Thursday Afternoon Jams

Dandy Warhols We Used To Be Friends. 

perceptions and misconceptions

• Slavery is slavery and where it exists in the world today I think it should probably not be referred to as, "a modern form of slavery." as it seems to at least in my mind soften its perceived horror. The case could be made (again- to my mind) that in some ways it's worse than just calling it what it is- slavery. Today everyone knows it is a barbaric practice making the people who are slaves predicament seem even more hopeless and horrifying and less likely to motivate others to try and stop the practice.
• Combat in Syria. I'm not saying I would be afraid to fight those guys but they're good. There is a bit too much of spray and pray shooting for my taste but I wasn't there seeing what they're seeing- that may have been all they could do without getting their heads blown off.
• In a lot of conflicts you cannot determine good V. evil. You have to decide who is the least awful of the involved parties.
• Take a high fenced area of say 800 acres and place a deer with HD POV and panoramic cameras. Release said deer into high fenced area on opening day so there is a point of view from the deer's perspective when it is shot. I wonder what that would do to the hunting debate?
• Another: capture a hog and outfit it with cameras and remotely operated semi auto carbines that are laser sighted. Miss Piggie goes back to the herd and when you see on the monitor that laser dot hit another pig make a key stroke and pow.
• The main reason dirigibles are not more widely used is because of the Hindenburg zeppelin incident and the resultant images that are burned into mans brain. Where am I going with this you say- that event would make the perfect case for their non use- right? No, modern air ships are very safe and efficient making the comparison with what could be done today and that sad day a hundred years ago strange if nothing else. It's irrational for that reel to start rolling when the word dirigible or the phrase lighter than air is used. Why doesn't Titanic come to mind collectively when a Carnival Cruise Lines commercial airs?

Wednesday's Digressions

• "I know a lot of us have had a lot of anger, a lot of questions, a lot of uncertainty," he said. "Tonight's a celebration, a celebration of the elk. We loved him. But I think he loved us, too, because he returned to this neighborhood." And another quote from the same article "People live here because we love the wildlife," said Esther Parson, who lives in the foothills west of Boulder. "To murder an animal who feels like he's part of the neighborhood is despicable." Boulder Daily Camera. I don't remember the context, I'm sure I was going to make a point when I drafted this but it boiled down to: an elk died and anthropomorphic people cried. 

•  I haven't done it in years but was asked recently if I knew how to cook and if I had a  special recipe for fried catfish. Here it goes: Use only fresh peanut oil. On fresh fillets place sea salt, fresh ground black pepper and chili powder. Roll the fillets in a 50/50 mixture of flour and cornmeal. Then dip in eggs and roll back into the corn meal/flour mix. When the fillets are golden and the bubbling of the oil has settled down they're ready. Set them out on some thick layers of paper towels and voila! You are a comfort food genius. As a bonus try using real mayo in place of the eggs.

•  Oh, and when you say fillet, mispronounce it as it is spelled- fillet. I don't know why it makes it better but it does. Plus, it doesn't sound so French. Yes, I know fillet comes from an OE word but who would want to take the chance?

  

  From a Craigslist ad for a truck that, "Needs some work." Don't sweat it bro- that little ding will buff right out.

Monday's Missives

When I was a kid I read about spontaneous human combustion and spent weeks terrified I would well, combust spontaneously. Kevin keep up! I can't mommmm- I'm hot! I might spontaneously combust! I was sort of a goob.

• I won't say when I go to a hospice cases house it's always a matter of, When things go wrong they call me and in case you're wondering things have indeed gone wrong, but sometimes that's the case. They do call me when other nurses aren't working out and tell me so when the case is offered.


• A lot of nurses would be intimidated by those circumstances, but in many cases if you hear what the family had perceived as weaknesses of the previous nurse when the case is offered you can sincerely play up to that in the patients home and half your battle is done.


• Plus no matter what- listen to them. Listen until they get tired of hearing themselves talk.


• Helped coach Zachary's soccer team tonight. Oh, my aching back, knees, neck, ankles...


• And, I've got a headache.


• Whaaa.


• One of the wiper motor gears broke on my car when I turned the wipers on during the last freeze.


• Insert frowny faced emoticon here-.

Another Fave Singer You've Never Heard Of

Tricky- one of Bristols finest doing Excess. If it sounds familar, you've probably seen the movie 13 Ghosts. If the singer looks familiar you've probably seen The Fifth Element (one of the best sci fi movies ever). Well, enjoy- it's a terrible performance he makes some mistakes and he seems to be skulled out on something but, I like it anyway. It's a character defect in me really- I'm much too forgiving. I hope you dig it.

Tricky :

I believe in

I deceive in

Bottom weaving

I can breathe in

Make a wish in Flower fishing

Moving vibration

Mild relation

I'm jamaican on your radio station

Got a curse in

Could be worse in

You first In a hearse in

Good as dead in

Nothing left in

Nothing left in

Some be heading

I need a head rest in

And a feed from a warm breast

A man making hits For the childhood of hicks

Underground like Who's it sound like

You all sound the same

But you don't know my name

Amber Sunshower sings in her hotness:

I believe in people lying

I believe in people dying

I believe in people flying

I believe in people crying

I believe in people balking

I believe in people talking

I believe in people breathing

I believe in people being

Thursday Afternoon Jam

R.E.M. Everybody hurts.  I saw an old picture of Michael Stipe this morning with loooooong hair. How did I forget he once had hair?

I Rant I Rave I Solve All The World Problems I Am The Lizard King I Know Everything

• We knew the possibility of new gun laws would cause a run on sporting style rifles but stores are have trouble keeping any kind of gun on the shelves.
• During the run up to Clinton's ban supposedly Colt ramped up a third shift for the first time since the Vietnam war hundreds of thousands (at least) of guns ended up in circulation that would not have been otherwise. It is the same now but people who may have never bought one, people not that into guns are buying them. 
• More people are beaten to death every year than are murdered by rifles. 

• During the debate prior to Clinton's ban if you asked any cop they essentially never saw a so called assault weapon on the street. They were too hard to conceal- they were too expensive and were harder to obtain illegally than other guns. I doubt you could prove a single crime was prevented with that ban. Interestingly to a man, cops would say they saw way more so called Saturday night specials- cheap .25, .380 and .9 mm pistols. Surprisingly, in my area at least city and county cops would tell me they saw a lot of .22 caliber rifles used or carried in cars to be used for no good. The butt stocks would be cut off to form a pistol grip.

•  It is tiresome to hear politicians and now sometimes police talk about the Second Amendment and reference hunting- really, it is bizarre. It was written to elucidate the right of the people to overthrow a government that has become tyrannical. It was understood people would need to be armed to be able to form militias to repel invasions and to prevent the government from being tyrannical. If the amendment is offensive to people they should change it. It is not about hunting or shooting skeet . The good thing about the Second Amendment that is often seems forgotten is it's very presence may cause it to be unnecessary to use it- it should give politicians pause to know the people may have the means at their disposal to overthrow an oppressive government. But again- if people don't like it they should change it. 

• A headline this morning was "Sweeping new gun legislation proposed". The related video had the President nearly in tears speaking in front of an audience including Newtown parents. Behind him sat schoolchildren who had written him about gun control. The talking head said truly to the effect, The President spent more time near tears emotionally trying to gather support than he did laying out plans...

• Maybe I'm weird- but I prefer legislation that might actually accomplish some useful end not something that makes me feel good and I don't need a President trying to get sympathy votes by bawling. 

• Bad situations lead to bad laws and rank emotionalism leads to terrible decisions. Hey that is pretty good and I just made it up off the top of my head. feel free to use it- just credify me.
•  Fear the government that fears your guns. Dictators love unarmed peasants... I've never felt like this before but I can't think of a single gun nut bumper sticker that doesn't seem prescient right now.
• If you're not wondering, What's next? or Who is next? you're high or otherwise oblivious. 

• I've been at the same job for a little over a year now. My taxes have gone up and I now bring home much less money than I did just a couple of weeks ago. I was already paying too much in taxes AND having more than the minimum taken out to make sure I didn't have to pay more during tax time and now I'm bringing home less money?! I cannot reconcile this to my sense of fairness or common sense nor can I rationalize it intellectually. Why bother to work- I mean really why?

•  When my former life ended and I was on my own it was not uncommon for me not to be able to eat for days after child support and bills before payday and when I say not be able to eat, I don't mean not be able to eat out or eat the things I want- I mean not eat at all and when I say days, I mean 2-3 days. If this tax increase had happened then, I would have literally and absolutely been on the street.
• Thank God they're finally making those millionaires and billionaires pay their fair share. 
• When President Obama looks like he want to vomit when he talks about millionaires and billionaires like they're animal rapists am I the only one that remembers he is a multimillionaire? 
•  Statistically so called gun violence happens in certain areas to certain groups of people. This is sad and  terrible.  It is awful and something should be done but when laws are made that will and can only affect the law abiding this is a sad admission of how terrible the problem is of our disadvantaged, disenfranchised people. It says Hey man, I'm sorry we don't know what to do for you folks that live in conditions that would make a Somali in Mogadishu shudder but we gotta do somethin' that looks good to get all these wealthy white folks off our backs about the safety of their little snowflakes...
• It is 01/21/2013 and I'm back to this rant. I am on the waiting list of 2 different gun stores for an M4 style carbine. I'm number 110 on one and 10 on another- ridiculous. 

•  It is 01/27/2013. Yesterday a guy from from one of the gun stores called to let me know they had received a few ARs in to resell. He offered me a late 80s production AR 15 for 1500 dollars or roughly 3 times  what was paid for it new- ridiculous.
•  Women have supposedly been cleared for more combat roles secondary to the odd and incorrect assumption they face all the combat hazards and have all the requisite strength and other prerequisites for combat anyway. You can tell how much trouble a nation is in when leaders make really, really bad decisions that look big and sound good but could only hurt the people and institutions involved, all for some cheap, lame duck political pandering.
• We can expect lots of awful decisions and resultant policies in the remainder of President Obama's last term.
• 02/01/2013 It has recently been announced we are going to sell Egypt F16 fighters and M1 Abrams tanks. Sometimes what sounds like a good idea at the time will blow up in your face and come back to haunt you. Sometimes what sounds a great idea at the time turns out over time to be just that- a great idea. However,  I think it is rare that something that sounded a bad idea at the time turns out to be a good one. This is a bad idea. It is a bad idea because it sounds like an awful idea right now- it doesn't take sleeping on it, thinking it over, seeing how things turn out etc. It is a terrible idea that will have negative consequences for our allies if not the US directly. If nothing else- we will be paying to keep that equipment running. From providing them close air support in Libya to this bit of craziness, the Islamists are tired from lying awake laughing at us all night.
• I think the President has lost his mind.
• A good unofficial motto for us would be: The United States Of America No Better Friend- No Worse Enemy.
• If you need a good example of how awful our government is and how dumb congress can be, look no further than the Renewable Fuels Standard. It mandated a percentage of fuel made from plants be blended into gasoline. It makes food cost more, gasoline cost more, cars burn more fuel, it is harder on engines than fossil fuels, makes cars cost more and unless something has changed it is still transported by truck- which burn diesel. In the past it took 1.5 gallons of diesel to get a gallon of the ethanol fuel to market.
• There are multiple single issue politicians in this country, ones who you could not tell they had any interest in anything other that narrow band of people they feel they relate to and those politicians are just as dangerous to the folks they ostensibly represent as they are to the population at large.
• On a loosely associated thread: how can a person who represents group X from area Y thousands of miles from me in distance and a million miles from 90% of the population ideologically have such power over the rest of us? There is something wrong with our system.
• Bill Clinton's famous quote, Every time I sign that tax form I smile, gets used out of context all the time but yeah- you'd have to be rich enough to think that way in the first place.
•  03022013 I have heard multiple of Maxine Water's speeches and/or read the text of them. Try as I might, I can never even gather her meaning from them. She seems to just randomly string words together- big sounding words that I sense she does not really know the meaning. An interesting figure she threw out recently was the number of jobs that will be lost due to the sequester- 170 million. How bizarre, but poorly informed, ignorant people will eat that up and believe it.
• We are broke. We are broke and spending money as fast as we can print and/or borrow it and the news recently was we are giving Syrian rebels 60 million bucks in non lethal aid. First of all we already know Islamists are ascendant in those groups. Second, that is a drop in the bucket of what they would need to overthrow the government. It will not buy us any influence with them. Quite the opposite- it will make them mad in the long run, be made to be an insult and it will be used against us. 
• When the President was asked if he had ever shot a gun he responded to the effect, Yep, we shoot skeet all the time at Camp David. What a liar. Good grief.
•  03102013 Speaking of liars and hypocrites, Mark Kelly Gabrielle Gifford's husband got busted for buying an AR15 and a pistol after emotionally and publicly supporting gun control- esp for tactical style rifles. When pro gun people found out about the purchase he lied and said he did it to illustrate how easy it was to obtain those weapons here and he intended to turn them over to police. What a liar. 

•  I think I just had cerebral vascular accident so I'll quit for now. I'm going to hike the waist of pants up under my arm pits and go to the hospital. Thanks for reading and being my friend on the internets.

•  Here, watch a rocket scientist shoot a Saiga 12.

/

Wednesday's Digressions

• Sometimes if I warm coffee in the microwave for 1 minute it will be scalding hot and other times OK to drink as soon as it comes out. It isn't my imagination. My guess is it has to do with being placed slightly different in the oven and very small differences in amount of liquid making a bigger difference than I would have guessed.
• Trivia that pops into my mind whenever I think of microwaves: Early scientists invested time seeing if those waves would be useful for cooking after one got in front of a transmitter with a chocolate bar in his pocket- and it melted. Also, of course the first food they used repeatedly to test effectiveness was popcorn.
• Zachary gave me a nice flashback the other day when he picked up a copy of the Texas hunting regulations booklet. When his brother was not quite two I started taking him duck hunting with me. I would drop him in a sleeping bag, throw it and my decoy bag over my shoulder, put my gun under my arm and away we would go to where we would set up. We would lie around, eat drink and doze in between his questions while waiting for the sun to come up.
• Man- memories and there will come a time when that's all we have.
• I relatively often get pics or descriptions of a spider, bird, lizard, snake etc. from different people with the question, "Hey Kev, figured you'd know- what is this?
• Watching way too much Animal Planet makes you look smarter than you are.
• My Krups coffee maker still moans like a hurt child occasionally.
• And still freaks me out when I hear it and Zac is here asleep in the other room.
• Even though the gazillions of dollars we spend on defense sounds high it is still less than 5% of our total spending.
• Another thought- although I could support reassessing our priorities and even decreasing the defense budget there is a whole bunch of money that needs to be spent for new equipment as not only are individual vehicles wearing out and losses not being replaced, every system we use is a 20 or even 30 year old design.

Just A Tuesday

• People are great I mean really- it is good to be around them and get to know new ones. They are why I have a job and have a job that I love but I have always needed alone time. Ever since I could I would slip off somewhere or stay up late or get up early just to be by myself.
• My knee hurts.
• I just watched an old Joe Isuzu commercial comparing the Jeep Cherokee to the Trooper. The Cherokee was represented by an Indian on a pony in full war dress. When Joe says to the effect, Today I'm going to compare the Trooper to the Cherokee. the Indian says, How?  
• There is not a chance the Syrian army used sarin as has been alleged to drag us into some more shenanigans we have no business involving ourselves in. The Assad regime may be monstrous and he the Devil himself but he isn't stupid. They know as well as anybody- the only thing guaranteed to bring the whole world down on them would be to give the opposition fighters a chemistry lesson. The numbers being reported should also make us call bull-crap. They have at least been killing those kind of numbers per day- with bullets, tank rounds and artillery without bringing any heat down on themselves. As a bonus- maybe they weren't exactly winning before the sarin news but they weren't losing either. That makes me think they had no reason to use the gas and more likely everybody wanting to get involved would lie.

  

  Here, have a cloud or two- or a million.

• Kids should never have headaches. If they do they are either dehydrated, are severely stressed out by a family situation or have a brain tumor.
• A cover of Jolene by Strawberry Switchblade. Not great, but interesting.

Memorial Weekend Road Trip Review

Old German Restaurant and Bakery

Spear grass spear. 

Steeple to an old black church in F'burg.

When they have Texas's Ugliest Courthouse Competition this one will be  a shoo in. Really, it is so ugly that if there wasn't a discussion to make it so during the planning phase they simply had to have determined beforehand to have the simplest, least provocative and cheapest court house in Texas.

• We got home around 6:00 Monday evening. Holy smokes I was tired. I was so tired I couldn't sleep- I would nod off and jerk awake. I took some Nyquil and I am not sure I moved for the next 8 hours.
• Old Tunnel Bat Cave park near Blanco was a hi lite of the trip. FG was the first to see the first bat fly out. Before it was over with we watched 300 thousand+ emerge. By the end of the season there may be as many as 3 million bats there. As the name implies the tunnel was an old railroad tunnel that fell into disuse in the 40s.
•  We found a Holiday Inn with one room available after searching for over an hour. We could have planned that better. At one point before we scored the Holiday Inn room I pulled up to a fleabag motel. Here is the conversation that followed: Oh Kevin. What is this? We can't do this. This place looks dangerous. We've been looking for an hour and it is only going to get worse as people want to get off the road. It is either this or sleep in the car with one eye open in a Wal Mart parking lot. I replied.  Kevin, It looks dangerous! she said. Oh, I know that- you are going to get beat up and robbed and I'm going to get raped- either way. You might as well get your head wrapped around that. You've got that backwards Kevin. Whatever, the story ends with you sold into slavery and belly dancing for some perverted prince in Dubai- whether it starts here or a Wal Mart parking lot. There wasn't a vacancy. The manager removed the dirty paper towel covering the No on the No Vacancy sign that was in the window as we were leaving.

• We ate at the Old German Restaurant and Bakery in Fredericksburg. They had a passable Jaegerschitzel with pan fries and as reported by FG very good cheeseburgers.

• The crawdad festival in town was a lot of fun. They had some decent live Zydeco and a guy who brought out gators and snakes for demonstration. As we approached the gate I had a little sticker shock- especially as it looked rainy so we went and found sustenance. It poured for an hour closing down some vendors but most importantly the ticket booth.  We went in for free and about 15 minutes later it was sunny.
• I am still amazed at the number of vineyards and wineries in the Fredricksburg area. It was comical to see all the high toned ladies floating around stoned out of their gourds after those classy wine tastings.
•  We sat at the bat emergence with a couple from San Antonio. They had met 20 years ago in Cali and got together 4 years ago through Facebook- aka The Devil. The first night they went out as teens they found their initials carved in a tunnel wall near a beach and saw it as a sign. He dropped hints he was awesome as he had been in Desert Storm.  My guess is he fibbed about Desert Storm but I don't know, maybe he was awesome.

•  While we listened to the Zydeco I leaned back and looked up into the rafters and around at the people. There were 3 little girls daring each other to dance who finally formed a conga line and had a blast dancing around. FG was smiling. There was the requisite couple who dance unnaturally well and another who don't realize how awfully they dance and wouldn't care if it was pointed out to them. It smelled good- rain, seasoning from the cooking, cotton candy and cheap cologne. An elderly man got up and started dancing by himself. His wife is probably dead. A trashy girl got up and started dirty dancing with him. He didn't care. Everybody smiled and pointed them out to their friends. I let out a Cajun yell, Ah yeeeeee! FG laughed and smiled. And I thought, We will never be here again.

Best of Craigslist

Neurosurgeon Needed Asap

Hello. I would like to trade a 2006 mustang gt for the removal or suction of an egg sized brain cyst.

The Mustang Gt is white with gray leather interior. Tinted windows. AC, electric windows and seat. Automatic Transmission. Has all the bells and whistles, including a new DVD touch screen Deck, Shaker 500 sound and less than 40,000 on the odometer.

The cyst is behind my right eyeball and looks fairly easy to get at. I'd try to get at it myself, but I've been trembling and had to bad of a headache to attempt any solo surgery.

I don't have insurance, but I have had the same job for the last 16 years. I need help but the system is hard to work through. $260 or more every time I talk to a Dr. And every Dr. I have talked to wants to take blood tests and prescribe drugs that have not helped. All my blood work over the last 3 years has been normal. The cyst is the only abnormal thing I have. I can borrow money and sell the car. I'm using this ad as a last ditch attempt to get help. If you know a surgeon willing to look at my records, I will mail them and the DVD with 2 brain scans.
I'm going to loose everything if someone cant help me. I don't want, and have been denied medicaid, because I want to work, but its getting harder to do the things I like to do.
Thanks 

Friday's Dispatch

• I read the royal wedding would have 2 billion viewers. That is incomprehensibly retarded.
• Every site I went to during that time would say the server is busy and my news browser loaded slowly even though my connection was excellent- since I was not looking at a site covering the wedding that is just a coincidence right?
• Tell me the entire world didn't stop for the wedding of those inbred genetic lottery winners and make the whole internets run slow.
  
• imagine your on a bus and a giant bear gets on
  50% WOULD BE FREAKED OUT AND GET OFF
  40% WOULD BE FREAKED OUT BUT STAY ON
  9% WOULD CRY
  IM THE 1% THAT WOULD START SINGING SAVIOR NEXT TO IT.
• Comment from Youtube regarding Rise Against's song Savior. Read everything you want into that song about me- it will be true.
• Oh, but not the video itself- I'm not down with furry action.

Thursday's Thoughts

• We are gearing up the aquarium soon. I really look forward to it, especially my children's input and participation.
• They have watched quite a few episodes of Tanked. I hope their feet will be planted on the ground when we look for fish and their heads out of the clouds.
• Lots of people are moving in and out of my apartments. I like when I find out people have independent of my presence figured out they each know me.
• I am going to a rodeo soon for the first time in years.
• A move is like warfare- it brings out the best and worst in people.
• After our move was finished I was left with a stack of boxes that after they were flattened for recycling were nearly 2 feet thick.
• This morning (06122013) I awoke at 0111. My first thought was, OmiGod I have to sleep! I am going to go crazy. since I just knew it was probably more like 0545. Is there anything better than that? I wandered around the house, took a drink of ice water, checked on the kids, read for about 15 minutes and drifted off- content as a bug in a rug.
• An interesting interview on the politics of drone warfare.
• Filter and The Crystal Method- Trip Like I Do.

Wednesday's Digressions

On the day I have my picture made with my wife/GF/SO and a bunch of cats if you have any humanity at all- Will. Hunt. Me. Down. And. Kill Me.

• If I wanted to nit pick my mom's rearing of me I could- I know I could, but I've long realized she did the very best she could with what she had under a lot of very difficult circumstances. A lot of people have done far worse than she with much more resources. One thing that has meant more than I ever could have guessed in my life is she taught me to appreciate wildlife and the outdoors. Really, as messed up as things can be, I can get out and go fishing or just sit and watch the birds and other animals while listening to the wind in the trees and I usually can come away thinking that maybe everything will be OK.
• Give it some more time man. my shoulder brah says.
• I gave a lot back to her through the years and without doing so, I simply cannot imagine where I'd be now that she's gone. I miss her terribly. I miss her in a way that I only share with my little sister- since of course she is the only one who would understand.
• Shoulder brah? Yes, he's my bro. who lives on my shoulder that talks like a surfer. He occasionally dares me to do foolish things- Go for it dewd, it will be kewl, but he also helps keep me out of trouble. Dewd, don't do this brah- you know you'll regret it.
• Sometimes he beats out the shoulder angel and shoulder devil whose arguments can be just too black and white.

Raising Zachary

At poolside speaking to a couple of 20 and 30 year old lovelies: Hey I'm Zachary. What's your name? Want to swim with me? and then to their response of, Don't you want to swim with your dad? No, I like girls."

Monday's Missives

• Two of the people close to me are the worst in my life about asking for my advice on issues and then ignoring what I say- or worse yet arguing with me about it. I don't mean in matters of pure opinion where they can (or even should) challenge me, I mean they ask me about things in context of my nursing background:  I just cut my hand off with a table saw, what do I do Kevin?  Wrap a tourniquet 2 to 4 inches above the stump. Put the dismembered hand in an ice chest out of direct contact with the ice and then either call 911 or have someone take you to the hospital. Well, if I do that then..."
• Aye carumba!
• I am very proud to be a nurse.
• A thing that initially hurts most people I think after a marriage ends is not being a consideration in important events and decisions in the other persons life, but if you'll let it, these same realizations will help you get better after you face them.
• There are at least 5 toys in my house within view of me that were mine during my boyhood.
• When I say, Whateva! you'll know I've been Listening to Liam Lynch's United States Of Whatever."
• Is there anything worse than pet names in a relationship when you're not there yet in your mind or anything sweeter in this world when you are ready for it?
• Sioux City Birch Beer- what I'm drinking. Sliced brisket, sausage, marinated tomatoes and green beans from Bakers Ribs- what it is washing down.
• Was it Mike that asked about KCMO's BBQ? I had a sliced sammie at Gates. It was terrible. Their thing there besides saying, Hi, how may I help you? over and over (I think that is right) is no black pepper that I could find anywhere. I didn't even ask, assuming it was one of those their thing kind of a deal that they were going to beat me down with. I had a full on meal at Hickory Pit. It was tumultuous. A cool thing about up there is you can order, "Burnt Ends". Which is exactly what it sounds like- all caramelized end pieces. You can even buy it chopped.
• For some reason I can't do a caption on the video below. I am demonstrating how to shave the magnesium block to a fire starter- rake the block across a sharp blade, not the other was around as would seem intuitive to most people I think.  Always make more shavings than you would ever think you could need. Use a bottle lid to gather and concentrate it and have a paper under it to catch what doesn't land in the cap. You can then place paper and all at the base of your fire and strike away.
  
  
  

  

  Hog nosed adder doing his best cobra impersonation.

  
  

  

  Put me down you stupid human or so help me... I'll poop on you!  (Yes he did in case you are wondering)

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  

  Entrance created probably by a woodpecker to a cavity type nest. I thought it interesting how this piece fell off intact.

  
  

  

  Goose nest in old BBQ pit

  
  

  

  Old duck that lives at MWSP. He seems to be imprinted hard on humans and enjoy their company. He is very talkative and will give his position away when he is in a hide and you never would have otherwise seen him until he charts chattering at you.

  
  

  

  Goose nest

  
  

  

  Big Agnes

  
  
  
  
  

  

  Whitetail deer being delicious looking

The General

One day when you get the chance watch Buster Keatons The General. It's sometimes considered one of the best movies ever made- and it's nearly one hundred years old. The locomotive ended up in a gorge during filming and stayed there as a local curiosity until WWII when it was hauled out for scrap.


Link is to Internet Archive- great source for trade friendly music and movies.

Friday's Dispatch

A protester at an ALCOA plant who believes President Obama is an alien- literally, as in the extraterrestrial type.




• I didn't get a job I interviewed for recently. That is the first time it's happened in my life I think and it's very disappointing.
• I nearly always misspell disappointing.
• The thought of visiting Detroit doesn't hold any fascination for me, but I've been invited to go and stay for several days and just might do it.
• "No, I'm _______'s boy" That's what Zac said recently in response to my question,"Are you daddy's boy?" _________ is a woman who is notthemomma.
• He calls Popsicles hopscicles and flashlights blashlights. I love that about him.
• I don't recall the number, but a test I did in the Army revealed I had a vocabulary twice that of the average American.
• That and a nickel will get you...
• The above thoughts were put here nearly 2 years ago.
• After the Boy Scouts decision to allow openly gay members was made I heard multiple people call it a victory for gays and lesbians... One woman who wanted her kids in and herself to be a leader said to the effect, I want to work in an organization I love. That is not true- you want to fundamentally change an organization to meet your needs and world view and validate you as a person and maybe all that is A OK. 

Thursday's Thoughts

Two of my favorite images from WWII. Both have arrested my attention when I come across them since I was  a boy.  Oddly, when they have crossed my path I sometimes wonder if the German soldiers lived through the war but have never had the same thought about the American who I think was tied down on Omaha until now. 

• I have a great idea for a new restaurant- it will be voodoo themed and I'll call it Foodoo. Get it?
• Cool huh?
• Well, except for the doo and food connotation I guess.
• I hate how litigious or society is and really feel like it's one of the most negative things about us, but I'm afraid if somebody slammed in to me on the road while they were texting the next place they'd see me would be court. Texting while driving is so unbelievably retarded- it's unforgivable.
• Two things the average person really doesn't normally understand about WWII. We could have very easily lost (case could be made we nearly did lose). Nobody gives the Russians enough credit for the Germans they killed and equipment they destroyed. The case could be made their contribution was greater than the Normandy invasion.
• Why were the Germans so scary good at warfare? First of all they were very innovative in the early part of the war allowing them to win and their leadership get good at what they did and learn what worked. They were masters at small unit tactics. Their equipment was very, very good. Good or bad right or wrong they were a highly skilled, disciplined professional force. Then in the late stages of the war there is the back against the wall factor you can add to the aforementioned thoughts.
• Zachary gets a haircut this morning.
• The last barber to cut my hair was the first to cut his.
• Zac loves Pinky And Teh Brain.
• That makes two of us.
• Yes, I saw the teh and thought it looked funny.

Wednesday's Digressions

Natural Bridge Cavern

Johnson City's eternal building scalers.

He quit while he was a-head. Ha! I slay myself sometimes

The rare and elusive  black squirrel- El rodento de negro as our south of the border friends might say.

I like this tree- it is soooo lazy it can't just stand around like most trees. It  decided one day it might be better to lie down- so it did.

What is this?  It fell off a tree.

You're flower, you are. Just a pretty little desert flower. DF H.I. McDonnough

Interesting ladder at LBJs family place. The rungs are lashed with rawhide.

• Mr R at The South 40 reminded me of a couple of things recently. When I was a kid I nearly hated Hee Haw. My parents like it, but it interfered with The Dukes Of Hazzard or whatever it was I liked. Then when I went to Germany for the Army all of us Southern boys watched it together on AFN and I loved it because it reminded me of home.
• He also mentioned the sale of alcohol coming to Alvord (Alvoid if you prefer). I did not know anything about Decatur going wet until I saw garbage from alcohol packaging everywhere on the streets. Honestly, I did not know anything about a vote on it- a debate or whatever, but that trash everywhere was impossible to not notice. I thought they must have lost some federal street cleaning funding or whatever and I just happened to notice it was beer packaging, but no- the only difference was it had gone wet.
• Another thing I've noticed is the quality of restaurants food, chains generally excluded will almost always go downhill once they get their liquor license.
• I seems every day at work more is asked of me and I'm literally given less to do it with.
• We watched a survival show the other night featuring a husband and wife duo. During the part of the episode I watched they supposedly spent 24 hours in a desert. A 24 hour period at the end of which both of them looked as fresh as daisies. His hair literally and obviously was freshly blow dried. Neither one of them had a single visible sign of dehydration. All of this is impossible of course when you're using a rock for a pillow and drinking cactus juice and your own pee. Even with decent nutrition and efforts being made to hydrate guys in the desert will lose at least a few pounds in a day with activity. This will always show in the face first.
• The crayfish I handled in MWSP this past weekend (06/01/2013) had a soft carapace. I assume it had just molted