Dedicated To ...

.... the late Mel McDaniel.


Sammy Kershaw's version (channeling "The Man Show")

Glory Road by Robert A. Heinlein

Glory Road @ Amazon.com I was twenty-one but couldn’t figure out which party to vote against.

I object to conscription the way a lobster objects to boiling water.

One of my neighbors had a terrible asthma that lasted till his twenty-sixth birthday.  No fake--he was allergic to draft boards.

I wanted the world to be what they had promised me it was going to be--instead of the tawdry, lousy, fouled-up mess it is.

“Ever play water polo, Rufo?”
“I invented it.”

A hundred feet below the reception committee had gathered.  
It looked like an asparagus patch.  Of bayonets.

“Darling, there is black-widow blood in every woman.”

“Rufo, were you really at Omaha Beach?”
“Hell, yes, Boss.  I did all of Eisenhower’s thinking.”

For the one thing that stood out as this empirical way of running an empire grew up was that the answer to most problems was: Don’t do anything.

“It is the incidence of heroes that counts, not the pattern of zeros.”

“You know I would never draw against you.”
“I know no such thing,” he said querulously. “There’s always that first time. Scoundrels are predictable, but you’re a man of honor and that frightens me.”

Monday Morning Rants

Recognize?

It's a screw driver tip designed to be inserted into an electric driver - 25mm long (much too short), anodized (pretty, shiny color) aluminum (soft), comes as a bonus when you purchase a box of deck screws.  Guaranteed to endure for at least half of a two by six.  If you've ever had the pleasure of using one of these, You now know why men gather armies and start wars.

"You cannot be serious"

Did I just buy a box of instant coffee for the Keurig?

This Will Go On Your Permanent Record

Has Barry been a bad boy? 
What is Barry writing on the board?
What is that paper in his hand?
 

Dallas City Hall - This One Is Easy

I was voting upstairs  and came across this crowd as I left the building.

Look at the pics and guess where this is.....

Scroll down for the answer.

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While Moving

We had some BIG bugs at the old house.

UHaul has not convinced me that the Smart Car is suitable to tow a trailer.

My maternal grandparents had a telephone shelf in the hallway of their house in Titus County, Texas. I'm really proud that 555 and I have a telephone shelf in our Dallas County house.

We have a tree in the front yard.

555 bought a clock at Three Dollar Admiral, batteries not included.  It was hung on a nail and lasted two full nights before it became a part of the Yard Sale Inventory.  Ticking keeps me awake at night. We'll acquire for ourselves one of those modern 'silent' clocks.

A stump in the backyard near the Pet Sematary makes a fine perch for the charcoal chimney.  I'll slowly burn the stump away and allow Ma Natures vegetation to hide the grave site.  Chill out, it's not like I'm gonna exhume the little fella.

 

Scam Alert

This is a scam. 

Beware

=============================

Subject: Horrible vacation!!! I need your help!!!
From: Xxxxx Xxxxxx  
To: You@isp 

This message may be coming to you as a surprise but all I need right now is your help. 

Few days back I made an unannounced vacation trip to Xxxxxx, XX with my family . Everything was fine until last night when we got mugged on our way back to the hotel. They made away with all our cash,credit cards and cell phones but thank God we still have our lives and passports; it's such a horrible experience. 

Another shocking thing is that the hotel manager has been unhelpful to us for unknown reasons...he has restricted us from some services and believe me, I'm writing you from a local library. 

We reported to the police and after writing down some statements that's the last we heard from them. 

I need your help,I need you to loan me some money to settle our bills here so we can get back home tomorrow. I'll refund the money as soon as we get back. All I need is $1650.

Let me know if you can get me the money then I tell you how to get it to me.

                  Thanks

                         Xxxxxxxxx

Drug Crazy - Mike Gray

Drug Crazy

How We Got INTO THIS MESS & How We Can GET OUT

- Mike Gray

Random House, New York, 1998

Drug Crazy : How We Got into This Mess and How We Can Get Out

By erecting an artificial barrier between alcohol producers and consumers, the government had created a potential bonanza that can only be likened to the Gold Rush.

As historian Andrew Sinclair put it, “National prohibition transferred $2 billion a year from the hands of brewers, distillers, and shareholders to the hands of murderers, crooks, and illiterates.”


“We had not realized that the moment restrictive legislation made these drugs difficult to secure legitimately, the drugs would also be made profitable to illicit traffickers.”


Since the speakeasy had no liquor license to lose, there was no need to check ID.


In a vote they didn’t bother to record, on a matter of little interest, a handful of congressmen forwarded a bill that would one day help fill the nation’s prisons to the roof beams.


The drug agency, responding instantly to this shift in the wind, cut the number of junkies to 150,000 in the next report, and the administration was able to take credit for the overnight cure of some 400,000 addicts.


It would be tough to come up with a better system for teaching hatred of the law.


Peruvian officials estimated they were losing half a million acres of rain forest a year to these ad hoc plantations.


After a seventy-year battle against illegal narcotics, it was now possible to walk out the front door of the White House and do a drug deal across the street.


If the drug lords are spending tens of millions a week on their friends in government south of the border, how much are they spending in the North?


Lee Brown, first drug czar of the Clinton administration, was speaking to a Los Angeles town hall meeting about the disaster in Holland when a gentleman in the audience stood up and introduced himself as the consul general of the Netherlands and politely refuted everything Brown had just said.


The hardest drug to get say the kids, is not reefer, but alcohol.


There are no beer pushers hanging around the playground.  You can’t make a living at it.


Prior to the Harrison Narcotics Act, if people wanted drugs they at least had to go to the drugstore.  Now they can get anything they want from the neighbor’s kid.


Drug Crazy : How We Got into This Mess and How We Can Get Out

Goin' To The Fair !!

555 and I are going to the Fair.

We've called off work, purchased tickets at Kroger, including DART passes, and are ready to judge goats, sample the shows and eat some junk food. This is the band playing on the Main Stage.

Get More: Hanson, Top 20 Countdown, Give A Little, Free Music Videos

Tipi (also tepee and teepee)

Don's house, front view

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Don's back yard

This was a fun project.

 

 

 

That's Don making some final adjustments.

We spent about three hours on a Sunday erecting the tipi in his back yard.  Passers by will be snapping pictures for weeks and every kid in the neighborhood wants to play inside.

While Moonlighting As A Security Guard...

July 2011
Walmart Neigborhood Market
2305 North Central Expy between Lemmon and Hall, Dallas.

Nissan SUV parked on the sidewalk, specifically the wheelchair ramp.

This House Was Not For Sale

555 and I came across some interesting things while house hunting.

9/11 Dinner and A New Holy Day Is Born

555 and Tim have decided to do this every 9/11 - Feast to proclaim prosperity, blessedness and joy, the character opposites of the murderers.

Saturday, September 10 2011
555 arrived home from work and said "We're going to Meat Mania at Kroger."  I was behind the wheel with the car running when she finally caught up to me.
I typically purchase chicken or ground beef because these steaks are like ten bucks each (She had just gotten paid). Tomorrows dinner was going to be special.


Sunday, September 11 2011 
The tenth anniversary of the Twin Towers attacks -  We decided to celebrate life in opposition to those who celebrate death.

555 would be home in an hour so it was time to get to work.
I started by marinating the steaks in a mixture of pineapple juice and fig squeezin's (I reserved the pineapple chunks and simmered figs for the cake below), liquid smoke, and Worcestershire sauce -  80 minutes total, turning them every 20 minutes.  I didn't use the vinegar in the upper left of the pic.

I baked a cake from a boxed mix that has been on my shelf for over a year.  Recently, I've eliminated many carbohydrate sources from my diet but decided to pull this relic from the pantry as party(Freudian slip) of the celebration menu.

I texted 555 asking if the cake mix would cook properly in her Pampered Chef pan.  She wasn't sure.  The pan looks rather poor but I'm told it develops that patina naturally from use. (I'm gonna give it a good scrubbing later.)

This was the result.  The recipe said 25+ minutes at 350F. I lowered the temperature 25 degrees at the 15 minute mark and pulled it from the oven at 35 minutes. 555 demonstrated the toothpick poke for me.  

This is a fig/pineapple upside down cake from a Betty Crocker Carrot Cake mix.  You're seeing caramelized brown sugar with butter. It tasted GREAT.  Making this cake was fun.  I like power tools in the kitchen.

After marinating the meat got patted down with a mixture of powdered garlic, ground white pepper and salt.  Preheat the propane grill on high then ten minutes per side on low.

Steak, cherry tomatoes, sweet potatoes, poblano pepper, carrots - All from the grill.  Because of its size I microwaved the sweet tater about 3/4's done before moving it to the grill.

This was the table setting.  555 (you can see her hands) likes her A1.  My schools says "Don't add any extraneous flavors to the meat after cooking".  

We had ample supplies of canned beer, merlot by the mug, water in fruit jars and the Union Pacific lidless tankard containing my personal coconut water based electrolyte replacement beverage.

Join us next 9/11.

We'll be eating expensive steaks and celebrating not death but LIFE.

==

New House Foundation Repair

Our pre-purchase inspector found a small gray water leak in drainage pipes beneath the master bath sink. Moisture had damaged some load bearing wood between the piers and the floor. We took a credit on closing costs and moved in a few weeks later.

555 took a snow day to oversee the repair. The crew arrived early, worked like slaves adult, family men being paid a fair wage and were very grateful that 555 provided pitchers of ice water. It was one of the hottest days of the 2011 summer. They replaced damaged joists and sills and also replaced all of the original wooden shims with modern steel shims.

 The men entered the crawl space through an interior closet manhole. This vent was opened to pass tools, shims, lumber and electrical cords.  Several plants were temporarily moved. I'm pleasantly surprised that they've re-established themselves.  These guys were pros.

These bags are filled with trash removed from the crawl space - old shims, wet wood, old concrete castings and other debris.  A clean crawl space makes a safe and happy house.  My front lawn took a beating that day.

555 asked a worker to hold a piece of the damaged wood for a picture.  Now I'm wishing we'd saved this relic - I would tell people I'd smuggled it from Mount Ararat.

THANK YOU, 

Alpha Foundation Repair !!!

==

The American Power Pyramid

Mayor Rawlings, Your Opinion, Please ??

Mayor Rawlings -

Is  the Dallas City Marshall going to do this to Texans ??

Saved By Postcard

555 and I just moved into our newly purchased house in a neighborhood several miles from our previous house.

As we drove away from the old residence, we stopped at the mail box one last time.

The Real Animal House by Chris "Pinto" Miller

The Real Animal House: The Awesomely Depraved Saga of the Fraternity That Inspired the Movie

"THE MOST IMPORTANT THING when you go to college," Ace Kendall declared, "the single most important thing" -- he paused for effect -- is never, ever to join a fraternity."

The Smiths, in the ramshackle house on the corner, made the characters in Li'l Abner seem urbane sophisticates.

John Landis talks about Animal House the movie.

One thing about Dartmouth -- it was very Dartmouth. Despite all the dumb, virginal comedies Doris was making at this time, she was still, by my standards, a sexy woman. I knew this because I wanted to lick her thighs.

I knew what an alternate universe was. Apparently, I'd just walked into one.

Isaac leaned forward. "You should really think about this. They're the worst house on campus. The girls from Colby Junior get warned not to go there." "They're sick," said Brad. "They're an animal house."

If he'd had three holes in his ass instead of one, you could have rolled a strike with him.

It was a rare Dartmouth man who could have told you the name of the governor of New Hampshire, or knew diddly-squat about what passed for politics there. It was like an American base in a Third World country.

The Amherst AD's had outraged him, too. They had no soul. They kept telling them what not to do.  He himself believed in green lights, all the way.  Do any damn thing you wanted and, assuming you weren't hurting someone, be left the fuck alone!

The beer would take you sooo high.  And then, like the waters of Old Faithful, down you'd inevitably come.  It dissuaded one of God's existence.  Ingmar Bergman was right.

Rhesus Monkey's eyes were slits worthy of Ming the Merciless.

The scene in the basement of the AD house at 2:00 a.m. was very Hieronymus Bosch.

Bags, whose politics resembled Himmler's, thought unions akin to roach nests and peace only a boring pause between wars.

Pinto ran out to greet them.  Actual Negroes in Hanover!  They sure were black.  Pinto was swooning with negritude.

To no one's surprise, AD wound up on probation for an indefinite period.  The brothers sank into stoic gloom.

It was like the Oscars; comedy got no respect.

Another example is Elvis Presley, whose music never recovered from the move he made from Sun Records to RCA, where they mainstreamed him and cut off his balls.


Chris Miller

Ruger Pepper Spray

http://shopruger.com/Pepper-Spray/products/584/

My Favorite Window Sign