Thursday, February 6, 2014
Food deserts is a term I have heard lately.
Generally these are blighted urban areas where the residents have to leave their area to buy food. The reason is generally that nobody wants to open a supermarket in the blighted area.
Of course, the residents ot these paradises on earth are griping about things being the way they are and don't like having to hop on the bus and go a distance to get their groceries.
Needless to say, the residents are blaming everyone and their cousins for their problem when the truth is they only have themselves to blame.
The object of opening a business is to make money. It is as simple as that. When you can't turn a profit you either close your doors or don't open them in the first place.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that these high crime areas are likely to vandalize and rob a store of its profits. If someone does decide to open a grocery business in one of these neighborhoods he has to charge a lot higher price to cover shoplifting, robberies, vandalism and other thefts.
Ever notice that every derelict and bag lady is pushing around a shopping cart? Ever wonder where it came from? Someone paid for it. While this is just a small part of the cost of doing business in blighted urban areas, it's an example of what urban supermarkets have to put up with.
Urbanites sometimes gripe that peopple out in the suburbs pay less for things. It's true to a point. It's simply because the price of doing business is lower because they suffer fewer thefts, crimes and pay lower insurance rates.
Urban markets for the most part charge higher prices because they have to compensate for shoplifting, vandalism and the other expenses that must seem to go along with urban life.
In addition the various insurances needed to run such a business are likely to have premiums that are through the roof.
The problem, of course, isn't the companies that won't open in a food desert. On the contrary. They would love to open up in the middle of a food desert because they would have close to an area monopoly on food. If opening a business there was safe there would be any number of them.
Truth is that there are any number of chains and independents that would love to open up in one of these deserts.
The blame for this isn't the companies, be them chain or independents. The blame rests on the shoulders of the residents for allowing their neighborhoods to fall into such a sad state so as to frighten businesses away.
Things have to get pretty bad when a store turns up the golden opportunity to be the only show in town. REAL bad.
This can change if the residents want it to. They can form neighborhood watches and work with the local police to clean the neighborhood up. When the crime rate goes down and the streets become safer you can bet that businesses will return to the neighborhoods. With a vengenge. If they can make money there they will return in a heartbeat.
The first step is to admit there is a problem, stop blaming others, take charge and accept some responsibility to clean the neighborhood up.
Ignoring the community leaders that want to shift blame to anyone but the community itself is a pretty good start. Nobody wants to admit that their community is the problem and it doesn't take long for self-appointed community leaders to get the residents to blame someone else and ditch the responsibility on someone else.
Of course, there is always someone that will come along and say the government ought to step in force the large chains to provide for high crime neighborhoods. I will, as usual, suggest that THEY open a store there and run it.
When THEY get robbed and THEY have to pay to fix vandalism and THEY have to raise prices to compensate for theft and THEY have to return to a smoking pile of ashes after a riot and find out that now THEY have to pay insurance premiums that have skyrocketed then they can come back and tell me how they feel about hellhole food deserts.
Then again, they won't. They'll just continue to run their mouths and continue to try and spend someone else's money.
To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
Today is an odd day.
I am traveling today and on the road home. I'm a couple hours out and decided to post from a Dunkin' Donuts with free WiFi.
It wasn't long ago that I used to like road trips but as time goes on I consider sitting in a vehicle and driving any distance just to be another necessary pain in the neck. The wintry mix coming down adds further misery to the trek.
There is an ad stuck in the window for what looks to be a fairly new lawn mower for $75. It's a miserable day and it's cold, wet, rainy sleety and just miserable. It's a perfect day for buying a new lawn mower and I'd bet that if you offered the seller $50 today you'd score.
I gotta admit I like Dunkin' Donuts coffee and the grease rounds are pretty good, too. I suppose I should avoid them and I generally do but every so often it's good to have a little treat so it's Old Fashioned time. A cuppa joe and and old fashioned hits the spot.
The coffee and donut should last me until I get home and I see a pretty good lunch of chicken and a salad. Actually a day like this should be a chili day.
Anyway, it looks like time to get back on the trail.
Greetings from Dunkin' Donuts
To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY
It wasn't long ago that I used to like road trips but as time goes on I consider sitting in a vehicle and driving any distance just to be another necessary pain in the neck. The wintry mix coming down adds further misery to the trek.
There is an ad stuck in the window for what looks to be a fairly new lawn mower for $75. It's a miserable day and it's cold, wet, rainy sleety and just miserable. It's a perfect day for buying a new lawn mower and I'd bet that if you offered the seller $50 today you'd score.
I gotta admit I like Dunkin' Donuts coffee and the grease rounds are pretty good, too. I suppose I should avoid them and I generally do but every so often it's good to have a little treat so it's Old Fashioned time. A cuppa joe and and old fashioned hits the spot.
The coffee and donut should last me until I get home and I see a pretty good lunch of chicken and a salad. Actually a day like this should be a chili day.
Anyway, it looks like time to get back on the trail.
Greetings from Dunkin' Donuts
To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY
Tuesday, February 4, 2014
I just gave away a window sticker
because the person I gave it to will use it.
It says "Nobody cares about your stick figure family" and there is a stick figure guy with a chain saw chasing them away.
While I do not care about what you do to your car, a lot of those kind of things are getting old.
A while ago I ran into a couple of teachers and the subject of those "My child is a honor student" stickers came up and the teachers said they hated them. I was interested and asked why.
As is often he case, the problem isn't the kids, it's the parents that pressure their kids to get them one of the stickers so they can put it on their cars to impress the neighbors.
I guess they have to mail the stickers to the kid's house because if they give it to a kid to take home he or she is likely to be bullied out of the damned thing by some kid trying to get his parents off his back.
Par golf.
Another teacher commented that busting one's ass for a stupid bumper sticker is a lousy reason to try and become an honor student. She said the reason for it should be that the person simply wants to learn rather then get a damned bumper sticker.
Several years ago when the stickers came out there was one that came out in retaliation that said, "My kid beat up your honor student" which some people called mean spirited. Maybe it was but I'll admit I had one on the back of my pickup cap for a while.
Still, I think that a lot of the vehicle adornments we see these days get old pretty fast, although I did see one put up by a bitter woman that made me smirk.
There was a stick mom with 2 kids labeled mom, son, and daughter and a big space. On the other side of the space was a stick man and woman. The man and woman were labeled Dad and dad's ho.
Whatever.
To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY
It says "Nobody cares about your stick figure family" and there is a stick figure guy with a chain saw chasing them away.
While I do not care about what you do to your car, a lot of those kind of things are getting old.
A while ago I ran into a couple of teachers and the subject of those "My child is a honor student" stickers came up and the teachers said they hated them. I was interested and asked why.
As is often he case, the problem isn't the kids, it's the parents that pressure their kids to get them one of the stickers so they can put it on their cars to impress the neighbors.
I guess they have to mail the stickers to the kid's house because if they give it to a kid to take home he or she is likely to be bullied out of the damned thing by some kid trying to get his parents off his back.
Par golf.
Another teacher commented that busting one's ass for a stupid bumper sticker is a lousy reason to try and become an honor student. She said the reason for it should be that the person simply wants to learn rather then get a damned bumper sticker.
Several years ago when the stickers came out there was one that came out in retaliation that said, "My kid beat up your honor student" which some people called mean spirited. Maybe it was but I'll admit I had one on the back of my pickup cap for a while.
Still, I think that a lot of the vehicle adornments we see these days get old pretty fast, although I did see one put up by a bitter woman that made me smirk.
There was a stick mom with 2 kids labeled mom, son, and daughter and a big space. On the other side of the space was a stick man and woman. The man and woman were labeled Dad and dad's ho.
Whatever.
To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY
Monday, February 3, 2014
Homeless veterans
I'm going into pretty rough waters with this particular post.
I have noticed that to a certain extent that veterans are somewhat sacred cows alongside children and handicapped people.
It seems that when in doubt, drag the veterans, children and handicapped into things. Veterans seem only second to "Do if for the children".
I just had someone commenting that it was a disgrace that there are 150,000 homeless veterans out there.
Yeah? So?
While I suppose a number of them are likely mentally ill and ought to be scraped up and treated if it was service related, that leaves an awful lot of them out there that are likely living that way by choice.
Let's look what a veteran is. He is nothing more or less than a member of society that at one point wrote a check to the US government payable for up to his life.
Many saw unspeakable horrors, but the majority did not.
I spent a hitch in an artillery unit and came out unscathed.
My father flew over Europe and Japan in bombers.
My uncle never left a 50 mile radius of home. He lived in a Boston suburb, got pulled out of college, got a fast basic in a post nearby and was assigned as an orderly in a hospital less than 10 miles from his home.
My scoutmaster was an infantry company commander in Europe and retreaded for Korea. He saw a lot of action.
I have a friend that is a veteran and for his hitch he worked on a tugboat assigned to the Corps of Engineers and worked on the inland waters.
One thing almost all veterans have under their belt that few non-vets have is a basic training of sorts, ranging from between 6 to 13 weeks depending on the service they were in. By the time they finish basic they have been given quite a few life skills that many people don't have.
From there most go onto a school of some sort where they receive further training. Some of this training is in high demand in the civilian market, some is not. All of the training is useful in one form or another later on after the service person is discharged.
In short, a veteran gets some pretty good training on the government's nickel. The training ain't cheap. It costs the taxpayer a pretty penny and the veteran is getting paid while receiving it.
Training can range from basic infantryman to nuclear power generation. Incidentally in the Army or Marines the infantryman's MOS is very coveted. There is no shortage of people trying to get into the grunts.
An Infantryman's job, surprisingly enough isn't just weapons related. Many of the skills a grunt develops can be taken to the workplace with him. A good grunt knows a lot more than weapons. He also learns logistics and how to deal with men.
A lot of former grunts head into public relations which sound odd but it isn't. Al Capone once said "You can go a long way with a smile, but you can go a lot further with a smile and a gun." Grunts going into PR simply put their gun away. Strangely enough, grunts often make pretty good PR men.
A GI generally gets out of his training with a basic work ethic beaten into him and that's good for a lot in later life.
After training the GI generally is assigned to a job of some sort in a unit and it is here where he makes or breaks his career. Some do well, some don't. Most do pretty good. It's pretty much up to the individual.
In my outfit we had people ranging from doers and shakers to downright duds. It's really pretty much the same all over either in service or at an outside workplace.
In short the point here is that veterans wind up with training a lot of people don't have. Unless there is something wrong with them mentally there really isn't a whole lot of reason for them to be homeless unless it's by choice.
Just about any former GI has enough skills to get by and find himself a place to live and take care of himself.
I'll let you in on a little secret. The first decade I was out of the service I was pretty much homeless. It was pretty much by choice.
To me at the time rent seemed like a waste of money.
I worked when I felt like it, spent my money as I saw fit and never missed a meal. I generally ate better than a lot of people looking back on it.
Not too many people can admit they'd often say, "Not King crab...again!"
I lived on a barter economy and did fairly well by my own judgement. Having a place to stay simply wasn't a priority. I was just as content sleeping in a cardboard refrigerator box as I was sleeping at the Ritz.
When I wanted to change my lifestyle, I simply did. I got a job and buckled down.
So the next time you want to use the 150,000 homeless veterans out there as an excuse to push some socialistic program, think again.
The truth is, life's about choices and the majority of the homeless veterans are there because that is simply the life they chose.
To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY
I have noticed that to a certain extent that veterans are somewhat sacred cows alongside children and handicapped people.
It seems that when in doubt, drag the veterans, children and handicapped into things. Veterans seem only second to "Do if for the children".
I just had someone commenting that it was a disgrace that there are 150,000 homeless veterans out there.
Yeah? So?
While I suppose a number of them are likely mentally ill and ought to be scraped up and treated if it was service related, that leaves an awful lot of them out there that are likely living that way by choice.
Let's look what a veteran is. He is nothing more or less than a member of society that at one point wrote a check to the US government payable for up to his life.
Many saw unspeakable horrors, but the majority did not.
I spent a hitch in an artillery unit and came out unscathed.
My father flew over Europe and Japan in bombers.
My uncle never left a 50 mile radius of home. He lived in a Boston suburb, got pulled out of college, got a fast basic in a post nearby and was assigned as an orderly in a hospital less than 10 miles from his home.
My scoutmaster was an infantry company commander in Europe and retreaded for Korea. He saw a lot of action.
I have a friend that is a veteran and for his hitch he worked on a tugboat assigned to the Corps of Engineers and worked on the inland waters.
One thing almost all veterans have under their belt that few non-vets have is a basic training of sorts, ranging from between 6 to 13 weeks depending on the service they were in. By the time they finish basic they have been given quite a few life skills that many people don't have.
From there most go onto a school of some sort where they receive further training. Some of this training is in high demand in the civilian market, some is not. All of the training is useful in one form or another later on after the service person is discharged.
In short, a veteran gets some pretty good training on the government's nickel. The training ain't cheap. It costs the taxpayer a pretty penny and the veteran is getting paid while receiving it.
Training can range from basic infantryman to nuclear power generation. Incidentally in the Army or Marines the infantryman's MOS is very coveted. There is no shortage of people trying to get into the grunts.
An Infantryman's job, surprisingly enough isn't just weapons related. Many of the skills a grunt develops can be taken to the workplace with him. A good grunt knows a lot more than weapons. He also learns logistics and how to deal with men.
A lot of former grunts head into public relations which sound odd but it isn't. Al Capone once said "You can go a long way with a smile, but you can go a lot further with a smile and a gun." Grunts going into PR simply put their gun away. Strangely enough, grunts often make pretty good PR men.
A GI generally gets out of his training with a basic work ethic beaten into him and that's good for a lot in later life.
After training the GI generally is assigned to a job of some sort in a unit and it is here where he makes or breaks his career. Some do well, some don't. Most do pretty good. It's pretty much up to the individual.
In my outfit we had people ranging from doers and shakers to downright duds. It's really pretty much the same all over either in service or at an outside workplace.
In short the point here is that veterans wind up with training a lot of people don't have. Unless there is something wrong with them mentally there really isn't a whole lot of reason for them to be homeless unless it's by choice.
Just about any former GI has enough skills to get by and find himself a place to live and take care of himself.
I'll let you in on a little secret. The first decade I was out of the service I was pretty much homeless. It was pretty much by choice.
To me at the time rent seemed like a waste of money.
I worked when I felt like it, spent my money as I saw fit and never missed a meal. I generally ate better than a lot of people looking back on it.
Not too many people can admit they'd often say, "Not King crab...again!"
I lived on a barter economy and did fairly well by my own judgement. Having a place to stay simply wasn't a priority. I was just as content sleeping in a cardboard refrigerator box as I was sleeping at the Ritz.
When I wanted to change my lifestyle, I simply did. I got a job and buckled down.
So the next time you want to use the 150,000 homeless veterans out there as an excuse to push some socialistic program, think again.
The truth is, life's about choices and the majority of the homeless veterans are there because that is simply the life they chose.
To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY
Sunday, February 2, 2014
The weather has broken for a short interlude.
Last night it warmed up and started raining which is a good thing. It's still raining and most of the snow has been eaten up by it. I suppose you know I am no fan of snow. I hate the stuff.
Let's talk a little about recent governmental stupidity.
I say a little because if I get started I can write a set of volumes that would dwarf the Encyclopedia Britainica by a factor of 12 before I even got warmed up. So to keep it to a managable level I'll just cover a few things I have seen recently.
Colorado just legalized recreational marijuana which is fine by me even though I don't use it. There are a number of reasons that maybe it was a good idea and some that maybe it wasn't a good idea.
As a basic libertarian I'll say that maybe it was a good idea.
I suppose it has created above ground jobs as there are probably a number of retailers out there that have either opened stores or added marijuana as another item they sell.
Great! I suppose that Colorado has figured that taking out of the alleys and dark corners of the netherworld will reduce crime and violence.
In a way it was probably a good move. Marijuana is an illegal drug in most places and because it is legal it is untaxed and part of the underground economy. The income derived from it is also untaxed.
Now that they legalized it it is a taxable commodity and that ain't a bad thing at all.
Except the the Colorado government has gotten greedy and levied a 25% tax on the stuff.
The government doesn't know it but they have just $hit and fallen back in it and they are very likely back where they started. Twenty five percent is too much tax to pay and an awful lot of people simply won't pay it.
Enter the dealers that are now in business and will sell their dope cheaper than the legal stores can. While it's likely the state could have taken 5% or so without any problem, they got greedy and it's likely they'll be paying for it in the form of somewhat less revenue. That, of course, accompanies crime.
It doesn't take much to see that heavy taxation leads to people trying to skirt it and anyone that has ever seen a drop of moonshine knows that. Moonshine is untaxed liquor and the business still prospers and has since the governments got greedy and taxed it heavily.
Of course, a lot of people think that moonshine is some kind of rotgut liquor and the truth is some of it is. However, I have had reports that a lot of it is a pretty smooth product.
At any rate, the practice of moon shining still flourishes. Likely this will happen with marijuana in Colorado after the state decided to get greedy.
The other thing that Colorado has done is chase away businesses with their new gun and magazine laws.
Magpul is leaving and setting up shop in Texas and Wyoming. Both places are greeting the soon to be former Colorado business with open arms. Can't say as I blame them. It'll mean jobs for Texans and the people in Wyoming.
It will likely mean that people in Colorado will lose jobs, too. Not just at Magpul, but at a lot of other places, too. The local businesses in the areas will be injured, too as the people that are not working at Magpul are not going to be spending paychecks in the Erie area much longer.
Connecticut is in the middle of creating a crime wave. They have required all residents to register certain kinds of firearms and the last I heard is that 30,000 have been registered.
Non gun owners are crying out that they have achieved a great victory and likely politicians will crying out that the project has been a success. Now the truth is, it is highly likely that all they have achieved with this is about 10% compliance and 90% illegal unregistered guns.
People are not stupid. They know that registration is only a stroke of the pen away from confiscation. They are not really too willing to hand in a $1000-$3000 piece of equipment without compensation.
Most are not willing to turn in a firearm with compensation. I know I wouldn't like to. I don't even know if I would.
An unregistered firearm in that state can not be sold to another resident legally or taken to a dealer for sale where the buyer has to go through a background check per federal law.
This means that most likely a lot of firearms are eventually going to be hitting the street over time because the illegal owners can't sell them legally.
Incidentally, with about a 10% compliance rate you can pretty much bet that the police department has better things to do than chase down people that haven't bothered to register their firearms.
More than likely there are an awful lot of cops that are not interested in enforcing laws they are breaking themselves.
Another thing I have noticed is that the DUI business has gotten a bit out of hand. These days it seems to be more of a revenue generator than a public safety issue.
A while ago in a lot of places they dropped the threshold from .1 down to .08 and it really never had a change in the accident rate. In short it did nothing for public safety.
Rather than raise it back up to .1 and go about their business, it now stays at .08 and makes it easier to get arrested and fined.
The insurance companies like it that way because if someone gets nailed their rates go up. The governments like it because they can gouge more money out of people.
The public really isn't being protected because keeping it at .08 isn't making them any safer. It just adds one more straw to the pile of governmental annoyances.
While driving drunk is a pretty lousy thing to do and shouldn't be permitted, the name of the game is to make the streets safer. It's not supposed to be about revenue generation.
The truth is when you think about it that government does a pretty good job of creating its own crime.
Government reminds me of the carpenter and the electrician that teamed up on a big job once. The carpenter started drilling hole and the electrician started pulling wire through the holes. The wire was just plain wire that wasn't doing anything and the whole scam was just for a couple of guys to look busy.
When the wiring was discovered they assigned the same pair to remove the wire and fill in the holes.
In many ways this is not much more different than the way governments sometimes do things except that governments do it on a bigger scale.
To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY
Let's talk a little about recent governmental stupidity.
I say a little because if I get started I can write a set of volumes that would dwarf the Encyclopedia Britainica by a factor of 12 before I even got warmed up. So to keep it to a managable level I'll just cover a few things I have seen recently.
Colorado just legalized recreational marijuana which is fine by me even though I don't use it. There are a number of reasons that maybe it was a good idea and some that maybe it wasn't a good idea.
As a basic libertarian I'll say that maybe it was a good idea.
I suppose it has created above ground jobs as there are probably a number of retailers out there that have either opened stores or added marijuana as another item they sell.
Great! I suppose that Colorado has figured that taking out of the alleys and dark corners of the netherworld will reduce crime and violence.
In a way it was probably a good move. Marijuana is an illegal drug in most places and because it is legal it is untaxed and part of the underground economy. The income derived from it is also untaxed.
Now that they legalized it it is a taxable commodity and that ain't a bad thing at all.
Except the the Colorado government has gotten greedy and levied a 25% tax on the stuff.
The government doesn't know it but they have just $hit and fallen back in it and they are very likely back where they started. Twenty five percent is too much tax to pay and an awful lot of people simply won't pay it.
Enter the dealers that are now in business and will sell their dope cheaper than the legal stores can. While it's likely the state could have taken 5% or so without any problem, they got greedy and it's likely they'll be paying for it in the form of somewhat less revenue. That, of course, accompanies crime.
It doesn't take much to see that heavy taxation leads to people trying to skirt it and anyone that has ever seen a drop of moonshine knows that. Moonshine is untaxed liquor and the business still prospers and has since the governments got greedy and taxed it heavily.
Of course, a lot of people think that moonshine is some kind of rotgut liquor and the truth is some of it is. However, I have had reports that a lot of it is a pretty smooth product.
At any rate, the practice of moon shining still flourishes. Likely this will happen with marijuana in Colorado after the state decided to get greedy.
The other thing that Colorado has done is chase away businesses with their new gun and magazine laws.
Magpul is leaving and setting up shop in Texas and Wyoming. Both places are greeting the soon to be former Colorado business with open arms. Can't say as I blame them. It'll mean jobs for Texans and the people in Wyoming.
It will likely mean that people in Colorado will lose jobs, too. Not just at Magpul, but at a lot of other places, too. The local businesses in the areas will be injured, too as the people that are not working at Magpul are not going to be spending paychecks in the Erie area much longer.
Connecticut is in the middle of creating a crime wave. They have required all residents to register certain kinds of firearms and the last I heard is that 30,000 have been registered.
Non gun owners are crying out that they have achieved a great victory and likely politicians will crying out that the project has been a success. Now the truth is, it is highly likely that all they have achieved with this is about 10% compliance and 90% illegal unregistered guns.
People are not stupid. They know that registration is only a stroke of the pen away from confiscation. They are not really too willing to hand in a $1000-$3000 piece of equipment without compensation.
Most are not willing to turn in a firearm with compensation. I know I wouldn't like to. I don't even know if I would.
An unregistered firearm in that state can not be sold to another resident legally or taken to a dealer for sale where the buyer has to go through a background check per federal law.
This means that most likely a lot of firearms are eventually going to be hitting the street over time because the illegal owners can't sell them legally.
Incidentally, with about a 10% compliance rate you can pretty much bet that the police department has better things to do than chase down people that haven't bothered to register their firearms.
More than likely there are an awful lot of cops that are not interested in enforcing laws they are breaking themselves.
Another thing I have noticed is that the DUI business has gotten a bit out of hand. These days it seems to be more of a revenue generator than a public safety issue.
A while ago in a lot of places they dropped the threshold from .1 down to .08 and it really never had a change in the accident rate. In short it did nothing for public safety.
Rather than raise it back up to .1 and go about their business, it now stays at .08 and makes it easier to get arrested and fined.
The insurance companies like it that way because if someone gets nailed their rates go up. The governments like it because they can gouge more money out of people.
The public really isn't being protected because keeping it at .08 isn't making them any safer. It just adds one more straw to the pile of governmental annoyances.
While driving drunk is a pretty lousy thing to do and shouldn't be permitted, the name of the game is to make the streets safer. It's not supposed to be about revenue generation.
The truth is when you think about it that government does a pretty good job of creating its own crime.
Government reminds me of the carpenter and the electrician that teamed up on a big job once. The carpenter started drilling hole and the electrician started pulling wire through the holes. The wire was just plain wire that wasn't doing anything and the whole scam was just for a couple of guys to look busy.
When the wiring was discovered they assigned the same pair to remove the wire and fill in the holes.
In many ways this is not much more different than the way governments sometimes do things except that governments do it on a bigger scale.
To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY
Saturday, February 1, 2014
It's junk mail day
This is junk mail day. It is the day I stuff envelopes.
I have a collection of junk mail that came with prepaid mailers and
I am going to stuff them and send them out today.
These days the traffic of offers that have prepaid mailers has dwindled but a I still get one every so often and when I do I put them aside until they build up. I have a few sitting there now and it is time to attend to them.
I will put a coupon good for $2 off a local car wash and send it to a bank in Nebraska. The VISA offer I got from Nebraska will be sent to someplace in California.
And that is what I am going to do 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 NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY
I have a collection of junk mail that came with prepaid mailers and
I am going to stuff them and send them out today.
These days the traffic of offers that have prepaid mailers has dwindled but a I still get one every so often and when I do I put them aside until they build up. I have a few sitting there now and it is time to attend to them.
I will put a coupon good for $2 off a local car wash and send it to a bank in Nebraska. The VISA offer I got from Nebraska will be sent to someplace in California.
And that is what I am going to do 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 NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY
Friday, January 31, 2014
It is a little late for me to be getting started but I had to spite the cat a little.
He's been getting a bit too feisty lately. He used to wait until I was at least awake before he started telling me to feed him and now he's starting to wake me up.
It'll take a few days but when he wakes me I just stay in bed an extra hour to let him know he's not going to get too far with that crap.
It's warm this morning and thawing which isn't a bad thing at all. In a few minutes I'll go out and tend to the driveway and get the packed down snow out of the way before it turns to ice.
I just got word that Beretta is moving out of Maryland and into Tennessee taking their jobs with them. Prince George's county is likely going to be hit pretty hard by the move.
Tennessee will get stronger.
Actions have consequences and the people in Annapolis that run the state most likely thought they could get away with enacting draconian gun laws with impunity.
What a lot of people don't know is that the firearm industry, coupled with the rest of the things that go with it are a lot bigger than General Motors.
When GM needed a bailout the government came running and afterwards bragged about saving all of the General Motors jobs.
Yet the liberal faction wants to eliminate the entire firearms business. Suppose they do. Who is going to feed these displaced workers? A lot of them will go straight to the government and go on relief.
Of course unlike GM the firearms business is all over the country. The Remington plant in Ilion, NY as fairly large, making different types of firearms. It's a big employer there in NY.
On the other hand, Shiloh Sharps builds blackpowder arms somewhere up in Big Timber, Montana. They''re a fairly small specialty shop.
Personally I think it's going to be interesting to see what happens in Prince George's county. My guess is that it will keep going down the tubes until it becomes yet another cesspool that Annapolis has to shore up at the expense of more successful counties.
To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY
It'll take a few days but when he wakes me I just stay in bed an extra hour to let him know he's not going to get too far with that crap.
It's warm this morning and thawing which isn't a bad thing at all. In a few minutes I'll go out and tend to the driveway and get the packed down snow out of the way before it turns to ice.
I just got word that Beretta is moving out of Maryland and into Tennessee taking their jobs with them. Prince George's county is likely going to be hit pretty hard by the move.
Tennessee will get stronger.
Actions have consequences and the people in Annapolis that run the state most likely thought they could get away with enacting draconian gun laws with impunity.
What a lot of people don't know is that the firearm industry, coupled with the rest of the things that go with it are a lot bigger than General Motors.
When GM needed a bailout the government came running and afterwards bragged about saving all of the General Motors jobs.
Yet the liberal faction wants to eliminate the entire firearms business. Suppose they do. Who is going to feed these displaced workers? A lot of them will go straight to the government and go on relief.
Of course unlike GM the firearms business is all over the country. The Remington plant in Ilion, NY as fairly large, making different types of firearms. It's a big employer there in NY.
On the other hand, Shiloh Sharps builds blackpowder arms somewhere up in Big Timber, Montana. They''re a fairly small specialty shop.
Personally I think it's going to be interesting to see what happens in Prince George's county. My guess is that it will keep going down the tubes until it becomes yet another cesspool that Annapolis has to shore up at the expense of more successful counties.
To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY
Thursday, January 30, 2014
Yesterday I got JT-65 up and running/ washing machines.
and made 3 contacts, Brazil, Venezuela and Uruguay. It's a slow, boring process and it's like watching paint dry. It's also of dubious practical use. Still, it's pretty cool communicating with South America using less power than a $59.95 Western Auto CB puts out.
Seeing I just repaired my washing machine I might pass a few things along because I was actually preparing for replacement and did some research. Much of this is word of mouth from repairmen and a couple of thoughtful guys.
A washing machine's job is to wash clothes. The way it is judged is by it's ability to take dirty clothes and make them clean again. To do this it basically uses energy and water.
My wife generally reads 'Consumer Reports' and sees what they have to say about things before she buys. Researching is generally a pretty good idea and CR is usually a pretty good source.
One of the guys said that CR has started to add a few other things to what they call a good product, including energy consumption. He said they seem to be losing focus these days.
The thing he uses CR for is the comments by people that have owned the product for a while. He noted that a lot of people that bought the top rated product seem to think it isn't as good as it is cracked up to be. He also noted that the products at the bottom of the list sometimes draw rave reviews from users.
I asked him what kind of washing machine he bought and he told me he bought a Speed Queen. A few days later a couple of repair men told me they thought that a Speed Queen was the way to go.
Interesting. Speed Queen has been a laundromat staple for years.
They do not have a whole lot of fancy settings and are pretty simple compared to a lot of others. The repair man told me that the difference between the commercial machine and the residential machine is that the commercial machine has a coin box. That's interesting.
He also told me that there are only a few makers that sell under a number of different labels. Most of them are made by the same conglomerate and both my friend and the two repairmen said the way to go is either get an industrial machine or get the cheapest one you can find and throw it out every five years.
He also said that the Speed Queens do not come with an energy star. The do use more energy(electricity) than the residential machines do. They also last longer and get your clothes cleaner than some of the energy conserving models, according to the repairmen and some owners comments.
Personally I like fairly simple industrial type machines.
I like doing a job right the first time and do not worry about energy consumption unless it is something serious. I just want a simple machine that gets the job done right the first time.
Having to wash clothes twice to get them clean doesn't really save anyone anything. Ask anyone with a post ban gallon per flush toilet that has to flush repeatedly to keep his plumbing clear.
I believe in saving energy as much as anyone else but sometimes we have to step back and look at the big picture. We have to look at our savings over time instead of focusing on next month's electric bill. You have to look at total cost over time.
With a washing machine that goes so far as to include how often you have to replace cloths because they get dingy from poor cleaning as well as everything else.
I get accused of not being green but in fact I am. I look at things from a bigger picture.
For example, my pickup had a 4 cylinder engine in it because it gives me the power I need and it was engineered to give 300,000 miles of service. Depending on the season and the type of gas I can get at the pump it gets me up to a little over 30 miles per gallon on long hauls.
The trick of buying something is to look a little further down the road and not let the smoke and mirrors the system throws at you fool you. You have to stop and think.
To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY
Seeing I just repaired my washing machine I might pass a few things along because I was actually preparing for replacement and did some research. Much of this is word of mouth from repairmen and a couple of thoughtful guys.
A washing machine's job is to wash clothes. The way it is judged is by it's ability to take dirty clothes and make them clean again. To do this it basically uses energy and water.
My wife generally reads 'Consumer Reports' and sees what they have to say about things before she buys. Researching is generally a pretty good idea and CR is usually a pretty good source.
One of the guys said that CR has started to add a few other things to what they call a good product, including energy consumption. He said they seem to be losing focus these days.
The thing he uses CR for is the comments by people that have owned the product for a while. He noted that a lot of people that bought the top rated product seem to think it isn't as good as it is cracked up to be. He also noted that the products at the bottom of the list sometimes draw rave reviews from users.
I asked him what kind of washing machine he bought and he told me he bought a Speed Queen. A few days later a couple of repair men told me they thought that a Speed Queen was the way to go.
Interesting. Speed Queen has been a laundromat staple for years.
They do not have a whole lot of fancy settings and are pretty simple compared to a lot of others. The repair man told me that the difference between the commercial machine and the residential machine is that the commercial machine has a coin box. That's interesting.
He also told me that there are only a few makers that sell under a number of different labels. Most of them are made by the same conglomerate and both my friend and the two repairmen said the way to go is either get an industrial machine or get the cheapest one you can find and throw it out every five years.
He also said that the Speed Queens do not come with an energy star. The do use more energy(electricity) than the residential machines do. They also last longer and get your clothes cleaner than some of the energy conserving models, according to the repairmen and some owners comments.
Personally I like fairly simple industrial type machines.
I like doing a job right the first time and do not worry about energy consumption unless it is something serious. I just want a simple machine that gets the job done right the first time.
Having to wash clothes twice to get them clean doesn't really save anyone anything. Ask anyone with a post ban gallon per flush toilet that has to flush repeatedly to keep his plumbing clear.
I believe in saving energy as much as anyone else but sometimes we have to step back and look at the big picture. We have to look at our savings over time instead of focusing on next month's electric bill. You have to look at total cost over time.
With a washing machine that goes so far as to include how often you have to replace cloths because they get dingy from poor cleaning as well as everything else.
I get accused of not being green but in fact I am. I look at things from a bigger picture.
For example, my pickup had a 4 cylinder engine in it because it gives me the power I need and it was engineered to give 300,000 miles of service. Depending on the season and the type of gas I can get at the pump it gets me up to a little over 30 miles per gallon on long hauls.
The trick of buying something is to look a little further down the road and not let the smoke and mirrors the system throws at you fool you. You have to stop and think.
To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
One recent day at the laundromat
There are fewer things as aggravating as the laundromat.
The other day the washing machine crapped out and I was waiting for parts. Yesterday I noticed I was in danger of running out of clean underwear which is a fearsome thing to contemplate.
Suppose I had an accident and had to go to the hospital?
So I scraped up a pile of skids, T-shirts, socks and a couple of pairs of jeans and headed off to the laundromat.
Most little kids are pretty good, but for some reason the aggravating ones always seem to accompany their moms to laundromats.
Laundromats in themselves are aggraviting places to begin with.
When you couple the pair of them, laundromats and bratty kids with a grouchy old man that hates both you have trouble.
I saw my usual bad luck at laundromats show up. It was a bratty kid running around so I decided to run Plan A.
The first step is recon and I saw that the mother was one of those moms that let their kids run around because they are idiots and heaven help anyone that tries to interfere.
That made this one a slam dunk easy one for me.
The second time the hyperactive little yard ape plowed into my laundry basket I looked at him and said, "Hey, Kid. You want to go for a dryer ride? If ya break my old record of 50 cents worth I'll give you ten bucks."
(Back then two bits bought you about 45 minutes of drying. Now it's 7 1/2 minutes for a quarter)
Needless to say, the mother came charging over and asked me what the hell I thought I was going to do with her precious little child of God.
"Simple," I snapped. "Once I got the kid into the dryer I was going to stuff ten or fifteen bucks worth of quarters into it to keep the little pest out of my hair while I got my wash done."
The look of shock on her face was precious.
Of course, she grabbed the little crumb snatcher, dragged him across the laundromat to the TV area and sat him down and told him to watch TV and stay away from me. The kid protested loudly to his mom that he wanted to go for a dryer ride. I admit it was kind of funny listening to the mother discipline the kid for what appeared to be the first time in his short little life.
Then the offended mom went straight over to the dry cleaning section and started complaining. The woman behind the counter had heard me whan I offered the kid a dryer ride and I had seen her snicker.
"Oh. Dryer rides? We don't allow that here anymore." she said to the mother. "The kids would get sick and we got tired of cleaning up the vomit." She gave the woman a thoughtful look. "I think my youngest son lasted about $3.75 worth without getting sick once. The kids say it was an all-time record."
The mother walked away not looking too pleased.
Meanwhile I got my laundry going and sat down with a worn copy of Field and Stream. When my wash was done I took it out, bagged it and took it home wet to throw in my dryer that is working.
Life is now good. I am not in jail for homicide because I would have likely strangled the little whelp if his mother hadn't parked him in front ot the TV.
I am now ready in case of an accident and can go to the hospital because I now have clean underwear. If I do have an accident the doctor will see my clean underwear and know I come from a good family and try harder to save me.
When I got home I got a call. The parts are in and as I write this I have the machine up and running 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 NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY
The other day the washing machine crapped out and I was waiting for parts. Yesterday I noticed I was in danger of running out of clean underwear which is a fearsome thing to contemplate.
Suppose I had an accident and had to go to the hospital?
So I scraped up a pile of skids, T-shirts, socks and a couple of pairs of jeans and headed off to the laundromat.
Most little kids are pretty good, but for some reason the aggravating ones always seem to accompany their moms to laundromats.
Laundromats in themselves are aggraviting places to begin with.
When you couple the pair of them, laundromats and bratty kids with a grouchy old man that hates both you have trouble.
I saw my usual bad luck at laundromats show up. It was a bratty kid running around so I decided to run Plan A.
The first step is recon and I saw that the mother was one of those moms that let their kids run around because they are idiots and heaven help anyone that tries to interfere.
That made this one a slam dunk easy one for me.
The second time the hyperactive little yard ape plowed into my laundry basket I looked at him and said, "Hey, Kid. You want to go for a dryer ride? If ya break my old record of 50 cents worth I'll give you ten bucks."
(Back then two bits bought you about 45 minutes of drying. Now it's 7 1/2 minutes for a quarter)
Needless to say, the mother came charging over and asked me what the hell I thought I was going to do with her precious little child of God.
"Simple," I snapped. "Once I got the kid into the dryer I was going to stuff ten or fifteen bucks worth of quarters into it to keep the little pest out of my hair while I got my wash done."
The look of shock on her face was precious.
Of course, she grabbed the little crumb snatcher, dragged him across the laundromat to the TV area and sat him down and told him to watch TV and stay away from me. The kid protested loudly to his mom that he wanted to go for a dryer ride. I admit it was kind of funny listening to the mother discipline the kid for what appeared to be the first time in his short little life.
Then the offended mom went straight over to the dry cleaning section and started complaining. The woman behind the counter had heard me whan I offered the kid a dryer ride and I had seen her snicker.
"Oh. Dryer rides? We don't allow that here anymore." she said to the mother. "The kids would get sick and we got tired of cleaning up the vomit." She gave the woman a thoughtful look. "I think my youngest son lasted about $3.75 worth without getting sick once. The kids say it was an all-time record."
The mother walked away not looking too pleased.
Meanwhile I got my laundry going and sat down with a worn copy of Field and Stream. When my wash was done I took it out, bagged it and took it home wet to throw in my dryer that is working.
Life is now good. I am not in jail for homicide because I would have likely strangled the little whelp if his mother hadn't parked him in front ot the TV.
I am now ready in case of an accident and can go to the hospital because I now have clean underwear. If I do have an accident the doctor will see my clean underwear and know I come from a good family and try harder to save me.
When I got home I got a call. The parts are in and as I write this I have the machine up and running 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 NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
I just got an email joke about Medicare part G.
which is where they give you a pistol and 4 cartridges and you go out and shoot 4 politicians and go to jail.
Need new teeth? An operation of some sort? No problem! The prison system likely had a better health plan than most of us do.
It was an interesting email.
I sent a comment back that I was a tar and feather sort of guy, myself.
It is now -7 outside. School has been called off and I am home with a couple of waffles and a pair of fried eggs this morning. I made a larger than usual pot of coffee, too.
Yesterday I had to bail out early because I got a call from Neighbor Bob who had managed to tear up his pickup by hitting a greasy patch of road and wrapping the nose around a phone pole or something. Bob was unhurt but his pickup looks like hell. It had to be towed.
Bob has a bad habit of taking backroads everywhere for some reason. While he knows them all much better than I do, in bad weather it's generally a good idea to stick with main drags. They get taken better care of than side roads.
In other news the washing machine purchased in '01 gave up the ghost. The tub rusted through. I'm going to try and get a new tub even though I know I ought to get a new machine. We'll see how that works out. Truth is, Mrs Pic likes the machine.
Someone remind me to write about washing machines tomorrow as I have done some research and someone else explained that Consumer Reports is not all it is cracked up to be.
To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY
Need new teeth? An operation of some sort? No problem! The prison system likely had a better health plan than most of us do.
It was an interesting email.
I sent a comment back that I was a tar and feather sort of guy, myself.
It is now -7 outside. School has been called off and I am home with a couple of waffles and a pair of fried eggs this morning. I made a larger than usual pot of coffee, too.
Yesterday I had to bail out early because I got a call from Neighbor Bob who had managed to tear up his pickup by hitting a greasy patch of road and wrapping the nose around a phone pole or something. Bob was unhurt but his pickup looks like hell. It had to be towed.
Bob has a bad habit of taking backroads everywhere for some reason. While he knows them all much better than I do, in bad weather it's generally a good idea to stick with main drags. They get taken better care of than side roads.
In other news the washing machine purchased in '01 gave up the ghost. The tub rusted through. I'm going to try and get a new tub even though I know I ought to get a new machine. We'll see how that works out. Truth is, Mrs Pic likes the machine.
Someone remind me to write about washing machines tomorrow as I have done some research and someone else explained that Consumer Reports is not all it is cracked up to be.
To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY
Monday, January 27, 2014
Yesterday was an interesting day. I tried to learn something
I wound up learning my computer's clock is acting up. The mode of digital communication I wanted to learn, JT-65 relies on accurate time. Oh, well.
A friend of mine reminded me of the time at Camp Perry that I went to bat for a handicapped shooter because a range officer didn't know the rules.
Gotta go, I got a call from Neighbor Bob and he's had a truck accident but is OK. Maybe later today I can finish.
To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY
A friend of mine reminded me of the time at Camp Perry that I went to bat for a handicapped shooter because a range officer didn't know the rules.
Gotta go, I got a call from Neighbor Bob and he's had a truck accident but is OK. Maybe later today I can finish.
To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY
Sunday, January 26, 2014
The deer wandered by earlier this morning and set off the motion detectors.
I was up and watched. They're not shy about it and don't spook when the lights go on.
It's snowy and damned cold out and the furnace is constantly running. I have been told it is going to get colder. Ouch!
Today is a day to put on warm jammies and sit at home drinking cocoa. Of course, a grouch like me does not own a set of warm jammies and the closest thing is a set of sweats and heavy wool socks.
Still, I have things to do so I donned my basic uniform of jeans and a warm shirt. Close enough.
I'll start the pickup and warm it up just to keep it ready for an errand or two.
Later today I'm going to either have an Elmer over to teach me JT- 65 or another neighbor over to handload some ammunition for him. Either way I'll be busy and inside.
I just passed by my map of the world that is pretty full of pins, each representing an overseas contact. The map looks pretty full.
I don't put a pin in for every single contact, just each country. The map would never hold them all. Latin America, the Caribbean and Europe are chockablock full and when you look at Asia it looks kind of sparse. Still, the bulk of Russia gets only two pins, China gets one.
This radio business has given me one hell of a geography lesson. I just looked up Kaleningrad the other day as it is a part of Russia that is separated from the mother country. It is surrounded by Lithuania, Poland and the Baltic Sea. It reminds me of Point Roberts, a part of Washington state and a pretty good place to party.
Point Roberts is surrounded on three sides by water and the top part is connected to British Colombia. We got it because the border line clipped it. I pulled into it in mid to late October '86 in my sailboat and tied up to the fuel pier.
While I went ashore looking for someone to pump fuel, someone from the marina came down and shook my shipmate down for some bogus tie-up fee. You are supposed to be able to tie up for fuel free of charge.
Shaking my crew member down proved to be a mistake as we instantly went ashore, got plastered and started tearing the place apart. They sent down some big guy to settle us down and my shipmate promptly threw him off the dock. Note I said threw him.
He simply picked him up and threw him off the dock.
It was the second time I had watched my crewman throw a human being, the first being when he broke up a brawl in Petersburg, Alaska. There he picked up a pretty good sized fisherman and threw him at another one. We fled and went straight down the Wrangell Narrows to Wrangell where we were welcomed because Wrangell didn't like Petersburg for some reason. Likely because every time a person from Wrangell stopped in Petersburg he got the daylights beat out of him.
I digress.
Anyway, when the big guy wound up in the drink they called the state police. The Washington state police had to drive to Blaine and cross into Canada and over to Point Roberts. Generally when they did this someone went to jail.
Of course, we instantly set sail for Victoria, British Colombia where we were out of the jurisdiction of the Washington State Police and holed up for a while until we deemed it safe to re-enter the States.
When we got to Friday Harbor the harbormaster had a look in his eye about something and asked us a few pointed questions. He said that if we misbehaved in HIS town he'd have our asses.
A couple days later he came down and apologized for our initial greeting and asked us a few questions and been told to keep his eyes open for a couple troublemakers that had torn up Point Roberts a few days earlier.
The following day he saw me stump into a tavern, followed me in and bought me a beer. Then he asked my why the pair of us had torn up Point Roberts. Admitting to nothing, I suggested it might have been the way we were treated.
He said he had figured it was something like that because he had gotten reports from other mariners about the nickel-diming of visitors by the marina people. Then he said that it was why he gave us a break until he checked us out.
We made ourselves useful on the docks for the time we spent there and when it came time to settle up he diddled with the books a little and charged us a pittance. He actually said he was sad to see us leave.
To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY
It's snowy and damned cold out and the furnace is constantly running. I have been told it is going to get colder. Ouch!
Today is a day to put on warm jammies and sit at home drinking cocoa. Of course, a grouch like me does not own a set of warm jammies and the closest thing is a set of sweats and heavy wool socks.
Still, I have things to do so I donned my basic uniform of jeans and a warm shirt. Close enough.
I'll start the pickup and warm it up just to keep it ready for an errand or two.
Later today I'm going to either have an Elmer over to teach me JT- 65 or another neighbor over to handload some ammunition for him. Either way I'll be busy and inside.
I just passed by my map of the world that is pretty full of pins, each representing an overseas contact. The map looks pretty full.
I don't put a pin in for every single contact, just each country. The map would never hold them all. Latin America, the Caribbean and Europe are chockablock full and when you look at Asia it looks kind of sparse. Still, the bulk of Russia gets only two pins, China gets one.
This radio business has given me one hell of a geography lesson. I just looked up Kaleningrad the other day as it is a part of Russia that is separated from the mother country. It is surrounded by Lithuania, Poland and the Baltic Sea. It reminds me of Point Roberts, a part of Washington state and a pretty good place to party.
Point Roberts is surrounded on three sides by water and the top part is connected to British Colombia. We got it because the border line clipped it. I pulled into it in mid to late October '86 in my sailboat and tied up to the fuel pier.
While I went ashore looking for someone to pump fuel, someone from the marina came down and shook my shipmate down for some bogus tie-up fee. You are supposed to be able to tie up for fuel free of charge.
Shaking my crew member down proved to be a mistake as we instantly went ashore, got plastered and started tearing the place apart. They sent down some big guy to settle us down and my shipmate promptly threw him off the dock. Note I said threw him.
He simply picked him up and threw him off the dock.
It was the second time I had watched my crewman throw a human being, the first being when he broke up a brawl in Petersburg, Alaska. There he picked up a pretty good sized fisherman and threw him at another one. We fled and went straight down the Wrangell Narrows to Wrangell where we were welcomed because Wrangell didn't like Petersburg for some reason. Likely because every time a person from Wrangell stopped in Petersburg he got the daylights beat out of him.
I digress.
Anyway, when the big guy wound up in the drink they called the state police. The Washington state police had to drive to Blaine and cross into Canada and over to Point Roberts. Generally when they did this someone went to jail.
Of course, we instantly set sail for Victoria, British Colombia where we were out of the jurisdiction of the Washington State Police and holed up for a while until we deemed it safe to re-enter the States.
When we got to Friday Harbor the harbormaster had a look in his eye about something and asked us a few pointed questions. He said that if we misbehaved in HIS town he'd have our asses.
A couple days later he came down and apologized for our initial greeting and asked us a few questions and been told to keep his eyes open for a couple troublemakers that had torn up Point Roberts a few days earlier.
The following day he saw me stump into a tavern, followed me in and bought me a beer. Then he asked my why the pair of us had torn up Point Roberts. Admitting to nothing, I suggested it might have been the way we were treated.
He said he had figured it was something like that because he had gotten reports from other mariners about the nickel-diming of visitors by the marina people. Then he said that it was why he gave us a break until he checked us out.
We made ourselves useful on the docks for the time we spent there and when it came time to settle up he diddled with the books a little and charged us a pittance. He actually said he was sad to see us leave.
To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY
Saturday, January 25, 2014
Saturday mornings.
So I am home and it is a snowy Saturday morning and I have to go out and shovel a little snow. Oh, well.
One of the things someone said is that to ought to be a snap for me because I have a heavy duty snow blower. That's a idiotic statement when you think about it.
Setting a snowblower up for less than about 8 inches of snow is a waste of time, effort and gasoline. It's much easier to shovel a path. Eight inches isn't going to make parking a problem, either.
I read Eugene Sledge's excellent memoir, 'China Marine' and found it to be more interesting than his combat memoir, 'With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa'.
It made me think for a while and I would not be surprised to read that Sledge was pretty upset over doing China occupation duty after a pair of grinding Pacific island campaigns. If he felt he got screwed by this he might rethink his position.
His time in China gave him at least a couple of months to decompress. Although he returned home to Alabama a bitter, angry man it likely would have been worse had he come straight home after Okinawa.
I have spoken to a couple of Pacific veterans that were discharged almost instantly after the fighting stopped and a couple of them expressed a feeling of being cheated. They ran through boot camp, trained, shipped out and fought, retrained, fought again and went straight home after the last shot was fired.
While many were glad to go straight home, a couple expressed the feeling that some sort of brief postwar duty might have served as a decompression period.
I commented to one that he got screwed because of this and he thought a minute and agreed.
Our GIs in Vietnam had it somewhat worse in terms of no decompression. The WW2 guys at least had a long voyage home in a troop ship. With air travel, a Vietnam GI could be literally sitting at home two or three days after a major firefight, still vibrating and shaking.
Anyway, Sledge's ;China Marine' is a pretty good read.
To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY
One of the things someone said is that to ought to be a snap for me because I have a heavy duty snow blower. That's a idiotic statement when you think about it.
Setting a snowblower up for less than about 8 inches of snow is a waste of time, effort and gasoline. It's much easier to shovel a path. Eight inches isn't going to make parking a problem, either.
I read Eugene Sledge's excellent memoir, 'China Marine' and found it to be more interesting than his combat memoir, 'With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa'.
It made me think for a while and I would not be surprised to read that Sledge was pretty upset over doing China occupation duty after a pair of grinding Pacific island campaigns. If he felt he got screwed by this he might rethink his position.
His time in China gave him at least a couple of months to decompress. Although he returned home to Alabama a bitter, angry man it likely would have been worse had he come straight home after Okinawa.
I have spoken to a couple of Pacific veterans that were discharged almost instantly after the fighting stopped and a couple of them expressed a feeling of being cheated. They ran through boot camp, trained, shipped out and fought, retrained, fought again and went straight home after the last shot was fired.
While many were glad to go straight home, a couple expressed the feeling that some sort of brief postwar duty might have served as a decompression period.
I commented to one that he got screwed because of this and he thought a minute and agreed.
Our GIs in Vietnam had it somewhat worse in terms of no decompression. The WW2 guys at least had a long voyage home in a troop ship. With air travel, a Vietnam GI could be literally sitting at home two or three days after a major firefight, still vibrating and shaking.
Anyway, Sledge's ;China Marine' is a pretty good read.
To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY
Friday, January 24, 2014
Piccolo and the gossip
Someone the other day asked me about my EXPENSIVE ham radio hobby. They actually said it!
"How's that expensive ham radio hobby of yours coming along?" he asked.
"Expensive?" I asked. "I went on the air with an army surplus radio and a chunk of wire I hung in a tree."
"I don't understand. Didn't you have to set up a tower with a big antenna on it?" he asked.
"No," I said simply.
"But someone told me you talk to people from all over the world. You can't do that with a piece of wire, can you?" He looked confused.
"Tell that to the guy in Kuwait I was talking to or the Austrian I just got a QSL card from," I shot back.
He looked confused. "I thought all of that stuff was expensive," he said.
"Hobbies are just like anything else. You can put as much or as little into them as you want. While we're at it, let's clear the air. You've been a snippy little gossip over the past couple of years and I'm tired of it," I said.
"The expensive sports car cost me $1200 and I rebuilt it with my hands which was free labor. I scrounged parts from Craigslist and worked in my garage. It cost me little to turn it into a nice little racer/runabout," I said.
"Really?" he asked.
"Yes," I replied. 'While we're at it, let's talk about the $75 sailboat you were telling everyone about. Or my trip to Atlantic City."
He started to look uncomfortable.
"I was in Philly and a crewman's car broke down. He lives near Atlantic City so I dropped him off. I didn't go to AC to gamble.He actually gave me $50 for the favor. I made money on that one. As for the sailboat, I gave a guy $75 for it. It was about seven feet long and had a beer logo on the sail. Incidentally, he wanted it back so I got my $75 back and a case of Coors for my trouble."
He looked a little foolish now.
"Let's talk about Camp Perry and my shooting at the Nationals," I went on. My Garand was a gift. The Springfield was a deal I got from a buddy and the carbine was a loaner. Barracks bunks are $10 a night. Match fees generally run $25 or $30 and generally they include ammo. I bring a lot of my own chow, beer and whatever. It's a lot cheaper than you think."
"I didn't know..." he said, looking a little shocked.
"That's right. You didn't know. You ran off at the mouth before you got your facts straight," I shot back. "I get by, and damned well, on working man's wages and the leavings and cast-asides of an affluent society!"
"Huh?"
"I decided when I was rebuilding the Mazda to see of I could do it all for free," I said. "I started scrounging scrap metal. Remember when you remodeled? I asked you if I could raid your dumpster for stuff?"
"Yes, I remember that," he said. "I did a lot of the tear-out myself to save money."
"Well, thank you very much," I snapped. "You threw about $400 worth of copper and aluminum into that roll-away. I dug it out and scrapped it. It paid for the shocks and the sway bars I put on the Mazda. I appreciate that."
He looked stunned.
"Now stop gossiping like an old lady or I'll tell everyone how dumb you are."
To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY
"How's that expensive ham radio hobby of yours coming along?" he asked.
"Expensive?" I asked. "I went on the air with an army surplus radio and a chunk of wire I hung in a tree."
"I don't understand. Didn't you have to set up a tower with a big antenna on it?" he asked.
"No," I said simply.
"But someone told me you talk to people from all over the world. You can't do that with a piece of wire, can you?" He looked confused.
"Tell that to the guy in Kuwait I was talking to or the Austrian I just got a QSL card from," I shot back.
He looked confused. "I thought all of that stuff was expensive," he said.
"Hobbies are just like anything else. You can put as much or as little into them as you want. While we're at it, let's clear the air. You've been a snippy little gossip over the past couple of years and I'm tired of it," I said.
"The expensive sports car cost me $1200 and I rebuilt it with my hands which was free labor. I scrounged parts from Craigslist and worked in my garage. It cost me little to turn it into a nice little racer/runabout," I said.
"Really?" he asked.
"Yes," I replied. 'While we're at it, let's talk about the $75 sailboat you were telling everyone about. Or my trip to Atlantic City."
He started to look uncomfortable.
"I was in Philly and a crewman's car broke down. He lives near Atlantic City so I dropped him off. I didn't go to AC to gamble.He actually gave me $50 for the favor. I made money on that one. As for the sailboat, I gave a guy $75 for it. It was about seven feet long and had a beer logo on the sail. Incidentally, he wanted it back so I got my $75 back and a case of Coors for my trouble."
He looked a little foolish now.
"Let's talk about Camp Perry and my shooting at the Nationals," I went on. My Garand was a gift. The Springfield was a deal I got from a buddy and the carbine was a loaner. Barracks bunks are $10 a night. Match fees generally run $25 or $30 and generally they include ammo. I bring a lot of my own chow, beer and whatever. It's a lot cheaper than you think."
"I didn't know..." he said, looking a little shocked.
"That's right. You didn't know. You ran off at the mouth before you got your facts straight," I shot back. "I get by, and damned well, on working man's wages and the leavings and cast-asides of an affluent society!"
"Huh?"
"I decided when I was rebuilding the Mazda to see of I could do it all for free," I said. "I started scrounging scrap metal. Remember when you remodeled? I asked you if I could raid your dumpster for stuff?"
"Yes, I remember that," he said. "I did a lot of the tear-out myself to save money."
"Well, thank you very much," I snapped. "You threw about $400 worth of copper and aluminum into that roll-away. I dug it out and scrapped it. It paid for the shocks and the sway bars I put on the Mazda. I appreciate that."
He looked stunned.
"Now stop gossiping like an old lady or I'll tell everyone how dumb you are."
To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY
Thursday, January 23, 2014
My confirmation number went up by 5 while I was at work
I came home last night to see that I had a stack of mail waiting for me. It was mostly QSL cards.
I now have 5 more DX confirmations. Azores, Asiatic Russia, Sultanate of Oman, Sovereign Military Order of Malta, and Tajikistan.
The Tajikistan QSL was a little odd because it contained 2 QSL cards and an SAE to someone else in the States. I guess he figured I'd drop it in the mail for him over here which I will. It's in the outgoing mailbox right now.
There were also a couple of other QSL cards from guys on an internet board I visit frequently including a beautiful one made of Hawaiian Koa wood sliced thin. I worked hard for that one and the guy that sent it worked hard at it, too.
There was also a 20 MOA scope base for my long range rifle. My scope doesn't have enough clicks to reach out to 1000 yards so I'll install the base and re adjust the present scope and I ought to be good to go. There's a 1000 yard match come spring and I want in on that again.
It's too cold to do any shooting so I guess I'll just do prep work today and see what happens over the next couple of days.
Lord, it's cold out! I do not do cold well anymore. I hate it. It's now 9 degrees out and that is cold.
Today when I make my rounds some youngster is going to tell me it's cold out and I will have to refer to page 14, article 2, amendment 7, subsection C of section 2D of the Old Fart's Manual.
It says specifically that when a youngster complains about the cold you are to supposed to tell him that back when you were his age it got so cold you had to put hot water bottles next to the fire to keep the flames from freezing and tell him that back then this would have been T-shirt weather.
I do not know why that is in the manual because it is complete BS but it's there and as an old man I follow it because it is expected of me. Truth is it's just plain cold out.
Of course, parts of the manual are pretty good. My favorite is having to walk to school uphill both ways. That's a pretty good one.
This is the first time in many, many years that I have worn my insulated work boots home but I did yesterday.
Anyway, I am home and the cat was glad to see me.
To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY
I now have 5 more DX confirmations. Azores, Asiatic Russia, Sultanate of Oman, Sovereign Military Order of Malta, and Tajikistan.
The Tajikistan QSL was a little odd because it contained 2 QSL cards and an SAE to someone else in the States. I guess he figured I'd drop it in the mail for him over here which I will. It's in the outgoing mailbox right now.
There were also a couple of other QSL cards from guys on an internet board I visit frequently including a beautiful one made of Hawaiian Koa wood sliced thin. I worked hard for that one and the guy that sent it worked hard at it, too.
There was also a 20 MOA scope base for my long range rifle. My scope doesn't have enough clicks to reach out to 1000 yards so I'll install the base and re adjust the present scope and I ought to be good to go. There's a 1000 yard match come spring and I want in on that again.
It's too cold to do any shooting so I guess I'll just do prep work today and see what happens over the next couple of days.
Lord, it's cold out! I do not do cold well anymore. I hate it. It's now 9 degrees out and that is cold.
Today when I make my rounds some youngster is going to tell me it's cold out and I will have to refer to page 14, article 2, amendment 7, subsection C of section 2D of the Old Fart's Manual.
It says specifically that when a youngster complains about the cold you are to supposed to tell him that back when you were his age it got so cold you had to put hot water bottles next to the fire to keep the flames from freezing and tell him that back then this would have been T-shirt weather.
I do not know why that is in the manual because it is complete BS but it's there and as an old man I follow it because it is expected of me. Truth is it's just plain cold out.
Of course, parts of the manual are pretty good. My favorite is having to walk to school uphill both ways. That's a pretty good one.
This is the first time in many, many years that I have worn my insulated work boots home but I did yesterday.
Anyway, I am home and the cat was glad to see me.
To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
One of the things that irks me to an extent
is the people that look down on others that have chosen a different line of work.
Much of my work is out in the elements. I have to stand a watch because crews are smaller these days. This is fine and dandy by me because I like the work. I'm generally clad in the full dress uniform of a merchant seaman which is to say I'm clad in rags.
Again, that's fine. Rags is the uniform that pays the bills. The price is right, too.
There's another guy down the street that works in construction as some kind of hands on engineer that is generally seen leaving the house in work clothes because his job takes him into the mud of construction projects.
I think he busts six figures. He's got to be worth it or they wouldn't pay him that much. Whatever. I suppose if I wanted to I could easily bust six figures but I prefer to stay where I am and not work any overtime. I like the people I work with.
I have a neighbor that is an RN that has gone into the management end of things and dresses well for work. She's in an office and I suppose is expected to dress well. I alway see her leaving for work in a suit.
All of these people have one thing in common. They get paid pretty much what they are worth.
A while ago I was listening to someone gripe about having to have a master's to keep his job and how it doesn't pay very much. For once I kept my mouth shut and listened.
The person in question works behind a desk doing some kind of human relations work and was griping that a lot of employees at his workplace make more than he does and many of them haven't finished high school.
He also grumbled that guys working in the oil patch were making one hell of a lot more than he was. He didn't think it was fair.
That's when I asked him why he wasn't working in the oil patch. He didn't like that question and his look told me he thought it was beneath his dignity to be a roughneck or drive a truck.
Besides, he didn't want to go away from home. Everyone seems to have excuses.
It reminds me of being a sailor. We have all sorts out here working on various vessels and the truth is we get paid to perform. There are King's Point graduates as captains and mates and guys that didn't finish high school as captains and mates.
The average is somewhere in between the two.
I looked at the man and wondered. He must have been in a flooded market to need a master's to keep his job. My line of work is generally crying for competent people. If he is such a sharp guy he could come out here and in a few years be making a lot more than he does now. Possibly he'd start out at what he's making now.
While the engineer's job requires a degree he doesn't sit in an office too much. He's always in the mud somewhere and likely part of his pay is for being uncomfortable on job sites and slogging through the mud. I would imagine most engineers prefer to work in a comfortable office.
My job requires little formal education but it does require hands on skills. It also takes me away from home for periods of time. I suppose that besides being paid for my skills I am paid for being inconvenienced. For example, I have spent 17 or 18 of the last 23 Christmases at sea. I suppose that's worth something.
As a rule of thumb companies pay what they have to to get capable people. They have to. Without capable people they can't get the job done. Capable people are almost always in demand is many fields.
Of course, if the market gets flooded, the laws of supply and demand engage and wages in a particular field drop. The man with the master's in the human relations business appears to be in a somewhat flooded market. I suppose maybe he ought to consider a career move if he wants to make more money.
Of course, the human services guy seems to have an attitude toward guys that get dirty but he really ought to stop and think for a second. A lot of them make better money than he does and to tell the truth often have more interesting jobs.
To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY
Much of my work is out in the elements. I have to stand a watch because crews are smaller these days. This is fine and dandy by me because I like the work. I'm generally clad in the full dress uniform of a merchant seaman which is to say I'm clad in rags.
Again, that's fine. Rags is the uniform that pays the bills. The price is right, too.
There's another guy down the street that works in construction as some kind of hands on engineer that is generally seen leaving the house in work clothes because his job takes him into the mud of construction projects.
I think he busts six figures. He's got to be worth it or they wouldn't pay him that much. Whatever. I suppose if I wanted to I could easily bust six figures but I prefer to stay where I am and not work any overtime. I like the people I work with.
I have a neighbor that is an RN that has gone into the management end of things and dresses well for work. She's in an office and I suppose is expected to dress well. I alway see her leaving for work in a suit.
All of these people have one thing in common. They get paid pretty much what they are worth.
A while ago I was listening to someone gripe about having to have a master's to keep his job and how it doesn't pay very much. For once I kept my mouth shut and listened.
The person in question works behind a desk doing some kind of human relations work and was griping that a lot of employees at his workplace make more than he does and many of them haven't finished high school.
He also grumbled that guys working in the oil patch were making one hell of a lot more than he was. He didn't think it was fair.
That's when I asked him why he wasn't working in the oil patch. He didn't like that question and his look told me he thought it was beneath his dignity to be a roughneck or drive a truck.
Besides, he didn't want to go away from home. Everyone seems to have excuses.
It reminds me of being a sailor. We have all sorts out here working on various vessels and the truth is we get paid to perform. There are King's Point graduates as captains and mates and guys that didn't finish high school as captains and mates.
The average is somewhere in between the two.
I looked at the man and wondered. He must have been in a flooded market to need a master's to keep his job. My line of work is generally crying for competent people. If he is such a sharp guy he could come out here and in a few years be making a lot more than he does now. Possibly he'd start out at what he's making now.
While the engineer's job requires a degree he doesn't sit in an office too much. He's always in the mud somewhere and likely part of his pay is for being uncomfortable on job sites and slogging through the mud. I would imagine most engineers prefer to work in a comfortable office.
My job requires little formal education but it does require hands on skills. It also takes me away from home for periods of time. I suppose that besides being paid for my skills I am paid for being inconvenienced. For example, I have spent 17 or 18 of the last 23 Christmases at sea. I suppose that's worth something.
As a rule of thumb companies pay what they have to to get capable people. They have to. Without capable people they can't get the job done. Capable people are almost always in demand is many fields.
Of course, if the market gets flooded, the laws of supply and demand engage and wages in a particular field drop. The man with the master's in the human relations business appears to be in a somewhat flooded market. I suppose maybe he ought to consider a career move if he wants to make more money.
Of course, the human services guy seems to have an attitude toward guys that get dirty but he really ought to stop and think for a second. A lot of them make better money than he does and to tell the truth often have more interesting jobs.
To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
Opportunity comes a knockin"
I recently had someone comment about how when he was in his 30s he was tied down with a wife, kids, job and that he was also in school working for a master's.
He was telling me that he was laying out the foundation for success and the usual crap.
I told him that I was living in a sailboat and traveling through Alaska and the Pacific Northwest doing odd jobs, fishing to eat and generally adventuring. I pointed out that a lot of people disapproved and said I would never make anything of myself.
The sailboat years were a time of individual responsibility and I look back on them fondly. Unlike most people I have literally been the captain of my own ship and master of my own destiny and written a lot of my own scenario.
What's funny now is the way things turned out.
About the time I turned 40 I settled down a bit and now at 62 I own my own home, live a somewhat sedate life in the suburbs and have something saved for old age. It didn't take me long to 'catch up', although I don't know what I caught up to.
About the time I turned 40 I just decided to pursue a career. I didn't know what career and looked around and suddenly a career just fell on my lap.
It was around Christmas time and I wanted to go to visit my family over the yuletide. My soon to be wife mentioned that we couldn't afford a flight to Boston so I told her not to worry and checked the map. I'd simply hitch hike into the Boston area and snag the T to Quincy and have my sister pick me up.
The future Mrs. Pic was flabbergasted and decided that we could afford a train ticket to Boston. I packed. The next day I got on the choo choo in Pittsburgh and rode to Boston.
When I arrived in Philly I had to change trains and there I met up with three guys headed to New England. They were sailors. I mentioned that I had fished and wasn't happy in my present situation and asked it they needed any deck hands.
One of the guys gave me an 800 number and told me they did from time to time and to check. I wrote it down on a matchbook and put it in my wallet.
When I got home after visiting the family I mentioned it to my other half and she said it was probably a dead lead. I decided to try it anyway and got through to the people that hired.
In seconds I was writing down information and answering questions about my background. I was told to show up the next day for my interview with my seabag packed. There would be a ticket at Pittsburgh airport for me in my name.
I was at the time laid off and tenatively was scheduled to go back to work in a couple of weeks. I packed right then and there and an hour later called the airport. Indeed, ther was a ticket awaiting me.
The next day I hopped on the plane and arrived in Philly and called the office people and was told to look for a van with their company logo on it outside the lugage area. It showed and I arrived at the office and was interviewed and hired as an entry level deckhand on the spot.
They stuffed me into a van and took me to Baltimore to get my Z-card and upon my return I was dropped off at a dock awaiting a tug and barge. When it hit the dock I helped tie the barge up and clambered aboard the tug.
It didn't take me long to ask around and find out that there was a career to be started and a career at sea sounded pretty good to me. I worked the rest of the three week tour and was asked if I wanted to work over.
I did because I had decided that the skipper was a jerk and figured that if I got off of his rotation I wouldn't have to deal with him again. Five weeks after I had boarded the plane I was headed home for three weeks.
The money wasn't very good but there was plenty of room for promotion.
Upon my arrival home I wrote every single skipper I had fished for in Kodiak for a letter of sea time. I also started reading up and learning as much as I could about my new career.
Ten months later I was an abe seaman with a tankerman's ticket and two months after that I was a licensed (limited tonnage) captain of motor, steam and sail vessels.
I worked my way up with that company to bigger and better things and when they sold some of their assets I went with the equipment and actually negotiated a raise to stay with the equipment.
It has been a good career for me and I will be bold enough to admit that it came down to two things. Chance and my taking advantage of the opportunity.
First, I took the train. I also let my outgoing nature meet people and wasn't afraid to admit I was between gigs. That got me the phone number.
I called the number and let my abilities take things from there. I was ready to go, didn't tell anyone to wait and simply went where I was sent and did what I was told, all the while doing the best job I could.
All I have to say after this story is that when opportunity comes knocking you had better have your bags packed.
To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY
He was telling me that he was laying out the foundation for success and the usual crap.
I told him that I was living in a sailboat and traveling through Alaska and the Pacific Northwest doing odd jobs, fishing to eat and generally adventuring. I pointed out that a lot of people disapproved and said I would never make anything of myself.
The sailboat years were a time of individual responsibility and I look back on them fondly. Unlike most people I have literally been the captain of my own ship and master of my own destiny and written a lot of my own scenario.
What's funny now is the way things turned out.
About the time I turned 40 I settled down a bit and now at 62 I own my own home, live a somewhat sedate life in the suburbs and have something saved for old age. It didn't take me long to 'catch up', although I don't know what I caught up to.
About the time I turned 40 I just decided to pursue a career. I didn't know what career and looked around and suddenly a career just fell on my lap.
It was around Christmas time and I wanted to go to visit my family over the yuletide. My soon to be wife mentioned that we couldn't afford a flight to Boston so I told her not to worry and checked the map. I'd simply hitch hike into the Boston area and snag the T to Quincy and have my sister pick me up.
The future Mrs. Pic was flabbergasted and decided that we could afford a train ticket to Boston. I packed. The next day I got on the choo choo in Pittsburgh and rode to Boston.
When I arrived in Philly I had to change trains and there I met up with three guys headed to New England. They were sailors. I mentioned that I had fished and wasn't happy in my present situation and asked it they needed any deck hands.
One of the guys gave me an 800 number and told me they did from time to time and to check. I wrote it down on a matchbook and put it in my wallet.
When I got home after visiting the family I mentioned it to my other half and she said it was probably a dead lead. I decided to try it anyway and got through to the people that hired.
In seconds I was writing down information and answering questions about my background. I was told to show up the next day for my interview with my seabag packed. There would be a ticket at Pittsburgh airport for me in my name.
I was at the time laid off and tenatively was scheduled to go back to work in a couple of weeks. I packed right then and there and an hour later called the airport. Indeed, ther was a ticket awaiting me.
The next day I hopped on the plane and arrived in Philly and called the office people and was told to look for a van with their company logo on it outside the lugage area. It showed and I arrived at the office and was interviewed and hired as an entry level deckhand on the spot.
They stuffed me into a van and took me to Baltimore to get my Z-card and upon my return I was dropped off at a dock awaiting a tug and barge. When it hit the dock I helped tie the barge up and clambered aboard the tug.
It didn't take me long to ask around and find out that there was a career to be started and a career at sea sounded pretty good to me. I worked the rest of the three week tour and was asked if I wanted to work over.
I did because I had decided that the skipper was a jerk and figured that if I got off of his rotation I wouldn't have to deal with him again. Five weeks after I had boarded the plane I was headed home for three weeks.
The money wasn't very good but there was plenty of room for promotion.
Upon my arrival home I wrote every single skipper I had fished for in Kodiak for a letter of sea time. I also started reading up and learning as much as I could about my new career.
Ten months later I was an abe seaman with a tankerman's ticket and two months after that I was a licensed (limited tonnage) captain of motor, steam and sail vessels.
I worked my way up with that company to bigger and better things and when they sold some of their assets I went with the equipment and actually negotiated a raise to stay with the equipment.
It has been a good career for me and I will be bold enough to admit that it came down to two things. Chance and my taking advantage of the opportunity.
First, I took the train. I also let my outgoing nature meet people and wasn't afraid to admit I was between gigs. That got me the phone number.
I called the number and let my abilities take things from there. I was ready to go, didn't tell anyone to wait and simply went where I was sent and did what I was told, all the while doing the best job I could.
All I have to say after this story is that when opportunity comes knocking you had better have your bags packed.
To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY
Monday, January 20, 2014
One of the things I am beginning to see is that the liberal
movement in this country for the most part is an urban thing.It looks like the cities tend to have more liberals in them and the rural areas tend to be more conservative.
I recently read an interesting thread about how a lot of farm families start putting their kids to work at what seems to urbanites a very early age.
Kids under the age of ten start to learn to run machinery and do things and according to the farmers that chimed in this is a very common thing. Frankly, I am not surprised.
While farming isn't as labor intensive as it was a century ago, there always seems like there is something to do on a family run farm. There is planting, harvesting, working with livestock and a whole pile of things to do that would keep a family going from sunrise to sunset.
Urbanites really have no idea as to what running a farm entails. Many of them are so clueless if you ask them where meat comes from they will say it comes from the back room of a supermarket.
Some people were astonished to find out that little kids run tractors and other machinery on family farms and think it should be illegal.
First of all it is not their family to push their urban values on. It simply is none of their business. Secondly there are not a whole lot of farmers out there that are likely to turn a child loose with an expensive piece of machinery without extensive instruction. For one thing that kind of equipment is damned expensive to fix and so is the damage it can incur if not operated properly.
Likely the kid started out barely past infancy on his father's lap on the family tractor learning the ins and outs of safe operation of the equipment in question. By the time he is in school he has very well spent a few hundred hours on his dad's lap learning how to operate it. The first time he plows a straight row is a rite of passage.
What was interesting on that thread I read was when someone found safety statistics on farms and farm kids in specific. It looked to me like the kid was in more danger of getting hurt on their way to school in an automobile than he was running a tractor.
That makes sense to me because in addition to dad training the youngster, there isn't a whole lot of vehicular traffic on the lower forty for a tractor to run into.
Farm kids learn a lot of skills from their parents and generally grow up pretty competent in area that require hands on skills.
It is funny to watch because I know a couple that met in college and married. He is a city slicker and she is a farm girl yet she has been polished up pretty good. You wouldn't know she was a farm girl looking at her. What's funny to watch in the dynamics of their relationship. I have to surpress a smirk when I see hands with manicured and polished nails change the spark plug on a lawn mower. She can fix most anything.
She also shot an antelope in Wyoming at over 400 yards a while back. One shot. Oh, yeah. I watched her drop a tree last year and crush the empty can she was using as an aiming point for the tree to fall on. She's pretty good with a chain saw.
A couple of hours after she bucked the tree up I saw her leave the house with her husband dressed to the nines and looking like a million bucks.
She grew up on a family farm growing vegetables, working with livestock and running machinery and started at an early age.
A lot of kids start working around the family farm as little kids and do quite well in life. Some leave the farm and pursue careers elsewhere but they bring not only a competence but a work ethic along with them.
What was interesting in the service was the difference between the city kids and the country bumpkins. A lot of country kids grew up as hunters. A lot of the city kids regarded a tree as being a wild animal.
The country boys simply took their hunting skills into the service and simply found out that the only difference they were dealing with is the species they were hunting. The simply stopped hunting animals and started hunting men.
Whatever career paths they choose, farm kids bring a lot of practical knowledge with them.
The truth of the matter is that urbanites have no right to judge the way family farmers run their farms and raise their children and they damned well should butt out.
That holds trebly true for elected governmental urbanites. Government interference in a case like this is just another case of government trying to regulate something they know nothing about.
To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY
I recently read an interesting thread about how a lot of farm families start putting their kids to work at what seems to urbanites a very early age.
Kids under the age of ten start to learn to run machinery and do things and according to the farmers that chimed in this is a very common thing. Frankly, I am not surprised.
While farming isn't as labor intensive as it was a century ago, there always seems like there is something to do on a family run farm. There is planting, harvesting, working with livestock and a whole pile of things to do that would keep a family going from sunrise to sunset.
Urbanites really have no idea as to what running a farm entails. Many of them are so clueless if you ask them where meat comes from they will say it comes from the back room of a supermarket.
Some people were astonished to find out that little kids run tractors and other machinery on family farms and think it should be illegal.
First of all it is not their family to push their urban values on. It simply is none of their business. Secondly there are not a whole lot of farmers out there that are likely to turn a child loose with an expensive piece of machinery without extensive instruction. For one thing that kind of equipment is damned expensive to fix and so is the damage it can incur if not operated properly.
Likely the kid started out barely past infancy on his father's lap on the family tractor learning the ins and outs of safe operation of the equipment in question. By the time he is in school he has very well spent a few hundred hours on his dad's lap learning how to operate it. The first time he plows a straight row is a rite of passage.
What was interesting on that thread I read was when someone found safety statistics on farms and farm kids in specific. It looked to me like the kid was in more danger of getting hurt on their way to school in an automobile than he was running a tractor.
That makes sense to me because in addition to dad training the youngster, there isn't a whole lot of vehicular traffic on the lower forty for a tractor to run into.
Farm kids learn a lot of skills from their parents and generally grow up pretty competent in area that require hands on skills.
It is funny to watch because I know a couple that met in college and married. He is a city slicker and she is a farm girl yet she has been polished up pretty good. You wouldn't know she was a farm girl looking at her. What's funny to watch in the dynamics of their relationship. I have to surpress a smirk when I see hands with manicured and polished nails change the spark plug on a lawn mower. She can fix most anything.
She also shot an antelope in Wyoming at over 400 yards a while back. One shot. Oh, yeah. I watched her drop a tree last year and crush the empty can she was using as an aiming point for the tree to fall on. She's pretty good with a chain saw.
A couple of hours after she bucked the tree up I saw her leave the house with her husband dressed to the nines and looking like a million bucks.
She grew up on a family farm growing vegetables, working with livestock and running machinery and started at an early age.
A lot of kids start working around the family farm as little kids and do quite well in life. Some leave the farm and pursue careers elsewhere but they bring not only a competence but a work ethic along with them.
What was interesting in the service was the difference between the city kids and the country bumpkins. A lot of country kids grew up as hunters. A lot of the city kids regarded a tree as being a wild animal.
The country boys simply took their hunting skills into the service and simply found out that the only difference they were dealing with is the species they were hunting. The simply stopped hunting animals and started hunting men.
Whatever career paths they choose, farm kids bring a lot of practical knowledge with them.
The truth of the matter is that urbanites have no right to judge the way family farmers run their farms and raise their children and they damned well should butt out.
That holds trebly true for elected governmental urbanites. Government interference in a case like this is just another case of government trying to regulate something they know nothing about.
To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY
Sunday, January 19, 2014
A while ago I was texted.
I just had a text message sent to me and had to return it so I hit the ditch, stepped on the brake pedal, came to a complete stop, sent my message and reentered traffic. I figure I lost a little under two minutes, total time.
While I hate annoyances like that I had to deal with it and I get tempted to text and drive like everybody else does I still pull over and deal with it from the side of the road.
Texting on the fly is out and out dangerous and while I suppose there are a small handful of people that can text and drive, most will say they can and most are liars. Either they are lying to the rest of us or they are lying to themselves or both. Generally both.
Once I had to go somewhere and get there as fast as possible and was cranking down the interstate in a state that dooesn't permit the use of cell phones while driving.
I swung into the breakdown lane, stopped and answered it. They asked where I was and I told them i was in the breakdown lane of the interstate.
"What's wrong?" they asked in horror and when I told them that I pulled over to answer the phone they got upset. I shot back that it was illegal to use a cell phone while driving and they gave me some answer like they do it all the time.
I pointed out that it must be nice to have friends in high places to get their tickets fixed but I had no such friends and that I could not afford to get ticketed for such an offense. I simply hung up on them and reentered traffic and about 15 minutes later they called again asking to know where I was.
I told them I was stopped in the breakdown lane.
"What? You haven't even moved yet?" they asked in horror.
"I am fifteen miles closer than I was when we spoke the last time but have shut down in the breakdown lane again because you called. We went over this the last time you called. I will be there when I arrive and your calling me slows things down," I replied.
While I suppose I arrived on time I wasn't too polite when they asked me what took me so long.
Teenaged girls are famous for texting and cell phone gabbing while driving. Many soccer moms are no prize, either.
Sometimes I wish that cops had more latitude. They ought to be able to give people choices like destroy their cell phones in front of him OR get a ticket.
Personally if a cop gave me that choice I would smash the phone and drive away grateful that I wasn't ticketed and keep my mouth shut that I had the good fortune that was offered me. A trip to Wallyworld and I'd have another phone and be back in business a poorer but wiser man.
I can picture an outraged teenaged girl screaming, "Oh, no! Not my cell phone!" and talking her way into a fat ticket for a fine of about three times the value of the phone PLUS five points against her license. PLUS an incease in her insurance. People often don't think. Many also do not know how to count, either.
If she did opt for smashing her phone you can bet your ass that she would go straight to her soccer mom who is just as bad as she is. The pair of them would lodge a vicious complaint against the officer and he'd wind up in the chief's office defending himself.
To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY
While I hate annoyances like that I had to deal with it and I get tempted to text and drive like everybody else does I still pull over and deal with it from the side of the road.
Texting on the fly is out and out dangerous and while I suppose there are a small handful of people that can text and drive, most will say they can and most are liars. Either they are lying to the rest of us or they are lying to themselves or both. Generally both.
Once I had to go somewhere and get there as fast as possible and was cranking down the interstate in a state that dooesn't permit the use of cell phones while driving.
I swung into the breakdown lane, stopped and answered it. They asked where I was and I told them i was in the breakdown lane of the interstate.
"What's wrong?" they asked in horror and when I told them that I pulled over to answer the phone they got upset. I shot back that it was illegal to use a cell phone while driving and they gave me some answer like they do it all the time.
I pointed out that it must be nice to have friends in high places to get their tickets fixed but I had no such friends and that I could not afford to get ticketed for such an offense. I simply hung up on them and reentered traffic and about 15 minutes later they called again asking to know where I was.
I told them I was stopped in the breakdown lane.
"What? You haven't even moved yet?" they asked in horror.
"I am fifteen miles closer than I was when we spoke the last time but have shut down in the breakdown lane again because you called. We went over this the last time you called. I will be there when I arrive and your calling me slows things down," I replied.
While I suppose I arrived on time I wasn't too polite when they asked me what took me so long.
Teenaged girls are famous for texting and cell phone gabbing while driving. Many soccer moms are no prize, either.
Sometimes I wish that cops had more latitude. They ought to be able to give people choices like destroy their cell phones in front of him OR get a ticket.
Personally if a cop gave me that choice I would smash the phone and drive away grateful that I wasn't ticketed and keep my mouth shut that I had the good fortune that was offered me. A trip to Wallyworld and I'd have another phone and be back in business a poorer but wiser man.
I can picture an outraged teenaged girl screaming, "Oh, no! Not my cell phone!" and talking her way into a fat ticket for a fine of about three times the value of the phone PLUS five points against her license. PLUS an incease in her insurance. People often don't think. Many also do not know how to count, either.
If she did opt for smashing her phone you can bet your ass that she would go straight to her soccer mom who is just as bad as she is. The pair of them would lodge a vicious complaint against the officer and he'd wind up in the chief's office defending himself.
To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY
Saturday, January 18, 2014
Here's a link to the end of a fascinating story.
http://news.yahoo.com/japan-wwii-soldier-hid-jungle-until-1974-dies-091014526.html
Back in '62 a book named 'The Stragglers' came out and I read it. It fired my young imagination.
My dad saw mme reading it and told me he wanted it after me. Dad flew B-29s in WW2. We later discussed it and he told me how the bomb very possibly saved his life. We both marveled at the tenacity of the pair of Japanese stragglers that had finally been repatriated sixteen years after the war.
Thirteen years later I was in the army when the subject of the above link was finally tracked down and ordered to stand down. Notice I didn't say surrender. I said stand down.
I remember my First Sergeant mentioning it to me before the noon formation and I commented dryly to him that it meant there was now one less Japanese soldier out to get me. My CO overheard that and shook his head and chuckled.
I turned to him and told him I was going to have to tell my Uncle Bill that he must have missed one. The CO outright laughed at that comment.
A couple of months later I was downrange on a field problem and three of us got dropped off with the assignment of watching a crossroads. It was really a dumb assignment. If anything happened there we had no radio to call into the TOC with. We were there four or five days and did little.
We challenged a couple of people passing and finally the DivArty CO came by and told us to stop stopping people and just watch the traffic.
When the FTX was over we were supposed to be picked up but nobody showed up. It was briefly mentioned that maybe we ought to try and bum a ride back into garrison. However, we nixxed that.
We still had grub and water and decided that we ought to simply stay put. After all, the senior NCO that was supposed to be responsible for picking us up was a jerk and we figured he'd get burned when the mess got sorted out.
So we stayed put.
Of course, the next day we were listed as AWOL. Nobody showed up to get us so we decided to stay over another day. After all, we had chow and water.
Anyway, later that afternoon someone did show up and got us and were told to report to the First Sergeant. When we got there Top demended an explaination. I told them that my First General Order of guard duty included "And not quit my post until properly relieved."
He blushed and replied, "You men are absolutely right." He then faced me. I lived off post. "YOU! Go home and get cleaned up. Get some sleep" Then he dismissed us.
We overheard the CO in his office. He was laughing outright. He was a pretty good battery commander. My Battalion Commander didn't share his good nature.
The next day the BC, Top and I were hauled before the BnCO to explain why I hadn't just hitched a ride back in. Apparently the case of the missing guards had made the rounds quickly and the BnCO had been asked about it, most likely from someone further up the food chain.
He looked at me and asked me why, as non-com in charge I hadn't taken it upon myself to find a way back to garrison for myself and my charges.
Again, I quoted my First General Order of Guard Duty. He looked at me like I was stupid and asked me how long I had planned on staying out there.
"Sir, do you remember that Japanese soldier that was ordered to stand down a couple of months ago? The one in the Phillipines?"
"I am aware that a Japanese soldier surrendered a few weeks ago," he answered sounding very irritated.
"I would have broken his record standing on my head, Sir," I said.
Top rolled his eyes looking upwards and my battery commander smirked. Before the BnCo could ask him what was so funny he looked at him and said, "Sir, I seriously believe that if you had left Sergeant Piccolo there he very would likely have broken that Japanese soldier's record."
He threw all three of us our right then and there.
On the way back to the barracks my BC looked at me smiled and shook his head. "Piccolo, you can be downright dry," he said.
None of us ever heard another word about the incident although the Staff Sergeant that forgot to have us picked up got an ass chewing so monumental that it took three medics and 9 pressure bandages to stop the bleeding and 12 weeks to heal.
To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY
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