Friday, March 23, 2012

“a plack for your thoughts …”

Corby's Plack Shop

Carolyn is working awhile this morning and I am editing the last of Sunday’s photos. They ain’t great but they are satisfying to my need to shoot and edit.

I have several photos converted to b/w and have them in a special account on Megashot.  I know you are anxious to see them.

Megashot has surpassed the 4,000 registered member mark. Mark’s Black and White Community is one of the most popular on the site.

Obama is such a lying snake in the grass; I don’t know who he is depending on to reelect him; he has alienated the young, the middle class, and the higher educated groups. Unions don’t like him, geezers are very suspect of him, environmentalists don’t trust him,  and the One-Percent hate him. Fortunately for the president the only person he has to beat is a shaky Mit Romney it seems, and it is beginning to look doubtful if Obama can even do that. He had better come up with something new; if he stands on his four-year record, he will surely lose. Occupy may be his worst enemy.

As for the above photo, I wonder if the guy was wanting to spell the word “Plaque” instead of “Plack”? Lord Google tells me that Plack is a small Scottish coin worth less than a penny. I love the Hillbilly Way.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Waitin' for the weekend


Carolyn is running errands and I am doing some more business stuff.  Sammy is with his mama. Another warm and beautiful May day.

When were were out Sunday, I noticed many redbuds in full bloom; I don’t remember them ever blooming and not being frost-bitten before early April. If possible, I am going to try to go to Wilbur this weekend; been about a year since I was there.

Cops are cracking Occupy heads once more; again change is in the air.
Have a nice weekend prelude!

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

For "Shaggy"

Cowabunga Dude!

You can have this guy for your collection when I see you; JJ found it in the yard when he mowed t’other day. Only 1.75″ tall.

 

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Taxing


Dave Amos — July 29 1937 – March 18 2012

Sammy was here yesterday as he is nearly every Monday. Between being spoiled by his granny Carolyn and having teething problems, he was a handful. Even at his worst, he is the best.

Worked on taxes from eight o’clock til 11 o’clock this morning and I like an hour or so to be finished with them … whenever. Most of what I did was itemized deductions on Schedule A. My estimates from last year for 2011 are fairly close; hard to see the future in these quaky economic times.

Have a Tuesday!

Monday, March 19, 2012

Garden goodness

View from the sitting rock

Lettuce bed and other goodies
Tammy sent along a couple of pics of her garden area. The bottom photo is the new lettuce bed enclosure that Mike built. I suppose the fencing is to keep the honest critters out of the veggies and flowers. Thanks, Tammy; looks like you will have a summer of hard earned goodness.

The weather turned from sullen to splendid in just a matter of minutes yesterday; around noon time most of the clouds went wherever it is that unloved clouds go. I sat on the porch busily sunburning my knees while Carolyn went to work for awhile. When she came home, she asked if I wanted to ride and see if I could find anything to shoot. “Hell, yes” was my instant answer so she packed us a couple of ham sandwiches and caffeine-free sodas and we were off to the environs of Telford, Limestone, and Chucky. I didn’t get a lot of pics and the light was nearly flat for the ones I got, but at least I got some and proved to myself that the camera still works fine. The problem I was having was related mostly to stupidity on my part and one camera setting that got changed somehow. My own problem was that I was using insufficient depth-of-field. On the Pentax, the auto-focus point had gotten reset from center-point to auto-find. Anyway, we spent more than two hours cruising the back roads in places where we had often been, yet I found things to shoot at that I had missed before. All the pics I got were made from the van’s open window and most are sharp as can be expected in the ubiquitous Tennessee hill mist. A couple were not so good; one of the Limestone train station made while we were parked on the RR tracks is a bit off but Carolyn refused to turn the van engine off while I was shooting and the camera picked up a bit of vibration. I will post some of the shots on my photo sites and on this blog.

Have a great Worshday, my friends.

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Gray sky blues


 
Finally some rain; still not enough but we will take what we can get. Leaden gray skies greeted me this morning, temporarily quenching my fiery thirst for travels along the local roadways in search of elusive photo opportunities. More fine days will come my way; if one learns anything over the years it should be that patience truly is a virtue.

I had a “green-apple” type belly ache most of last night and didn’t get much sleep until after daylight this morning. I ended up not waking until 9:30am and had to force myself out of bed then.

Have a good week, my friends.

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Emerald Greetings

Fly Boy

The skies keep threatening rain but they are not producing; we are well behind the average for the year. Hopefully we are not beginning another drought situation like we had most of last decade.

Carolyn took Sammy into the woods behind the house yesterday; she said he laughed and “ahh’d” at the trees. I hope they whispered to him like they did me when I was young.

I took about an hour last afternoon and did the editing work on the above pic. The work took less than an hour, but I did some experimenting beforehand; I try to keep my bit of hard-earned skill near its peak. The pic was rendered with Paintshop Pro 14 directly from the RAW file. The most difficult part was Sammy’s eyelashes; they are long and had to be worked on at the pixel level to get the original background color replaced by sky. They still aren’t as good as I want them.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day to all of Ireland’s people, all descendents of the Irish, and all the rest of you whom wish you had Irish blood in your veins.

Thursday, March 15, 2012

“A soothsayer bids you beware the ides of March”


My little buddy was here yesterday and we spent some time on the porch. Carolyn pushed him along the street in his car but she was tired before I could get out with the camera; I had to settle for some pics of him sitting in his machine. He will be back tomorrow. I will post photos on this blog, FB, and Flickr when I get them edited a bit. There is something wrong with my camera or the lens; everything is soft focused and I have to tweak the pics with software to get them close to barely useable.

A glorious morning in these hills and except for predicted thunder showers, the weather should be superb for at least several more days. Yes, I know. I jinxed it by praising it.

I just this minute found out that one of my very good Flickr and Megashot friends has only a few weeks to live. I’ve known him for five years and we became very good online buddies. He is one of the first Flickr contacts I invited to Megashot and he is an excellent photographer, bullshitter, Democrat, and family man.

Have a good Thursday!

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Beautiful day!


Sammy is coming today and I hope to get a bit of porch time with him. Temp today is supposed to be 84°F (29°C). Time to put on shorts and sun-cook my white legs for a bit.

It looks like the Occupy movement wasn’t a movement after all; more like a sore but short-lasting pimple on the butt of corporate America. However, it did do some good and is still doing some good in limited ways. Looks like the next “big thing” may be a religious uprising by the Santorum movement and counter-uprising by the 17 percent of Americans who do not believe in religion. Tricky Ricky Santorum may become the first Pope of Pennsylvania Ave.

Sammy’s here … gotta go. Have a pleasant Wednesday!

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Lazy


A lazy day for me; I don’t feel enthused to face the tax forms, Sammy isn’t here–he has gone to visit his dad, and the weather is warm but a bit iffy in the rain department. Carolyn is hauling Ashley and Sammy and then will go to hairdresser and then to the bank and pharmacy. I am alone except for JJ in his room playing his guitar; hope how soon he starts mowing. Maybe some porch time for me later today?

By this time next year, I hope to have my right knee replaced and possibly one of my shoulders. The crutches are finishing wrecking my shoulders. Soon, just to be able to sleep, I will probably have to hang by my one good knee; “holy headaches, Batman!” I also hope to have some much needed dental work done. It all depends on Carolyn’s health and how much longer she can work and be willing to work.

Have a Tuesday!

Monday, March 12, 2012

A Man I’ll Never Be


Poor sleeping last night. Finally finished a Kindle book on the Droid and then went to Amazon and bought a $.99 detective novel. I think it will turn out to be a good purchase decision. I’ve bought several books from Amazon and several from B&N, but have yet to buy one from Google; for a long time their reader software was not near as good as the other two but is now up to par.

Lyrics for the video.

Sammy is here … have a good Worshday!

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Soul song


What does the color yellow taste like? What does crimson smell like? Isn’t the world of humans a delightful place when we are the only species who can wonder about such poetic diversions?  The price we pay for being human is coercion by our natural uniqueness to remain selfish and alone … and oft times lonely.

Been a quiet but rather onerous weekend; it didn’t get quite as warm on Saturday as was predicted. In my personal opinion, warm begins at 80°F and any degrees above that are pudding in the cake.

Have a warm and wonderful Sunday, my friends.

Friday, March 09, 2012

Approaching the Ides of March

Assassination of Julius Caesar -- Vincenzo Camucini



I see where our General Motors, a company which has a 25 percent ownership by American taxpayer’s money, recently bought a $400 million stake in France’s PSA Peugeot Citroen company in an attempt to bail the French company out of sad financial woes. That means that We the People now own a part of that loser company. I suppose that if we didn’t own some of it, we would would be forced to take some kind of military action against it so we could rebuild it gratis. There isn’t much left in the world that we haven’t attacked. Maybe the U.S. should annex the rest of the world; that way, we would not dare attack ourselves.

I’m alone this morning and I don’t feel like doing taxes for the second straight day; I dreamed about spreadsheets last night. There are only 10 numbers I have to deal with–o-9–but there are more combinations and multiples of these numbers than I want to think about. Our finances are small, but there are still thousands of these combinations over a tax year and they seem overbearing. I think I know how Julius Caesar felt as the daggers plunged into his heart.

Y’all have a good weekend and get out and about if you can; I hope to do so Sunday.

Thursday, March 08, 2012

Solar safety


Been working on taxes all morning; was going to do so yesterday but Sammy insisted on having my attention. If he is playing with his toys and he looks up to see that my back is turned to him while I work, he yells “ahh-ah” until I look around at him and he will smile at me and go back to playing.

I’m sitting here under my reflective 100 percent solar storm-proof umbrella, my self-designed baseball cap with a wire-mesh liner which is grounded to a water pipe, while wearing an old, metal chastity belt which I made Carolyn use back in the days when I was away from home for weeks at a time working in other cities; it is also grounded to the water pipe. Being it is a woman’s model, it is uncomfortable as hell; hope I don’t lose the key. You laugh now but when solar rays from the present sun storm pickle your brain and leave you so impotent that Viagra won’t help, I will get the last laugh. I would make a pic of myself but I can barely move and you’d just laugh that much harder anyway.

Have an ionized Thursday, my friends.

Wednesday, March 07, 2012

Amen?

Summer fun
Snug bird

Summer fun

Tennessee Republicans once more show their arrogant ignorance by tying themselves to the American Taliban’s front runner, Rick Santorum. Amen? Of the four left vying for the Conservative denomination, Santorum scares me me the most. Amen? Newt is washed up, it seems; maybe he is now running for the vice job. Amen? Ron Paul has some good ideas but some terrible ones, too. Amen? Nobody likes Mit Romney, but he is leading the pack … so far. Amen? We better get used to saying a lot of “Amen’s” if Santorum should be elected president; he will probably make it illegal to not go to church. Amen? A Pox on the lot of them. Amen!

Thanks to Tammy for the photos; she better not peeve the bird or he may pluck her plants.

Sammy is here for the day, taking a nap while I wait to play.

Have a happy Wednesday! Amen.

Tuesday, March 06, 2012

Birdsong


Do you know that every word you write or every photo you upload to the internet will be archived and kept in the “cloud” forever, maybe longer? Many people think their chats are safe from prying eyes, but they have another think coming. After your death, close family members and other “interested parties” may obtain every email and every chat message you have authored, and every document of any kind that you uploaded. There is no privacy in the virtual world, and the real world is becoming much the same.

What happens when the law enforcement spy drones begin crashing and killing innocent people? I can just imagine a sheriff’s airborne drone crashing into a school yard filled with unaware children while it is supposed to be looking for nearby illicit drug activity. The American Patriot Act should be completely repealed and reworked to protect innocents from rogue law enforcement agencies and no arm of the law is innocent.

Grateful Dead: no pretenses from these guys. I love this bluesy-jazzy piece.

Have a Tuesday!

Monday, March 05, 2012

In the pink ...


I spilled nearly a half-bottle–large size bottle–of cherry flavored Pepto-Bismol down the front of my shirt and pants yesterday. Yes, I am pretty in pink. However, I hate the taste of cherry flavored Pepto therefore I won’t miss it; regular taste is much more palatable.

Snow flurries expected again today but warming into the pleasants tomorrow.

Only one dark of the moon this month, so y’all plantin’ taters better get her done on the 23rd. Eyes up, please.

With the song above, it is said that Rick Nelson was hitting back at “friends and fans” whom had abandoned him when he didn’t perform as they expected.

Have a warm Worshday!

Sunday, March 04, 2012

Heavenly

When I get to heaven, I hope Jesus is playing saxophone in a cool jazz band.

Sammy came by early yesterday morning and he had a good grouch going because his sleep was interrupted. After an hour being a grump, he slept for nearly two hours and woke up wired and ready to rumble. Yesterday was reasonably warm outside but the wind was chilly. We didn’t have any of his protective clothing for his ears, so I went to the bedroom and came back with my old hardhat liner which looks like a cotton version of an old-time flyer’s leather helmet. It was much too big for him but he didn’t mind. Carolyn took him out and they “drove” up and down the streets with Sammy holding the steering wheel like a big man. We celebrated his eight month birthday yesterday.

Happy Sunday and many vibes for an easy work week.

Saturday, March 03, 2012

Changes

Friday, March 02, 2012

Be "Suspicious"

Suspicious
The above image is solely owned by Cyrus Khamak. Cyrus is a professional photographer; photography is his main source of income and it pays his bills. He is also the owner of Megashot, a photo sharing site of which I am proud to be a member. While doing some sleuthing on the web, Cyrus found four of his photographs which had been copied without his permission; used not by some careless blogger but by a large corporation which should know better. A Facebook page with more info about this and other posts about image theft was created in an attempt to inform and educate people about the seriousness of the problem.

Maggie, another member of Megashot, also has had images stolen. She is not a professional photographer in the sense that she depends on image sales for a big part of her income, but she does make professional grade photos. Her pilfered photos were used in various ways, some by publications and companies which surely knew better than to do so. Here is a quote from her latest blog post:
“I have found many people using my Peace Rose, my David Austin Rose, my minature (sic) Yellow Water lily, and that was just a few minutes search.”
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So far, I have found four of my own photos (one of them is on two different blogs and another is on three blogs which seem to belong to one person) on blogs and on a website which has it listed as free downloadable clip-art. If they are stealing my snap-shots, just think of what is happening with your worked-for images.
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What this all means to you: If you post images online–anywhere online–and if you do not make an attempt to protect them, do not be surprised one day to pick up a publication or go into a gallery and see one of your photos which has been sold by someone else who stole it, removed your name, and claimed the image as their own. If that thief made a few hundred ill gotten dollars for his effort, would you be pissed? You ought to be. That is one reason why image theft should be stopped to the degree that it can be stopped.
Most people, such as bloggers, seem to be ignorant of the laws covering image ownership but there are some who just do not care. However, many of them are reasonable and will remove the image or images from their sites if they are asked to do so.

Always place the copyright symbol–©*–or the word “copyright” along with your name on each photo you upload to the net. Most people will not go to the trouble of trying to remove a name and will move on and give someone else grief. Remember, it is up to you to protect your work.

Here is a tip on another step you can take to help protect your hard work.
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*On MS Windows® PCs, make sure the “Num Lock” is on on the keyboard, place the cursor where you want the symbol, press and hold the “Alt” key while using the numeric keypad to type 0169; this should insert © into your text.

Thursday, March 01, 2012

March!


February and its sissy Valentine’s sweet-sh-t videos are back on the shelf. March is here and March ain’t to be taken lightly, therefore my first video for this incredible month is from the best metal band; Judas Priest … You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’.

This is all I have for today; tomorrow I hope to have some more info about image theft on the web; today I found two more of my pics which have been stolen and Cyrus and Maggie each have several images purloined.

Have a great Thursday; it’s great to be alive and be in East Tennessee.

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Surfing


Sammy is coming!

For the first time in ages, I did a bit of blog surfing yesterday via blogspot.com. A few of the blogs I have been reading for years have fallen by the wayside for one reason or another and I needed new ones to fill my reading time. For sure there are a lot of people like myself out there who have little to say but insist on saying it anyway and if you hop around in their stuff for a few minutes, you can find some items which will make you laugh, cause you to be sad, but overall, be glad you found their blog.

Mit Romney sucked out a win in his home state's Republican Primary last night. The only group he had a solid win with was those making more than $100,000 income. As bad as he is, and he is very, very bad, he is better than Rick Santorum who wears Jesus like an Easter suit, and better than Newt Gingrich who has zero credibility outside the 'good ol' boy' deep south. I wonder what Gingrich thinks about women's rights to live a healthy life? Newt and I both are hypocrites but we are comfortable with it; he is happy knowing he will go to heaven and I'm happy knowing I will not go there.

I am now down to 254 lbs (115 kg); probably been a decade since I was this petite.

Have good mid-week!

Monday, February 27, 2012

"100 Proof"


Hope y’all like Jeremy’s new video production. A story well told.

For the 187th year in a row, I did not watch the Oscar awards show.

Sammy will be with us again today.

Have a great Worshday!

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Spokky


Jerry and Tabby (my youngest granddaughter) were over this morning. Carolyn had just left for work and didn’t get to visit with her.

Chris bought herself a car, a Ford Taurus. If I believed in such things, I would consider it a good sign because she was born under the Zodiac sign of Taurus the Bull. Sometimes she is bullheaded.

Carolyn is going to make American style goulash this afternoon after work. My mouth waters as I await. Maybe if I don’t pig out I will get a photo.

I am dieing to shoot something; I once more have the big Pentax beside me on the desk and I think I can hear it begging for exercise.
Wilbur and the mountains …. almost as good as sex as best as I can remember.

Have a good week, my friends.

Happy Birthday, Johnny

Friday, February 24, 2012

My Buddy ...

Ashley snapped this pic of my buddy on Friday evening.

Sitter


Sammy is on the way to baby sit me today.

Lyrics for A Whiter Shade Of Pale.

Have a fine weekend, all of you’uns!

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Happy Birthday, Ashley!


Blog of the Day: http://heartandcraft.blogspot.com/ If you are interested in writing life stories about yourself, family, and friends, this is a good place to learn some of what it takes to do sensible work.

The sun was shining beautifully when I got up this morning, but now at 11:00am it is raining. Spring weather is so unsettled.

Casablanca is still my all-time favorite movie. The two main reasons are Humphrey Bogart and the film’s dialogue. Bogart was the face of toughness America needed during the latter years of The Great Depression and on through WW2. From “Play it Sam” to “Here’s looking at you, kid” and “… this looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship” there are enough memorable quotes in the flick to keep me smiling the day long.

Have a “here’s looking at you” Wednesday!

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

On the move

Supposed to be 72°F (22°C) Thursday, along with thunderstorms. Sounds right springy.

Carolyn has gone after Sammy; probably be his last day with us until Friday. He did some singing for us yesterday–I had Etta James music on the PC.

I suppose CNN and the remainder of the glory press are hoping someone else with charisma and publicity like Whitney Houston had will die; they made oodles of ad money off of her demise. Etta James died a week previous to Houston but it was hardly noticed by the glam news world. Let’s face it; Houston would have been another face in the music crowd if not for having such a fiery relationship with former hubby Bobby Brown. Rest in Peace, Etta James.

We are taking my office back to the bedroom Chris vacated. Her move back to Jonesborough is complete and Ashley and Sammy have moved to Johnson City. It’ll be nice to have an uncovered window to see out of again.

Monday, February 20, 2012

Holiday

Today’s holiday is celebrated as “President’s Day” which is actually incorrect; it is George Washington’s Birthday that Americans observe. Merchants are the ones who came up with the misnomer “President’s day”; it is supposedly easier to remember than the name of the Father of Our Country. Another holiday stolen and commercialized by rampant capitalism.

Carolyn is giving Sammy a bath and he is throwing a conniption fit. Good boy!

The U.S. and Great Britain are paying lip service to Iran by warning Israel they will be considered as naughty if they attack the Islamic Republic.

Have a good Worshday!

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Fine dining

Carolyn drove me around the area yesterday; she wanted to visit an old hamburger joint–which is located in Bristol–from days of her youth. We rode around some and finally wound up at the Blue Circle drive-in restaurant. We both ordered burgers and I ordered french fries and she ordered onion rings to eat in the Escape and we waited and waited when finally a guy came out and told us they were out of french fries and would tater tots be ok. I agreed that they would be fine and we waited some more. Here came another guy telling us they were also out of onion rings and would tater-tots be all right for her. Or, we could wait some more because someone had gone to the grocery store to buy some to cook. We were hungry so Carolyn decided tater-tots would be good and we waited some more. Finally here came the first guy carrying our dinner and the cheeseburgers–although tasty–were very paltry in size and the tater-tots were the expected grease bombs. We ate and left there and Carolyn decided she wanted coffee and desert. We drove around some more and wound up in Johnson City at McDonald’s. She ordered us each a cup of coffee–mine with sugar and hers with cream–and two cherry pies. We got to the pay window and were told they were out of cherry pies but if we waited 15 minutes they would have some ready. We decided to take our coffee and leave. Both coffees had cream and neither had sugar. Carolyn had made up her mind she was going to have a cherry pie so we went to a convenience store, bought gasoline, and she went inside to get herself and me cherry pies. She came back out madder than a wet hen; they were out of fried cherry pies. I ended up with some powdered donuts and she had a cherry flavored Twinkie-like cake. We drove around some more, winding up the day back at home. As soon as we pulled into the driveway, My aunt and cousin came by and we visited until past five o’clock and Carolyn and I were both very tired by then.
It wasn’t a haute cuisine day, but it was fun overall; I was glad to get home and finally have a ham sandwich and a bag of chips. I hate to admit it, but it was the first time I had been out of the house since December 27. It felt good to get some air and see things other than my PC monitor and the four walls of home. I took the Pentax with me but found nil to shoot at. Spring was in the air yesterday but today we are supposed to have the first decent snow fall of the winter; figures.
My aunt submitted a story about her life to some publication which was putting together a book about growing up in East Tennessee hills. Damned if she didn’t get her story included in the book. Now I have to come up with $50 to get a copy; she told me she submitted a photo with me in it when I was small and it is also in the book. My entire family must be literary geniuses; I wonder where I went wrong?

Friday, February 17, 2012

Alternating


Not much happening today; I am on the Linux hard drive doing some updating. It is nice to compute using a quick, safe, and efficient operating system such as Linux Ubuntu. I run the 32 bit version here but my laptop has 64 bit and it is even faster. The newest incarnation of Microsoft Windows will be released later this year and it will be optimized for use on touch-screen devices such as smart phones and tablets; they are desperately trying to catch up with Mac and Linux. I am still hanging on with WinXP; new beta drivers from Nvidia seem to have cured many of the display and crashing problems.
—-
Alternate universes. Believe or don’t believe, Einstein’s theories not only allows for them but also predicts that they can and may exist. After 100 years of testing, his theories are still holding up. Mark’s latest accident is a good case of what could be in alternate universes. When there is a major, sudden change in the universe or even in our lives, a new universe may come into existence paralleling the old one. As time goes by, each will further evolve in its own way. Let us say that when Mark fell from the ladder, he was able to land in a way that did not break his leg, but just shook him up and made him careful around ladders. From that fall we would have a split universe, one with him as we know him now; a broken version of himself and another universe with him sore but no bad damage which we would not know about but our parallel selves living there would know. However, just about everything else he he knew from his past would be the same in both universes. At the moment of his impact, he could have broken his neck and died, thus causing another universe where we would be without our friend. In another scenario, maybe the ladder slipped and he did not fall; the rest of us would still be in that universe, too and we would probably never have heard anything about it. Of course we can go back to when Mark bought his house; so many things could have been different then and he may also live in a universe where he bought a different house, hit the lottery, became a bigamist, and moved to Cuba. Most of these parallel universe diverge and go their own way but sometimes, due to cosmic forces, they once again touch just for a moment and information is exchanged between them; there be monsters there!
—-
Have a great weekend.

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Thoroughly Thursday


I got about five hours sleep last night and my eyes are not so bad today, but I will make this brief and rest them some more anyway. You are off the hook for at least another day on the Higgs Boson. It will give me time to find out what it is; I just like the name.

Carolyn has gone for her doctor checkup; the results of her mammogram should be ready.

It should be law that every elected politician be required to take a dose of castor oil each morning and have an enema each evening. They would maybe realize how taxpayers feel.

Have a decent Thursday!

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Mid-week gleanings


To generate new tax revenue, American cities are turning more and more to annexing vacant property such as farmland. They receive a decent amount of money for the treasury without having to provide much in services. When the land is "improved" with more housing such as a subdivision, they really prosper via the collected taxes. A family's home should not be a money cow for municipalities.

Sammy was here yesterday and Carolyn has gone to get him again today. It is awesome to watch him grow from an infant into a little boy.


L.R. "office" as I write this blog
I may be moving my "office" back to where it was; I think Chris is moving back to her apartment. I will miss her; she is as quiet as a mouse but I can easily realize why she wants to have her own place.

Dry eye and allergies are ruining my day; I've had to hit Ctrl + three times just to be able to hazily see what I am writing. I had planned to pen my thoughts about the search for the Higgs Boson or maybe my take on the theory of Alternate Universes. Oh yes; I do think about such things. In fact, I try, in my mind, to put myself in their shoes, so to speak. There isn't much in this universe that doesn't interest me to some degree. Well, Opera and Ballet are exceptions, however I once saw a topless ballet performance on television and I was quite inspired.

Have a grand ol' Wednesday!

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

♥My Valentine♥



Valentine’s music from my generation

Monday, February 13, 2012

Have you ...


Have you ever sneezed with a mouthful of milk and Raisin Bran cereal and couldn't cover your mouth in time? It'll take Carolyn an hour to clean up my mess.
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Have you seen the 1997 movie L.A. Confidential? Netflix is not streaming it but it is on DVD. Lots of good acting from lots of good actors. Good directing and story, too.
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Have you ever had dry eye?  Mine has been exceptional all weekend and on top of normal allergies and getting over a cold.
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Have you a good Worshday? I hope so.
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Saturday, February 11, 2012

Happiness

Happiness is a stuffed puppy ...

Lovin'


St. Valentine’s Day is near so here is some lovin’ soul from Stevie Wonder.
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Friday, February 10, 2012

Only Robinson Crusoe had everything done by Friday


Have a Great Weekend
Blog Naked
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Thursday, February 09, 2012

Homo Contineo in my mirror


Better think twice before “unfriending” someone from your Facebook page.
Facebook has become a way of life for many people; in fact it has become their entire life and religion. Folks get up each morning, rush to the PC and check their FB page before they even go to the bathroom. When they leave the PC, they have an iPad or iPhone or similar devices with them so they can stay “in touch” with their “friends” around the world. Quality time on the toilet has decayed from newspaper reading to become a time to see who is gossiping about whom.
Before we became humans and “civilized”, we swung around in trees all day long, eating, quarreling, having sex, and scratching our genitals. For millions of years we evolved to become the dominant species on Earth—homo sapiens—only to now begin evolving into a new species of enlightened ape-men. We are becoming homo contineo* (Latin: connected man). Maybe we are not evolving; perhaps we are devolving to the point where we need only to stay in our tree house all day while we virtually connect with millions of other tree dwellers, eating when we have pressing need to do so, quarreling with other apes we have never met face to face, virtual flirting, and scratching our itchy genitals because we cannot become disconnected long enough to bathe.
Well, we are what we are, and all we can do is pray to the gods of electrons that the electricity doesn’t go off even for a minute. Some people Facebook and some people, like myself, blog, and I am personally lost in the ether’s nether-world when I cannot connect. I too have become a homo contineo troglodyte; I am the connected, living machine.
*Have I coined a new phrase?
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Have a connected Thursday, my friends.
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Wednesday, February 08, 2012

Morning things

Spring colors
dddddddd   ;;;rrrrsss;;;;;;;plm nb
Sammy was on my lap and wanted to do the first entry for today’s blog. I think it says “good morning my blog friends”.
I have been trying to teach him to change his own diaper; at seven moths old, it should be a simple task for him but he is refusing to do it. I think he knows how but is being plain stubborn.
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I got up yesterday morning and my wi-fi did not work but I was fairly busy with tax stuff and did not mess with it, hoping the same gremlin who hacked it would miraculously repair it before today. However, I had to get up this morning and work on it; finally getting it back on the Droid but I have yet to attempt the laptop.
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I planned to make a photo of our first blooming daffodil this morning, but after getting the Pentax out of the drawer, I found its batteries were dead. It was the first time I’d attempted to use it since mid-November. Carolyn had to go to the store for bread and on to pick up Sammy, so she bought a pack of AA’s for me. I shot the above photo from my bathroom window; yep, I can still multitask.

God Bless Disco!
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Have a good Wednesday!

Tuesday, February 07, 2012

Knock-knock


I just realized something: I am the oldest living male in my family. Goes to show the longevity of my immediate ancestors is near the bottom of the national average. I have two aunts older than I, one on each side of the family. Actually, my inner self feels about forty-ish even though the calendar says I am 67. Knocking on heaven's door?  Not unless heaven consists of all the good memories I have stored away. I am forever opening dusty boxes of recollections in my mind's attic, a place where the light is sometimes poor and the memories are often dimmed by shades of time. I like my paradise.
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"Love, and then do what you will."
~ St Augustine as quoted by John Howard Griffin in Black Like Me
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Have a Tuesday!
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Monday, February 06, 2012

“But whenever Monday comes …”



The Super bowl was dull for the most part. Used to be you could expect one decently entertaining commercial during the big money event, but even ad agencies were far less than stellar in their promotions.
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Has anyone seen Mel Gibson’s movie Apocalypto? I put off watching the flick for many years because of Gibson’s highly publicized religious slurs. I watched it via Netflix streaming and found it to be a pretty good movie, well made and well acted. If you don’t care for graphic violence against animals and humans, you should probably refrain from seeing this film. This trailer is the least disturbing of the ones I found online.
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Sammy was here Saturday and again Sunday; he was fine and happy the first day but yesterday he was feeling badly. He will be back today.
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I have my first bad winter cold of the season. Phooey!
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Thanks to Tammy for the Woody Harrelson video; he is one of my favorite actors and is also cool as they come.
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Have a gallant Worshday!
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Friday, February 03, 2012

Grits and tits


There are a lot more birds at the feeders here than there were at the old place; probably not as many people have feeders out in this countryside. Or maybe the birds like to watch trains go by while dining. I haven’t seen so many chickadees and tits in one place.
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Carolyn has gone for her mammogram, or, as she calls it,  “to get my titties squeezed”. Must be very uncomfortable to have done; I’m glad men don’t have to get testicle-ograms.
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We have a new alarm clock; a peckerwood has been waking us for the past week at around 7:30am by drumming on the side of the house. If I was a homeowner, I would be perturbed by the potential damage that could be done by the love seeking critter, but as a renter, I find it amusing.
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U.S. unemployment rate is dropping; many desperate white folk are happy to get the minimum wage sweatshop jobs which they used to think were for Blacks and Mexicans. My country ’tis of thee …
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Have a helluva wicked weekend!
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Thursday, February 02, 2012

Thursday nonsense

There are apps for smartphone such as the iPhone and Androids which will read bar codes on products plus they will decipher the new QR codes like the one above. Install the app on the phone from the App Store and it will use your phone camera to read the codes. For bar codes, it will give you the product name, suggested retail price, and offer a link to search for local stores which carry the item, along with the price. The QR codes are read the same way and you can do a google search for sites that generate them. The above code should link to my Megashot profile. Yes, I know it is ugly but it is only one of the ways people are using to try to protect their photos from theft. Ladies can have vital measurements or their FB page address imprinted on a tee shirt in QR code; share the joy.
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I believe Egyptians have jumped from the frying pan and into the fire; it seems that the ongoing military rule is going to be worse in the long run than was President watsisname.
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I bet the U.S. Department of War is in a tizzy wondering which country to attack next. Egypt, Syria, Venezuela, North Korea, Pakistan, Ukraine, or an encore into Iraq; maybe do a world tour and attack all of them and get more bang for our tax buck. Watch out Hungary; we have an eye on you, too.
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Have a spellbinding Thursday!
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Wednesday, February 01, 2012

In Dreams ... I walk like a man


Carolyn picked up the Escape; it was taken to a professional carpet cleaner and they still left glass on the floor.
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Why do people bother going to the polls to vote when the choices they are presented with have zero credibility in their own party? Money talks and money listens.
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Tomorrow would have been my dad's 91st birthday. Friday would have been my uncle Roy's 91st birthday. If you read my stories, you will find Roy--or his persona--somewhere in most of them. When I was a small boy, Roy and his brother, uncle Fred were always around; my dad was working in Detroit and I didn't see him often. Roy and Fred became my substitute dads and mentors. Roy was street smart and wise in the ways of men and women; Fred was quietly an artist and a man of Nature. Roy taught me to play cards; Fred taught me the ways of bees and trees. Roy was an extrovert; Fred was an introvert. Those two good men, my mother, my grandmother, and in some ways my dad in later years, made me who and what I am today.
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Have a splendiferous Wednesday!
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Tuesday, January 31, 2012

"Joy to the fishes ..."

I had a video picked out but XP crashes nearly every time I try to play one. For entertainment, just hum a few bars of Joy To The World while blog surfing.
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Avatar! Finally I watched Avatar last evening. Tammy said that when she watched it she could not tell much difference in DVD and Blu-ray quality and I will agree; I have a TV designed for Blu-ray and I cannot see any major improvement. Of course, my TV is only a 40″ and maybe Blu-ray should be seen on a much bigger screen. Also, maybe the 3-D might make a difference, but most people say it degrades the quality on TVs. Anyway, I will be watching mostly DVDs as long as they are available which should be a long time to come. As for the Avatar movie itself, the special effects are the movie; the storyline isn’t great. Sigourney Weaver never ages. Only three out of five stars is my rating. Avatar 2 is due to be released in 2016.
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Have a Tuesday!
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Monday, January 30, 2012

“Monday, Monday; can’t trust that day”


Carolyn has gone to take Ashley to work and we will have Sammy with us today. He is sunshine.
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The weekend began very well and ended in disaster.
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Occupy Oakland is for the most part being peaceful and law-abiding; if the cops would act the same way there would be little violence in the protests. Being a presidential election year, this all should be interesting. Any Republican candidate will come out against Occupy and Obama is also owned by the one-percent therefore he won’t say much that will stem the flood of money coming into his reelection kitty. He will probably receive more corporate dollars than most Democrat hopefuls would; unless there is a major disaster to waylay him, he should easily beat anything the Right has produced so far to run against him.
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Have a good Worshday!
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Sunday, January 29, 2012

Sun Sunday

I caught a cup of sunshine but I spilled some on the floor.
Happy and sunny Sunday!

Saturday, January 28, 2012

Little Wing by SRV


Cop a buzz, do a little dance, make a lotta love ...
It’s Saturday Night!

Friday, January 27, 2012

Gathering at the river


Looks like I am going to have to upgrade my Windows OS from a 2002 edition of WinXP Home up to Win7 Professional. XP is giving me a lot of problems but before I shell out $139 for the OEM I am going to attempt to allow CCleaner to unclutter the Registry. I’ve used registry cleaner-outers before and always ended up with an unbootable or unstable PC on which I had to reinstall the OS. I have to use Win7 Pro because I have one program that will not run on Win7 Home edition and I have to have it; it is the accounting program for Carolyn’s business stuff. Win7 Pro has a built in XP “virtual machine’ which allows my 2005 copy of Quickbooks (QB) to work. Win7 Home—if I could use it—costs $89. Microsoft knows how to make money. Of course, I could buy an upgrade of QB to the latest edition but it has a price tag of $159. I would then reinstall XP and hope for the best. Intuit, the makers of QB, also know how to make money. Linux doesn’t have a decent single-entry accounting software package; if it did, I would never use Windows again. If I go missing for a few days pretty soon; you will know I an cussing my way through a Windows and needed software install or reinstall. I have Linux on my Droid and on my laptop which will allow me to access the net when I need a fix of compassion from you, my friends.

I am still working on taxes and will try to keep XP limping along until April 15.

Has anyone seen the movie Avatar? I got a Blu-ray copy just to see how good a picture the player and TV have with that format. I’ve never viewed a Blu-ray movie before but I have read that the improvement in video quality over a DVD is remarkable; we shall see.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Thursday recess


From Hávamál–Old Icelandic poem
Cattle die, kinsmen die,
And each man too shall die.
I know one thing that never dies,
A dead man’s reputation.
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Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Wednesday's breaking wind


Crap like this has allegedly happened three times this winter in and around Johnson City. What the hell are these parents thinking?!
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We are expecting Jeremy and Courtney to be here this weekend; have a safe trip home to East Tennessee, young’uns.
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There is only one reasonable reason wealthy Americans place a lot of money in offshore banks like Republican nominee candidate Mitt Romney has in the Cayman Islands; he must be hiding a lot of it. I don’t trust American banks either, but I would surely use them unless I was hiding my loot from someone or something … something like the IRS. Mr. Romney, you have no idea whatsoever as to what it means to be an everyday, working, middle class American. Have you ever been not wealthy or were you, like Ann Richards said of G. H. Bush, born with a silver foot in your mouth?
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Have a pleasant Wednesday!
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Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Tuesday morning


This winter has me totally confused. Yesterday and this morning the yard was full of robins, both male and female. Carolyn says she has occasionally seen a flock in the yard  ever since winter began. Migrating robins usually do not get here until mid-February (early February last year) and the males are always here for a few weeks before the females begin to arrive. My theory is that a mixed-gender flock has wintered in the area but I have never known it to happen before. If so, it sure is going to crap up the old “I just saw the first robin of spring” ritualistic saying. Weatherman says we may have a bit of snow this weekend coming.
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I didn’t think Sammy was going to be with us today, but Carolyn has gone to pick him up. Things are changing more rapidly in my life than my simple hillbilly mind can keep up with.
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Be sure to check out and “Like” Mark’s Fading America Facebook page.  He has been and will be posting photos from his travels around the country, each a story of the way America was just a few years ago.
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The body shop called and said the Escape is ready. They pulled the bottom part of the air ducting out and cleaned it. Maybe the insurance company held the body shop to its estimate and refused to pay more to clean the entire A/C system. This all leaves me with a bad feeling; what if one of us is later on hit in the eye and blinded by a shrapnel of flying glass?
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Have a Tuesday!
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Monday, January 23, 2012

Monday + Rain = Monday


Another rainy Monday, however the temps are mild and should reach near 60°F (15.5°C) this afternoon. I don’t recall a January being this mild, but then, I try not to remember any January.
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Spastic; my word of the day is “spastic”. Spastic is a word my friend used often, but not enough to wear it out. He used the word to comically describe someone who was acting more out of control than was usual for our circle of friends. We were all spastic at times and he never failed to include himself when needed. I used to go spastic when I caught him cheating in a card game but I soon got over it; dealing from the bottom of the deck was the same as breathing or eating to him. At times, innocuous spasticity was rampant at our Friday night poker games. It was nickel-dime-quarter stuff therefore no one got too mad when my friend was the usual weekly winner. It was best not to play deuces wild when he was at the table; he seemed to be able to conjure deuces from the nether regions. He had a nice little library in his house and among his books were several about poker strategies which included chapters on how to catch a cheat. I think he reverse-engineered a few chapters and used them against us. In the end, it was all good fun. He used a lot of good words; he was very intelligent. Somehow, spastic is one of his words that stuck with me over the years and I don’t think I’ve heard it since he left us in 1980; I would surely love to hear him say it again. Spastic.
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Sammy was with us all day Friday and again Saturday; he is with us again today and is in the process of refusing to eat his baby cereal. Can’t say as I blame him.
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I am dedicating the video Southern Man to those who claim the New South as home yet would have us return to days of Jim Crow and total segregation of the races.
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Hey! The sun just popped out! Have a good Worshday, my friends.
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Sunday, January 22, 2012


Splitting sinus headache today; I thought I could do some taxes while Carolyn is at work and Sammy isn’t here to hog my attention. I’ll have to wait until my forehead quits throbbing.
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Cortez The Killer song was at one time banned in Spain; maybe still is. Mr. Young is a great song writer as well as a superb performer. I like him best when he is with his band Crazy Horse as he is in this video. Yes, I know; the audio is atrocious here.
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The body shop manager called and said they had all the repair work done to the Escape except that when the AC/Heat blower is turned on small missiles of glass come flying out of the vents. He said he would contact the insurance adjuster and see what he wants to do about it. The repairs done so far, including a new windshield, have been a bit less than $2000; not bad really. I wonder why the body shop didn’t take shattered glass into consideration from the get-go? The first place the glass would have fallen is into the inside windshield defroster vents and into the outside cowl air intake (and Carolyn’s face and hair). I expect the insurance company is going to be pretty pissed about that much extra work; removing the entire dash and sucking out all the glass fragments and then having to clean up the inside of the vehicle again. I hope they don’t give up and consider the car to be worth less money than what it takes to fix it.
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Have a good Sunday afternoon and evening.

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Spring???


Sammy was here until 11:00 last night; we had a good time playing and watching cartoons. He is back today and came in wearing his bib overalls and a red shirt; much like some of the old farmers I wrote about a few days ago.
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We had thunderstorms last night and today is nearly continuous rain. Thursday I saw a fat, male robin in the yard and he acted like he may stay for awhile. I also saw a pair of rufus-sided towhees this week and a mockingbird has set up his territory around the suet feeder; he is constantly on guard against any suet thieves; the smaller birds are upset but the big peckerwoods pay him no mind.
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I am sleeping better every night since I stopped taking the Ambien.
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Have a great Saturday and weekend!
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Put your right foot in
Take your right foot out
Put your right foot in
Then you shake it all about
And then you do the hokey pokey
Turn yourself around
That’s what it’s all about

Friday, January 20, 2012

Etta

 
Etta James
January 25, 1938 – January 20, 2012

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Negative Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Three hours sleep last night so no blog today. Dammit!

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Bloodhound chew

Farmers may seem like and independent lot, and in many ways they are because there is no other industry to remotely compare to large-scale food production. Even the small family farms which used to dot the rural landscape and were the backbone of America until Ronald Reagan put them out of business in the 1980′s were extremely self-reliant. One thing nearly all of them had in common though was the uniform trousers they wore. You could just about bet that any owner of a small farm would pull on a pair of bib overalls as soon as his feet touched the floor when he got out of bed in the wee morning hours. He might place one of several various types of shoes or boots on his feet, and the type of shirt he wore changed with the seasons, but it was usually long sleeved and made of soft, absorbent cotton. On his head would go a comfortable, disreputable looking, sweat stained, manure spotted, old Stetson hat, or its equivalent. This basic attire was worn by those men born before World War Two; later generations wore Levis, sneakers, tee shirts, and baseball caps. But even they had at lest one thing in common with the old-timers; chewing tobacco. As I remember, chewing tobacco came in three basic types: loose leaf, packaged in a foil lined pouch; twist, usually wrapped in cellophane; plug, also wrapped in cellophane.
I was never a tobacco using person outside of hateful cigarettes, but like most country boys, I did try various things the adults used. I learned early on that any kind of tobacco I put in my mouth which generated a plethora of juice and that no matter how much spitting I did, there was always some of the vile liquid would trickle down my throat. The first response was gagging and then as my skin rapidly changed colors like a chameleon in a crayon factory–white, red, blue, green, and back to bloodless white–I started dry-heaving just as a drunk does after a big night out with the boys when he confronts a fried breakfast egg leering back at him. I always wound up laying on my belly  and hoping how soon I would die. Fortunately, the effects quickly wore off and mostly all that was left of the honor was a bad memory which was soon forgotten, and the guffaws of any of my friends who were around to witness my misery. For some reason, most of them never got sick from wayaward tobacco juice.
There were two basic types of plug users; one was the gentleman chawer and the other was the regular, uncouth chawer. It was never “do you want a chew?” but always “d’yer want a chaw?” It was ‘chawing terbaccy’ and not ‘chewing tobacco’. The uncouth , regular Farmer Joe chawer might remove the wrapper from his plug of Bloodhound®, offer it around, gnaw off enough for a chaw, and drop it in one of his bib pockets until he was ready for another refreshment. He generally didn’t get a lot of takers on his second offer of sharing; plenty of tooth marks and general dirt from his pocket almost always insured he would have the rest of the plug to himself.
The gentleman chawer would begin the process by first taking his folding knife from one of his trouser pockets. A lot of story tellers did it this way and by the time the plug was ready to serve, he had drawn a crowd of store porch-sitters and they wound up either laughing at some funny anecdote he had told while opening the blade of the knife or sadly shaking their heads about something that had happened somewhere in the community or about the latest misdeeds of the government as he was retrieving the plug from a bib pocket. He would top off his tale by slowly and carefully peeling back the cellophane wrapper so as not to tear it and just as slowly cut himself a piece of the black tobacco and then passing it around as his latest revelation was discussed. When he got the plug back, it was usually with the cellophane wrapper carefully refolded on the plug and the knife blade refolded back into the handle. When I was hanging around the store, I kept an eye out for the story telling chawers; to this day I still draw information and inspiration from their stories and the gleam in their eyes as they related them. There is much more to my tobacco chewing stories, but I will wait until allergies and taxes aren’t preying on my goodwill.
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Have a fine Wednesday, every body!
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Monday, January 16, 2012

Thanking you ...

I just realized something… I began posting on Blogger on January 7th, 2006. I’ve been doing this longer than I thought. Alice was my first reader and Robin was my first commenter. Thank you everyone who has read my silliness and kindly encouraged, critiqued, and kept me going through six enlightening and wonderful years. For those of you who I have disappointed in some way with my words, please know that it was not done on purpose to hurt you or anyone. In the case of politicians and fat-cat preachers, I never intended to hurt you either for your own words and actions were all that I was repeating. For those of you who I have pleased with my words, maybe some of it was done on purpose because I like each one of you and many of you have become family to me, but most of  these thousands of sentences and paragraphs were merely me being myself. I like to tell stories and I like to be the brunt of any joke I spew over the net scape. The likes of Mark Twain, Will Rogers, and especially Walt Kelly have been my inspiration for many, many years.

I would like to say all your names in this posting and tell you how much you have meant to me as a friend and an individual, but like I said in the last post, my eyes no longer make many tears and I am afraid it would bankrupt me to buy all the bottled tears I would need to portray to you my honest, loving emotions about you.

Thank you, my gentle children.

“I have a Dream.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. His dream is yet to be fulfilled.
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I read a recent blog where a 50 year-old man was concerned about being old. Reminds me of the things I wrote about when I was the same age. But to write about being or becoming old, a person should have some experience and being 50 is not akin to being old. I suppose the guy was showing more angst than anything.
I am definitely getting old. There is now more hair growing from my ear canals than there is atop my head. My eyebrows look like two hungover wooly worms having a bad hair day. The bags under my eyes have become full fledged sacks. My eyes no longer make their own tears; I have some extra-virgin tears imported from Italy. Trimming nose hair is a twice-weekly annoyance. My chin was once fairly prominent; now it and all its folds gradually meld into my chest. My jowls flap and are difficult to shave. My ears and the corners of my mouth sag. I see a chocolate commercial on television and a tooth falls out. My chest hair is suddenly becoming all white. My little man-boobies are now larger than those of many women whom I lusted after in my youth. I can’t suck in my gut enough to see if I have any pubic hair left and I have to floss between the fat wrinkles on my belly. My scrotum is sagging to the size where I wanted it to be back when it was useful for something. About five years ago, my sex drive was spotted crossing the border into Tijuana, Mexico and hasn’t even bothered to send me a postcard. I have to wear Velcro strap shoes because I can’t bend past my belly to tie laces. I suppose I should rename my blog to “Loose Straps”. I need a new pair of sneakers but I have these which I have worn for eight years stretched to fit my bunions and hammer-toes. My separate crutches work under either arm and I cannot figure out whether they are bi-sexual or bi-polar. I sometimes have senior moments when I think I am a Conservative. I used to fret about which brand of condom was best but now it is worrying about brands of adult diapers that takes up half my day.
Well, at lest I am still here to write about it.
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Have a fantastic Worsh Day!
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Friday, January 13, 2012

13


Eye allergies again today so I will make it short.
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Snowed again last night.
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Have a great weekend.
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Thursday, January 12, 2012

"The survey says ..."

Sammy Bunny
The following conversation would have been funnier if I was telling it just after it happened which was mid-1980s. My friend Steve–Bro Hill–and I were sitting in my living room drinking beer and playing Atari; we were actually pretty bored. Later, I made a few notes about the happenings and from them I give you this telephone conversation. Be aware, it did not happen exactly like this and some of the conversation is slightly altered and I cannot remember all of it, but the fact is that it did happen.
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Ring-g-g-g-g!
“Hello?”
“Good evening sir; I am Lori and I am calling from Johnson City Specialty Hospital. We are taking a short survey of area residents to see how they use our hospital. Would you be interested in answering a few questions for us?”
Lori sounded like a very young woman. “Hi Lorie and I don’t mind at all; this is from the new maternity hospital, right?”
“Yes sir, I am happy you have heard of us. Could you tell me how you came to know about the hospital and its services?”
“I’ve heard the radio ads and read an article in the paper about it. It is located where the eye hospital used to be, I think.”
“You are correct, sir. We renovated the eye hospital and it now serves the community for other purposes. May I ask if your wife is present?”
“Sure you may but my wife isn’t here right now.”
Ok, sir, I will just ask you a few short questions if you don’t mind.”
“Sure.”
“You say you are married; is that correct.”
“No, I am not married.”
“But you just said your wife isn’t presently at home?”
“That is correct; he is not home right now but I expect him at any moment.”
Pause … “Your wife is a man?”
Me chuckle … “Yes, my wife is a man and his wife is a man; also, we both have husbands.”
In the background I could hear the young caller saying to someone else “you should hear this!” That meant I had an audience so it was time to put on my best show. Luckily, Bro Hill came in just before the conversation began and I winked at him and whispered to him to be ready. I heard several clicks on the line as other people where Lori worked began eavesdropping on our conservation and at the same time Bro Hill was listening on my extension phone.
“I better explain, Lori. Steve is my wife and I am Steve’s wife; he is also my husband and I am his husband and that is the way we live.” I heard a half-squelched snort and a few giggles come across the line; the snort was Steve’s as he was about to break up laughing. I quickly shushed him.
Lori said “Oh- h-h … I think I see.” I could tell she was still trying to put it all together.
I said “Hold on just a minute, Lori; I hear my wife coming in right now.” Half covering the transmitter with my hand, I said, “Stevie, honey, there’s a young lady on the line taking a survey; would you be kind enough to say hello to her … her name is Lori?”
Says Steve “I sure will , Sweetheart”; he clicked the phone as if he was just picking it up. In his most demure effeminate voice he said, “Hello dear Lori; this is Stevie, Kenny’s partner and lover; we are happy you could call us this evening.”
Lori said, “Um … ah … hello Stevie … it is nice to meet you.”
“The pleasure is all mine, darling,” crooned Bro Hill. “is there anything I can do for you?”
“Ummm, maybe I should ask you the survey questions?”
“Well, either one of us is as well equipped to answer them as is the other, but you began with Kenny and I will let you have him back; please forgive me but I must undress and take a shower. I just came in from work and am not very dainty at the moment. Kiss-kiss, Lori.”
I said to Bro Hill, making sure Lori and friends could hear me, “Stevie honey, give mama a big kiss before you go to the shower.” Steve placed a loud, wet smooch on the back of his hand. More giggles from her end of the line. Steve had to leave the room to laugh.
“I’m back Lori; forgive Stevie for running but he has a thing about his hygiene. Do you have anymore questions for me?”
“Just a few” she said. “If you ever need the services of a specialty hospital, would you consider Johnson City Specialty Hospital?” By now Lori was flustered trying not to laugh every time she said a word.
“Well, I keep telling Stevie we should have a baby and we keep trying, but so far we haven’t been blessed. I sure would be glad to use your hospital; wouldn’t it be so wonderful if he and I both got pregnant at the same time? I bet that would be a “first” for the hospital!” The echoing giggles from across the phone lines broke into outright guffaws and I was wondering how soon someone was going to catch on that they were being shucked.
Lori was now laughing outright; she said “I’m going to finish this survey if it kills me!”
“Just go ahead and ask your questions, honey; I’ll make sure we aren’t interrupted on this end.” I let her hear me slam a door shut.
“It looks like it will be difficult for Stevie or I to ever make use of your hospital, but I tell you what Lori honey, if you will come over to my house sometime when Stevie is at work, I will try to fix you up to where you can use it. I bet you will even get a discount because you work there. You do work there, don’t you?”
“Oh, my god!,” she said. The uncontrolled laughing was coming from her and her entire crew. “Yes, I work here; I am a nurse in training. I will have to take a rain check on your offer and my supervisor who has been listening in says to tell you we all appreciate the entertainment but to please use someone else’s hospital if you get pregnant. Goodbye, sir.” She was still laughing.
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Have a good pre-Friday 13th, y’all!
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Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Rainy Days


Rain again; looks and feels much like an early spring day but I know Mom Nature is just feeling playful. The temp. is 50°F (10°C) but another cold front is on the way. Good news is that we are gaining more than a minute of daylight each day.
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Carolyn has gone to take Ashley to work and Sammy will be here to spend most of the day. :-)
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The Escape is at an auto-body shop; Carolyn drove by and gave it a quick once over. She said the deer left a deep dent from its hoof just at the outside mirror; a few inches higher and it would have been through the side window and could have done her much damage. I still don’t think she realizes just how bad it could have been for her.
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I love the song Rainy Days and Mondays by the Carpenters. With the exception of Patsy Cline’s unparalleled presentations, I think Karen Carpenter had the most beautiful singing voice I’ve heard. Both of these ladies died at the height of their careers.
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Have a brolly-free Wednesday, dear friends.
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Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Monday reflections

Keegan has left Korea and returned to Japan; we’re hoping he can get a come-home pass and visit us.
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Jeremy and family are planning to come visit before the end of this month. Looking forward to some time with them.
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We are in the process of rearranging the furniture so we can have an extra room for guests. Chris will be coming back to stay with us for awhile and maybe Mark will mosey across the hill one of these days. I will be giving up my office and returning it to a bed room like it is supposed to be; my office will share the living room and will be downsized a lot. I have too much junk anyway.
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Yesterday morning, Carolyn fixed each of us a bowl of sweetened rice. She carried mine to the office and as she reached to set it down in front to me, she lost her grip on the bowl and the hot, overly-sweetened grain with extra-hot liquid spilled; half in my lap, half and my keyboard and half on my Droid phone-cum-book reader. I naturally grabbed the Droid and began wiping it while all the good stuff in my straddle finished cooking my noodle. I dumped the keyboard as quickly as possible and only then got the scalding food off my legs and out of my crotch. A 67 year-old man has different priorities than does a 60 year-old man. We both tend to save the things which will be used the most in the order of importance: Droid; keyboard; gonads in my case. Together, we got the electronics back in working—yet sticky—order. Fast cleaning work on the phone saved it; the old Logitech keyboard keeps doing its thing without a sign of a sticky key but there are still a few rice grains deep inside I need to fish out. I was having a pretty rough RA flareup, but I was able to help Carolyn a bit with cleaning the mess. She never once offered to clean me. I will have to live with my sticky butt until Saturday when I will take my weekly shower; when you are old you don’t break any routines unless absolutely necessary. Wednesday is “change underwear” day; I am looking forward to it. When I change underwear in midweek, it isn’t always fresh, clean stuff I change into; I dig through the pile of dirty of clothes until I find some that look and smell less foul than the ones I have on. However, Saturday always finds me with a clean and fresh springtime smell down below.
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I seem to have begun my recovery from the sinus infection; it feels to be about 50 percent of original. I think this is the worst I’ve ever had it and there is still a lot of drainage.
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A right pretty day in the hills, but rain is supposed to return this evening and then turn cold.
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Have  a Tuesday!
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Monday, January 09, 2012

Another rainy Worshday

Lots of rain! Fog! Monday!
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This day had gone to hell in a hand basket by noon; hope the rest of it settles down to normal, barely bearable Monday.
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Hope Mark got through his leg surgery ok.
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Have a decent Worshday, my friends.
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Sunday, January 08, 2012

Boston



Mark’s blog video of Boston got me into a Boston frame of mind.
When the band came out with their signature album in the mid-70′s, some critics called them the East Coast Eagles on steroids. They certainly did bring a new electricity to the guitar playing and they had a superb vocalist, too. Although the band was continuously wracked with personal and business problems, they managed to create three excellent albums before New Wave, MTV, and hair bands replaced traditional rock ‘n’ roll music with all new genres by the mid-80′s. I have more than a feeling that Boston’s place as an innovative and top band in musical history is secure. Great album art, too.

Saturday, January 07, 2012

Don't Look Back

Weekend update


Been feeling better most of day but now my headache is back; so far no nausea.
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Carolyn just found out that she will lose another building in mid-March; in fact she will probably lose two buildings then. By losing the first one, she will have to raise the price on the second one and I don’t think they will pay it. She has been working for the same money since 2007 and it will not be profitable without the other job to share the gas expenses.
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The video of Sammy yesterday is the first time he has laughed; he laughed himself sick and then wore himself out laughing at everything.
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Carolyn has gone out to eat and I am sitting home having an apple, but as apples go, it is a pretty good one.
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For the past few days while laid-up, I’ve been reading an interesting and entertaining book by Patrick deWitt titled The Sister Brothers. If you are into Old West adventures, this one might be for you; for one thing, it certainly is different in about every aspect than any Wild West novel or story I have ever encountered. Please read the linked review for a good synopsis.
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Have a good Sunday, Y’all!
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Friday, January 06, 2012

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