didn't argue because I figured out that the cop just wanted to close the complaint.
I seriously think the cop knew I wouldn't fight over a warning because all you do with one is throw it in the trash. That is unless you remember you forgot to buy bathroom tissue.
The suburbs generally have pretty good departments for a number of reasons. Money is arguable, working conditions are not. The burbs are less prone to drugs and violence and the work for the most part is less risky.
Still, a cop with several years in the city likely has to change as the smaller departments mean the cops are more prone to complaints from the local gentry.
Anyway, when the cop handed me the warning I mentioned that the guy that lived in the corner house had a bad habit of driving through stop signs in my neck of the woods. He surpressed a smirk and said nothing.
A few months later I heard that the complainer got nailed and nailed hard for running a stop sign and a few other add-ons. When I heard that I grinned.
Right now it is before breakfast as I have just left this open to chip away at and in a few I'll turn the rig on and check in with Jda and Jim on the Young Ladies system.
The coffeemaker seems to be running slow so I guess I'll have to get a gallon of white vinegar and run it through a few times to clean things inside of it.
And I have to go on a four hour errand sometime today.
One other thing is that I think that I have found and Elmer to get me up and running on the digital modes of ham radio. One of the guys in the club has offered to set me up. What's interesting about him is that he lives just a few blocks away.
Gotta get ready. Sun's up and I have to go.



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I am up a little late and managed to sleep through the cat's carrying-ons

It is another day and I am overlooking the back yard which is actually in pretty good shape after the winter. Most likely when the bushes grow back in a doe will use the same spot to give birth to another fawn and the cycle begins again.

I tore out a hedge the other day and have filled in the resultant holes and seeded with grass. The hedge never looked all that good and was a pain in the neck to keep trimmed. It was easy to yank. I just bought 10 feet of cable and four cable clamps and made a choker.I shackled the choker to a long tow strap and yanked them out with my pickup.

The flower beds have a nice layer of mushroom manure on them and in a couple of weeks after things settle I'll plant marigolds and a few zinnias and then the magic will occur. I'm thinking of planting from seeds this year again. I did that a couple of years ago and had tree sized marigolds.

I suppose it will be time to start mowing in a couple of weeks but I'm going to put that off until I have to as once you start things go a  little crazy. The lawn looks pretty good, too.

The kid up the street is $10 richer now as he did a good job of weeding for a couple of hours. He's at the age where he wants to do things but is not quite old enough. His dad encourages this and I suppose in a few years when I get older he'll be an occasional helper at the Piccolo spread.

His kid sister is now about five and she's my sweetie. Every time she sees me she wants a hug. She's really a character and watching her dad deal with her is a trip. She'll go far because she has a grateful sort of flexibility. If she want's ice cream for dessert and winds up with a popsicle she is smart enough to know she's better off than with nothing.

I took my morning coffee in the driveway and watched the woman diagonally across the street send her three off to school. The oldest girl is a pretty good athlete and a while ago I taught her to do a volley ball serve. She got good fast and is likely to become a real looker in a few years. She has a pair of kid brothers and they're a few years younger. The youngest is the most energetic kid I have ever seen. He's a handful.

Funny how things tend to replace things as time goes on. The little girl directly across the street must be pushing thirty now and I remember keeping an eye on her when she was growing up. She's been out of the house for year.

I generally like what I see when I look around the neighborhood. I dryly told one of the neighbors that it's been almost 5 years since I've had to chase anyone off of my lawn with an M-1. He chuckled.

Today I have a little touch-up to do in the yard and ought to be done easily by noon and then maybe I'll take my PRC 320 out and go hill topping. I think the water tower will be a good place as it isn't a weekend and there are likely no events planned for that area in the park.

I'm next to the home rig now and getting ready to check in with Jda as I do most mornings. Jim up in Halifax is weak but the band should come up soon. Maybe he just has to turn his beam.

Last night there was a ham club meeting and I attended which is rare as I generally wind up at sea when the meetings are scheduled. I brought my PRC 320 along because the last time I made a meeting someone asked me to. I did and was mobbed..

Most of the guys never used a military rig before as most hams gravitate toward newer technology. On Field Day they generally simply drag their rigs outside and run off of generators and batteries.Most ham gear is not designed for hard field use.

Military gear is also bare bones and has none of the meters and do-dads that hams seem to like. For most hams it is a different world.

One of the officers asked me to give a presentation and I will but I'll have to check my schedule.  It means I'll have to drag all of the accessories out which will be fun as there are a lot of them I seldom use. I suppose I can give a pretty good class.

The cat is being a cat and that's all I have to say for today.



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Raining today so I think I'll do a little DXing

The weather is breaking and the other day I was treated to the sight of a top heavy soccer mom in a tank top and wondered if the pair of jiggling Casbah melons under it were going to pop over the top of her tank top. They didn't but it was close a couple of times.

I got a lot of outside work done and if it does decide to rain heavy today and give the place a good soaking then things will be for the better. My flower beds are in good shape and the Beam bottle is full of iced tea for tomorrow when the weather is scheduled to be dry. There's still a little touch up work to be done.

Yesterday morning I had a medical test and did OK which means nothing because there are a lot of people that just drop dead two or three days after they passed their whatever test it was they had.

Yesterday in the Dr's office another patient, a woman was griping that she was seriously considering home schooling her kids because she said that people like Bill Ayers are writing curriculums for our schools.

Can't say as I blame her. Ayers is married to Bernadine Dohrn and both of these were sixties terrorists. Both of them do not belong in our educational system. They should be sitting in jail now and being allowed to meet the parole board for the first time.

I did a lot of listening but kept my mouth shut as I didn't want my blood pressure to go through the roof before my test.

Like I said, today it is raining and I think I'll chase a few DX nets on my HF rig. I am listening to the Southern Cross net as I type and the band isn't in very good shape now so I guess I'll go up to the YLISSB net and check in. After that I'll start spinning the dial and see what other activity is out there today.

Someone showed me a picture of Boston when they shut the city down and it looked like something out of 'Life after People'.

They shut down the entire city of Boston and I have very mixed feelings on this. It could be spun in two different ways.

The message that the entire city will stick together and stop what they are doing to run one single man down like a dog seems like it would send a very powerful message out to the criminal community.

On the other hand, the message it sends out to the terrorist community is a whole lot different. It tells them that they can shut down an entire city with just a couple of easy to make pressure cooker bombs.

Personally I take the 'Keep Calm and Carry On' attitude the Brits took during the Battle of Britain. You keep calm and go about your business and change nothing. You do not let them win.

I think the Bostonians should have simply gone about their business like nothing happened and not given the bastards the victory. 

Let's face it,the terrorists won another one here and likely there will be repercussions and we'll wind up losing freedoms here somehow. There will likely be searches or you'll have fill out useless paperwork to buy a pressure cooker or reloading supplies.

Of course, the media has to share responsibility in this one, too. They turned the apprehension of the kid brother into a media circus and as soon as it hit the airwaves half of Watertown and the surrounding communities descended on the scene like a pack of hungry dogs fighting for a piece of meat.

It got so bad there that I imagine the police had to use more of their assets for crowd control than they did on the perpetrator.

As soon as he got nailed would have been a perfect time for another   terrorist to let fly as the mob was pretty dense and were occupied with the business at hand. They were likely standing around running their mouths over this and that, oblivious to what was happening around them.

I would imagine that someone with a load of baby wipes and a large firecracker could have made a fortune at this point. (I posted this comment somewhere else and got slain for it.)

Likely ten years ago I would have been another busybody and gone out to check the scene out, but I have changed my attitude over time. I no longer have a pressing need to stand around in a crowd looking at whatever mess is out there to be seen.

If I can't contribute by going there I'll contribute more simply by staying the hell away and not getting in the way.

Still, all in all, I think that maybe Boston would be better off in the long run if they had taken a "Keep Calm and Carry On" attitude.

I might be wrong, but it makes sense to me.

The radio next to me just went off and I think I'll check in with Jda and the YL net and then see if I can get an African on 15 meters when the net opens there.



















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Vice President Biden WAS right. You DO need a double barreled shotgun.

You throw a couple of blasts off of the balcony and when the thug hears both barrels he knows you have an empty shotgun so he charges right on in.

Then you pick up your deadly assault rifle with a 30 round banana clip on it and waste him as he charges through the door.

Then again, if you are not lucky than Fish and Game will nail you for hunting over bait.






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Yesterday I wrote about the movie 'Best Years of our Lives'

 and spoke about my father's readjustment.

Mine was considerably different. I had seen it coming since the day I enlisted. I was doing one hitch and getting out. I had never seriously considered making a career out of it.

For the last year I had seved every nickel I could and took no leave. I cashed in 60 days leave when I was discharged and I had a plan.

I moved into a tipi a couple of days after I got out and lived there for my first year, living both off of my savings and my GI bill as I was commuting to school three days a week. I did well fairly well in school, and there really wasn't much of a readjustment. It was simply just another change of employment when you got down to it.


Life in the tipi was pretty good and in generally pretty quiet with the exception of a couple of incidents.

The big adjustment was moving back to civilization even though I was in civilization several days a week.

The first place I moved into was a condemned house the owner was letting people stay in for a few bucks. There were about six or seven guys living there, mostly recently discharged GIs.

I moved in and slept on a homemade bed in what used to be a dining room. The entire place was a zoo and after a few days of that I decided that the place was too much for me and likely a bust waiting to happen.

Most of the guys living there were potheads or into psychedelics. Saturday breakfast for some of these guys consisted of three beers, two hits of mescaline and a joint.

Only one of these guys had any interest in making things better for themselves. I found that one out early on.

There were three TVs there, two were stacked on top of each other. The top set had a working picture but no audio. The botton one had audio but no picture. You turned them both on and if you were smart enough to have them both on the same channel it was basically operable.

If both TVs were not on the same channel sometimes things got interesting. I sat there one evening and watched my roomates watch 'Sands of Iwo Jima' with a 'Wizard of Oz' sound track once. They were too toasted on psyhcedelics to even notice.

The third TV was in good shape. It had a blown tube. I had done allof the work to get it going again and the tube was on top of it. Allthey had to do to have a good TV was to plug the tube in and put the back on again. Four screws and a tube.

I had done all the work and paid for thetube but had grown disgusted. They could do the rest but were too lazy to.

I immediately called a friend and ditched my firearms with him except for a shotgun that I hid in the trunk of my Volkswagen beetle.

I figured that I'd find another place to live and had one arranged in short order.

It was a Saturday afternoon and I arrived home after shooting skeet in an old sand and gravel pit. As usual, four or five of the guys were sitting there watching the tube. There was a John Wayne western on and for once the soundtrack actually matched the pucture.

The guys were toasted and I sat on the couch watching the movie and cleaning my shotgun. I was disgusted with what I saw and as I was cleaning the shotgun I realized that behind the outside wall that was behind the TV(s) was nothing more than a cliff face. It was actually a safe place to shoot when you thought about it.

Quietly I took a pair of Marlboro butts out of the ash tray, tore off the filters and screwed them into my ears and waitedand watched the movie.

When someone was trying to sneak up on the Duke I slipped a pair of rounds into the shotgun and just as the bad guy was getting ready to shoot the Duke I let fly with both barrels at the TV.

The picture tube, of course, imploded. Glass flew around and everyone's ears were ringing. The guys were agape and in shock and it was almost a full minute before it sunk in as to what had happened. Their heads were reeling with a mixture of just about every brain toasting psychedelic drug available on the streets of the 70s.

"Wow, man! Piccolo just saved John Wayne!" said a brain fried voice.

That was the last straw.I was not going to live around brain dead anymore. I simply got up and left. I think I went to Manitou Springs and found some broad I knew and shacked up with her for a couple of days and then returned and gathered my stuff and left.

I then moved into the third bedroom of a three bedroom apartment that I shared with a couple of college girls in their senior year. It was OK at first, they did my laundry and I kept their Volkswagens running but things got wierd after a while so I left. Leave it at that when I say things got wierd.

From there I shared a place with another recently discharged GI that was going to school on his GI bill. We were in different social circles so we never even saw each other and I wound up living there until I moved to Alaska.

I suppose I consider this last place the place where I managed to merge back into civilization but that is arguable as my life in Alaska proved to be anything but civilized but that's another story.



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The other night I watched the movie 'The Best Years of our Lives'.

Great movie.

Dana Andrew's character reminds me of my father. He was another kid with a few brains and a high school diploma that they ran through a program, pinned a bar on his collar and put him into some damned expensive machines. They paid him pretty good money, too.

Dana Andrews played a bombardier that had been a captain and went through the same thing my dad did in a way.
The war was over and they dumped a lot of these guys into a pretty competitive labor market. Some of them had jobs to go home to, some didn't.

Dad had been a musician in high school and played calrinet and saxaphone. He was pretty good, actually. GI Joe had just gotten home with a little mustering out pay and was looking for a good time so dad played in a band for a while after he was discharged.

However, Dad was single when he got out so he didn't have relationship adjustment problems to deal with.

The First Sergeant had been married for quite some time before he was drafted and seemed to slip back into his routine a lot easier than the other two.

While the sailor that had lost his hands had to get over the loss of his hands he had a girl to come home to and pretty much knew he'd wind up as a working class guy eventually.

I wonder in a way if the guys that had been promoted ahead of their times with little education to fall back on didn't had a disappointment that lasted them for decades

You put a kid in a uniform and put a bar on his collar and give him both the responsibility, the pay and prestige for a couple of years and then discharge him and it's quite an adjustment.

In one of the dopey Rambo movies, Rambo griped that as a soldier he could run a million dollar piece of machinery but on the outside he couldn't get a job parking cars.

I think that down inside he never got over it because during the Cuban missile crisis he was scared. He was under 40 and looking at what very well could have become another World War.

Several years later he told me about this. He told me that he was terrified of being drafted back into the army as a private. He knew there were no more B-29s left to fly and thought he was too old to retrain.

I pointed out that he had gotten his degree in '57 and it was likely that he'd be recommissioned and given a job in logistics.

His degree was sitting in a drawer and he had never mentioned it to me. He was somewhat surprised I knew about it and I'd bet he'd forgotten about it as he was feeding 5 kids as a mechanic.

He blushed for a minute. "I'd forgotten about that," The look on his face told me he felt foolish.

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Update on the match

which was a bust of sorts but in other ways it was great.

I arrived with a .22 sighted in for 50 yards and I guess I figured my holdover OK. Still, it was cold and we actually had light snow flurries which is rare. I was unprepared for that as I had figured it would warm up. It didn't.

I couldn't get things to settle down and shot poorly to the point that I didn't even bother to shoot the second string.

Still, when you return to something like that you can't go with great expectations, especially if you are talking about offhand shooting. It's like Morse code, it is a perishable skill.

While I was pleased at my shooting at Quantico last month I was shooting a different match there and could dig in nicely and not have to fight the shakes as Quantico was a prone match.

Anyway, I met a couple of new shooters and it's interesting to note that two of the newbies are women. These two were not the women I met a while back that were discussing infantry tactics. One was another shooter's SO shooting with her hubby and the other was a woman that shoots regular there now.

During the time between strings the  guys asked me where I had been and were glad to see me show up. They said they missed my leopard skin mat, pink AR and smart-assed attitude.

Next weekend there's a service rifle match and we'll see what happens then. If the weather is halfway decent and I get an hour during the week to tune up the service rifle I ought to do OK.





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Offhand match today. Running fast early

Running fast as I have an offhand match today.

It's supposed to be 40 rounds, any rifle any sight and the first time I have shot this one as it is a fairly new event at the club.

I had dropped out of things for a while and I returned to find that there is a match scheduled for every weekend. There is a 40 round offhand match that I think I will  enter with a .22.

There is also a 40 shot slow fire at 200 yards which is any rifle any sight and there are 2 service rifle matches.

Of course, I'll use a service rifle for the service rifle matches but for the offhand I'll use a .22 and for the slow fire I think I'll use an M40 and shoot that one off of my belly and out of competition.

Anyway, I'm off to shoot today.



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This one says it all.

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Yesterday I had an interesting dealing with a whiner.

Right now my project is to yank up a hedgerow which I am doing with a wire choker, a tow strap and a pickup. It's going along fast as I can hook them up and give them a quick yank.

I had to take a break and head down to the supermarket and on the way I saw someone trying to dig up a bush. I stopped and watched for a second. He looked up and grumbled about what a pain in the neck it was to dig up the bush. I asked him what it was worth to have it removed and he told me he'd give me fifty bucks then and there if I could remove it.

I reached into the back of the pickup and grabbed the choker and tow strap and inside of three minutes it was up and out of the ground. "That'll be fifty bucks," I said.

"I could have done that," he protested.

"Why didn't you?" I shot back.

I collected my $50. It was like pulling teeth. Then went on my way.

Truth is I would have done this job for free if the guy had been a decent person but I knew him as being a neighborhood pain in the neck so I simply made a few bucks on the deal.

Best friend, worst enemy.



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Yesterday I was busy as a bee

and didn't find out that the background check law didn't pass the Senate until later in the evening.

I can say that I am overjoyed that it didn't because it likely means the rest of the gun legislation won't pass.

Not one bit of this legislation will make us any safer. It will deprive us of our rights and actually make us LESS safe.

Of course I suppose I'll have to listen to the usual crowd of whiners on Facebook.

In other news, I got a good night's sleep and am getting ready for a late breakfast. The cat is being his usual pain in the ass and I have already gotten a couple of my chores out of the way.

I snagged a 1.75 liter bottle of Jim Beam and have re bottled it into about 17 or 18 of the little 100 ml bottles I keep for either bribes or guests. Now I have a fresh 1.75 liter bottle for iced tea when I garden. The repacks will be served to visitors and the factory sealed bottles will be saved for little tips and bribes to people like the trash guys or anyone else that I deem fit. The kitchen smells like a moonshine distillery now and I suppose it will for a few hours. Actually it is not objectionable.

When I stopped off for a couple of groceries last evening I met the guy that fixed my furnace. Interesting man. When the company  he was working for cratered he simply took another job and invested in himself via the Community College route. He learned the HVAC trade and as soon as he could he got a job in that business. He reports that he is doing about as well as he used to and feels he has more job security.

He says his kids are going to go to college AND leaarn a useful trade to fall back on.

The kid at the register asked me how I was doing and I replied, "Not worth a $hit, but thank you very much for asking. It shows that your mother raised you with a few manners and that is quite refreshing in this day and age."

The guy behind me grinned broadly, looked at me and said, "You got that one right."








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One of the things I shook my head over

 is when I heard that the mayor of Boston wasn't going to let Chik-Fil-A or whatever the damned place is called set up shop in Boston.

Apparently he doesn't like their stance on gays.

So? Let them in anyway. They will bring in a few more jobs and if people don't like them they don't have to eat there.

I've never eaten in one and eating in one is not on my immediate list of things to do but then again I suppose if I get hungry enough near one I might check it out.

I've watched a few states over the past four months run a lot of businesses out of their states with gun control laws. Colt is leaving Hartford and so are a few others.

Magpul and a few others are leaving Colorado and Beretta and Benelli are likely leaving Maryland.

When you add all of the companies that are moving out there is a LOT of money involved. It's not just the companies, either. It's the support and the other little parasitic businesses that rely on the company.

The very people that voted for the gun laws that have chased these businesses out are likely the same dumbasses that will hear that their Uncle Louie is out of a job because of it. They will stand there wide-eyed and agape and after a few flies land in their mouths they'll spit them out by saying something stupid.

"But...but...THAT'S NOT FAIR!!"

What's not fair about it is that they are now facing the law of unintended consequences and it's their turn to feel stupid. They have just $hit and fallen back in it and are angry that now they have to clean their own feces off of themselves.

They seem to have forgotten that they have created a lousy atmosphere for businesses and that if the business wants to make any money they have to leave and go somewhere else that will allow them to.

In reality they have not created the safety they were looking forward to. They have eliminated jobs, added to the unemployment roster, increased poverty and with poverty comes the inevitable increase in crime.

As for the firearms they have outlawed they haven't done themselves any favors because criminals don't obey laws in the first place. If they did we would not have any crime to begin with.

In short these states have done nothing whatsoever to make themselves any safer and have done quite a bit to make themselves poorer.

In fact they are likely to become a lot less safe.

Yet I see stupidity in high places everywhere I turn.

Not allowing that dopey Chik-Fil-A or whatever it is to open in Boston is just another example of lousy business sense on the part of the powers that be.

You voted for these people that hinder business, so save me your laminations. Take yourself into the darkness and moan, wail and gnash your teeth quietly so I don't have to hear it.

You already have made my ears sore when you whined about their moving not being fair.





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Shortly after I watched the guys gas the local strip club

Shortly after I watched the guys gas the local strip club downtown I was approached by my Battery Commander that had just conducted an inventory. He explained to me that there were a lot of property shortages and that he wanted to figure out a way to cover for this.

At this time I was running the arms room which is part of supply. I had seen what went on in supply so I sort of understood how to turn stuff in to get it off the books. If we could get our hands on the stuff the supply sergeant could turn it in.

A couple of months earlier I had been sent to a brief couple of day course on sling loading helicopters. Strangely enough the course was given by a trio of Marines and one of the sergeants that should have known better called them a bunch of jarheads within earshot.

Needless to say, chaos resulted and I blew up with both the sergeant and the wronged Marines. I told them that I hadn't come to get involved in petty interservice spats but to learn something. 

What was interesting is that I was an 'acting jack' at the time and the sergeant pointed out he wasn't going to listen to an AJ.  I pointed out that he'd listen to me after I put a few toothmarks on his throat. He settled down quickly. He remembered his friend, Popski, whom I  had put the fear of God into several months before.

I had been on CQ duty and Popski came in plastered and tried to start a fight with me. He slipped and I dove down on him and started biting him in the throat. Not enough to break any skin and have to have myself checked for rabies, but enough so tooth marks showed on his throat for a few days.

It put the fear of God into him and established my place on the pecking order. Truth is, Popski could have cleaned my clock if he wasn't so falling down drunk, but nobody seemed to think of that. For a while they called me 'Mad Dog'.

Class resumed and I learned a few things and still use the skills as a rigger every once in a while.

After the day long class, the Gunny offered to buy me a beer. He wanted to know about my reference to putting toothmareks on the sergeant's throat. I told him the unvarnished truth and he grinned. He said that perception of being a badass is a big part of the game.

The skipper had been through the ranks, enlisting as a private before getting Warranted as a helicopter pilot and finally commisssioning as an artillery officer.

Although he had enough hours to automatically receive flight pay he occasionally took one up to stay current.

Most of the missing property was stuff like desks and chairs and for some reason the supply sergeant was having no luck trading stuff to get them. The furniture was actually flimsy junk and fairly light. 

We didn't care what shape the stuff was in as we were simply going to turn it in to get it off of the property books.

There was a mechanism in place to get stuff off of the books but it involved an awful lot of paperwork and sometimes a hearing. While I suppose the skipper could have simply had Supply Daddy do the paperwork, hearings of any sort are to be avoided at all costs. 

I asked the skipper if he had any plans to make any night helicopter flights and he looked up at with interest yet said nothing. I said I'd get back with him.

I went back to supply and asked the supply sergeant if he  could turn in a broken chair and he looked at me and asked me why I wanted to do that and I told him I wanted to case the property disposal lot.

Ten minutes later I was in a jeep headed there and an hour and a half I returned with a general layout. A causal comment to a WAC let me know the lot was unguarded. I also looked very carefully for phone poles and things that could chew up a rotor balde and destroy a chopper.

I got back to the battery late for formation and went straight into the First Sergeant's office expecting to have to explain why I missed formation.  As soon as I stuck my face into the orderly room Top looked up and nodded. He knew I was out on business.

The skipper was in and I dropped in on him and suggested that maybe if I sneaked into the property disposal lot and hooked a bunch of desks and chairs together he could lift them with a chopper.

The lot was fairly secluded and unguarded. We'd just scoop the stuff up, haul it into the woods somewhere and haul it back to the battery and turn it in piecemeal.

He said I was crazy. I shrugged and told him that I thought it was bold enough to get away with. I also gave him a full report on possible obstacles in the area. I drew them out carefully. He told me I was nuts and had watched too much TV.

Two days later he called me in and asked me how I would pull such a stunt off. I told him to have a duece n' half waiting in the woods and simply fly over the property yard, drop down, let me hook the stuff onto the sling hook and go straight up and haul the stuff off.

He could lower the chopper near the truck, release the sling and continue his flight. How he got the OK to fly around over  post was on him.

The next day he told me I had to add a couple of chairs to the list. I said nothing but figured out he had made a deal with someone at Butts Field.

We scheduled the foray for when our battery was supposed to be guarding the motor pool because we knew we could get past the guard. Supply Daddy would just show him a dispatch and we'd drive off with a duece n' half unquestioned.

On the evening of the foray I got dropped off near the disposal yard by the supply daddy and slipped into the darkness dragging a duffel bag with rope in it. I quietly approached the side and started looking for a way in. I found more than I was expecting.

Not only was there a hole big enough to drive a jeep through but there was a pile of desks, chairs and bunks outside the fence. I went through the pile quickly and sorted it out and threaded my rope through all of the stuff we needed.

I was happy not to have needed my fencing tool to cut through the chain mail. The fencing tool is pretty handy. Anyone that's ever driven through cattle country and seen a roll of barbed wire has lost ten of them.

Then I went inside the yard and grabbed a couple of chairs that we needed. On the ground I saw something and snagged it. I to this day don't know how it got there but I snagged a bayonet and sheath still in the wrapper!

Bayonets were damned hard to come by. In my arms room they were kept in a footlocker that not only was padlocked but banded shut with a banding machine. I made damned good and sure I put it in the duffel bag out of sight of Supply Daddy who would take it from me.

The B Battery armorer said he was short one and I knew that he would cheerfully swap his unaccounted for M-60 spare barrel kit of it. I wasn't short a spare barrel kit but I wanted an extra.

I laid on my back for about an hour watching the stars and then heard the whomp-whomp of an approaching Huey and flashed a signal  with a flashlight. I was rewarded with a quick shot of landing lights.

In an instant the bird dropped to the deck and I quickly realized I was too close to the fence and the blades might smack it. I bent on my spare 100 feet of rope onto the harness and ran out to a safer place while holding the end.

I bent a quick bowline into the end of the rope and signaled the chopper down until the skids were about three feet off of the deck. Then I snaked under the bird and slipped the bowline onto the hook, jumped on the skid and got yanked into the chopper.

I gave the word to the skipper to climb up about 25 feet and then move over to the center of the pile and go straight up as I wanted to avoid having the load swing. As soon as we were over the pile we went straight up like a homesick angel.

He wasn't too pleased that I had put an extra 100 feet of line on the load but I guess he realized I had to. Straight up we went and as soon as the crew chief gave the OK we headed off to the place the duece n' half was parked.

Supply Daddy was there and flashed a light and we just dropped straight down and when the stuff was piled up the skipped opened the hook, and the slack harness fell.

I realized from the way he had skyed up that he was a hotshot pilot, but when he gently lowered the ropeful of stuff I knew he was truly a skilled crastsman.

About 100 feet away from there he did a touch and go and I bailed. When I hopped off I went too fast and landed on my ass, right on top of one of those damned cactus plants the post teemed with. He was gone before I stopped cussing.

Then I helped Supply Daddy load the truck. I had to remind him that I didn't care if he was a Staff Sergeant and outranked me or not. He was damned well going to help. He was a lazy bastard.

It was a few minutes after we got the stuff loaded that we backed up to the S&A building and stuffed all of the crap into the supply room. We'd go through the stuff the following day. 

The next day we went through the stuff and most of it was pretty busted up but that was OK because we were turning it in as damaged anyway. Before I went into help out I had Doc dug the rest of the cactus spines out of my ass. He wanted to send me to the dispensary. When I told him I was going to have Top intervene he figured something was going on and relented.

Supply Daddy broke the pile into three lots and turned the stuff in in three seperate turn-ins about a week apart.

About a week or so later I wanted some time off. I wanted to explore the western part of the country and took a week's leave. Top kind of put the fix in on that one and I got to simply take five days off and run it with a weekend on both ends. I explored western Colorado, parts of Utah and Arizona. I saw the Grand Canyon. I also got as far as Las Vegas and drove up and down the strip.

This meant I got nine days off for the price of five, yet when my leave and earnings statement came in it showed no change in leave balance. I said nothing and assumed it was a freebie.

I never asked the skipper any details on how he fixed things on the flight manifest or how he got the OK to fly over the main part of the post but I'll bet he called in a lot of favors for that one. I seldom saw choppers over the main part of the post and figured it was sort of restricted airspace.

Later when we took another inventory we wound up having a couple of extras here and there but we had no shortages.




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Attributed to Foxworthy but I'm not sure

I got this in an email and it has supposidly been attributed to Jeff Foxworthy. Anyway, I like it so I will post it here. If Jeff didn't say this, I'm sorry. Then again if he didn't say it he probably should have.

　

Channeling Jeff Foxworthy

If you can get arrested for hunting or fishing without a license,
but not for being in the country illegally — you might live in a
nation founded by geniuses but run by idiots.

If you have to get your parents’ permission to go on a field trip
or take an aspirin in school, but not to get an abortion — you
might live in a nation founded by geniuses but run by idiots.

If you have to show identification to board an airplane, cash a
check, buy liquor, or check out a library book, but not to vote
who runs the government — you might live in a nation founded
by geniuses but run by idiots.

If the government wants to ban stable, law-abiding citizens from
owning gun magazines with more than ten rounds, but gives
twenty F-16 fighter jets to the crazy new leaders in Egypt — you
might live in a nation founded by geniuses but run by idiots.

If, in the nation’s largest city, you can buy two 16-ounce sodas,
but not a 24-ounce soda because 24-ounces of a sugary drink
might make you fat — you might live in a nation founded by
geniuses but run by idiots.

If an 80-year-old woman or a three-year-old girl confined to a
wheelchair can be strip-searched by the TSA, but a woman in
a hijab is only subject to having her neck and head searched
— you might live in a nation founded by geniuses but run by idiots.

If your government believes that the best way to eradicate trillions
of dollars of debt is to spend trillions more — you might live in a
nation founded by geniuses but run by idiots.

If a seven-year-old boy can be thrown out of school for saying his
teacher is "cute," but hosting a sexual exploration or diversity class
in grade school is perfectly acceptable — you might live in a nation
founded by geniuses but run by idiots.

If children are forcibly removed from parents who discipline them
with spankings, while children of addicts are left in filth- and drug-infested
"homes" — you might live in a nation founded by geniuses but run by idiots.

If hard work and success are met with higher taxes and more
government intrusion, while not working is rewarded with EBT cards,
WIC checks, Medicaid, subsidized housing, and free cell phones
— you might live in a nation founded by geniuses but run by idiots.

If the government’s plan for getting people back to work is to provide
incentives for not working through 99 weeks of unemployment checks,
without any requirement to prove they sought, but couldn’t find, work
— you might live in a nation founded by geniuses but run by idiots.

If you pay your mortgage faithfully, denying yourself the newest big
screen TV, while your neighbor buys iPhones, wall-sized plasma do-it-all
TV’s and new cars, and the government forgives his debt when he
defaults on his mortgage — you might live in a nation founded by geniuses
but run by idiots.

If being stripped of the ability to defend yourself makes you more "safe"
according to the government — you might live in a nation founded by
geniuses but run by idiots.


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