Mini Road Trip.......

Heading out on The BigBluePlasticMotorcycle for points North. Going to see Bryan Lee play the Blues at some Gin Joint tonight.

The weather looks to be perfect for a ride and all is well in GrumpyUnks world this morning.

Be back tomorrow night. See ya then.

Gratuitous Picture for a Wednesday Morning-


I know you're not supposed to pick up Hitch Hikers but............

OK, Now the Question is- Incompetence or Deliberate?

Priorities!!!

The Video below only shows part of the problem with the delays in the Gulf Cleanup.

It's Way Worse than just dicking around and ignorance.

Of course, Teleprompter Jesus thinks delays in containing the oil are ok if it ensures that the Unions are getting their cut of the action.

"The Americans, overwhelmed by the catastrophic consequences of the BP spill, finally relented and took the Dutch up on their offer -- but only partly. Because the U.S. didn't want Dutch ships working the Gulf, the U.S. airlifted the Dutch equipment to the Gulf and then retrofitted it to U.S. vessels. And rather than have experienced Dutch crews immediately operate the oil-skimming equipment, to appease labour unions the U.S. postponed the clean-up operation to allow U.S. crews to be trained."

Same thing with the berms that Governor Jindal was asking for within the first 10 days.

"A catastrophe that could have been averted is now playing out. With oil increasingly reaching the Gulf coast, the emergency construction of sand berns to minimize the damage is imperative. Again, the U.S. government priority is on U.S. jobs, with the Dutch asked to train American workers rather than to build the berms."

Read the entire article. The absurd EPA rules, rules which could be temporarily rescinded during this emergency, are to blame, too.

I guess it's more important to keep some union guys working than to try to keep the coast from being destroyed.
That's what you get when you have a bunch of Community Organizers running things.

A pox on all of these fuck ups.

Hat tip again to Ace

Whoa!!!!
Just saw this video over at Ace of Spades Seriously harshing on President Teleprompter.

Oil Spill Timeline from RightChange on Vimeo.

Gratuitous Picture for a Tuesday Evening-

Monday Motorcycle Report..........

Today turned out to be a good day to take "TheBigBluePlasticMotorcycle" out for a ride.

It's cooled down here quite a bit today. Temps in the mid to high 80's and a pretty solid cloud cover made it comfortable out there.

So off we went.
I'm back into looking for an old tractor for around here again so I went off to points South and East to scope out a couple that were advertised on Craigslist.

Wasn't really impressed to much by the couple I looked at. Ran across a couple of others by chance that may be ok.
Gonna have to be cheap though to match my resources.

We'll see. I can still bide my time and save money for now. Something will show up.

I looked at a couple that would be perfect, but they were just out of my price range. Probably worth what they were asking for them but just more than I have right now.
Oh well.That's how it goes.

I had a great day out on the bike anyway and that's gotta be worth something!

I will be going North on Wednesday morning to Angola, Indiana to see Bryan Lee play the Blues at some Bar up that-a- way. Should be a good time.
Got nobody to go along with me so far, but that's ok too. I do pretty well on my own. Especially on road trips.

Gratuitous Picture for a Monday Evening-
Remember this

Mexican Clown Car............
This is like something out of the circus.

Watch what bails from this van full of illegals after it gets into an accident.



I lost count at about 22.
Still think you ought to boycott Arizona?



It's like there was a plan or something.

Gratuitous Picture for a Saturday Evening-



Hat Tip - Theo Spark

Jeff Beck, Indy, 6-21-10.........
Went to see Jeff Beck the other night up in Indy. My good friend and motorcycle buddy, DrJ secured tickets awhile back told me in no uncertain terms that, "I WAS going".

It wasn't like it's a problem or anything to go see Jeff Beck. It was something that I hadn't ever done in the past.

Holy shit. I KNEW he was a great guitarist.
I didn't know just how great he was.

He may have the best technique of ANY guitar player I have ever seen.
I don't say that lightly. Other than Jimi Hendrix, I've seen just about all of the great guitarists out there in the last 35 years or so.

I've never seen anyone do what he does. He is just unbelievable.

The band members with him, Bass, Drums and Keyboards were all exceptional in their own right and everyone got a chance to stretch a bit and showcase their talents.
Lots of spontaneous interplay between them all and a lot of smiles while doing it.

I'd smile too, if I could make music like that.

I really should emphasize just how good the band was. You can read a bit about them at the link.
It's not often that you see a band where EVERYONE is so damn good.

There was a bit of a glitch though. DrJ wasn't able to go so I took the youngest son, DogBoy. I'm very glad he got to see that show. DogBoy plays drums and I'm pretty sure that seeing Narada Michael Walden pound the living shit out of the drums was a good motivator for him to practice. Read his bio, he's got a lot of other things going for him than just being an ass-kick drummer.

Very diverse song selection too. I damn near cried by the time he finished this song.


Check out how he manipulates the Whammy Bar and the volume knob while playing this. Also note about 1:15 into this, how he hits those harmonics, way up at the top of the neck. I didn't even know there were harmonics up there. He did this routinely in other songs just running through solos.
Crazy. Never saw anything like it.

Here's a Beatles cover they did-


Just an all around good show. If you get a chance to see him? Don't miss it.

Gratuitous Picture for a Saturday Evening-

Stinkeye............

Or Pinkeye. Call it what you want, I got it and it sucks. Can't work because of it and I'm not real happy about that.

Not sure where I picked this shit up, as I have been away from the ER for the last 5 days. I already have drops as I get this crap from some little snot nosed, crumb-snatcher about every year so I should be good tomorrow. Hopefully.

I'd rather be at work today though. It's currently 90 degrees in the shade w/ humidity at 75-80%.
To hot for me in that sun.

Yes, I'd rather be at work if I can't even enjoy an unscheduled day off.
Even riding the BigBluePlasticMotorcycle is pretty uncomfortable on a day like this.

Bah. YerUnk will have to find something to do in the garage. It's in the shade and I have a fan out there at least.

I'm not used to sitting around inside all day. Already did laundry, dishes, cleaned up the kitchen and floors. Sure as hell ain't dusting too. Gotta leave something for the wife to do when she returns from her sisters tomorrow.

Screw it. I may go ride the bike anyway.

Update! In the comments, Mayberry, who lives way the hell down on the Gulf Coast of Texas, mentioned that the heat index around his way was 105.
I checked the local conditions here and the index is 110! That's just friggin' nuts. He's an easy 1000 miles South of here. It's supposed to be hot and humid where he lives. It's NOT supposed to be hotter in Indiana than it is in Corpus Christi!

That's just wrong.

Gratuitous Picture for a Saturday-

Friday Morning and I have a Hot Date........
With the lawn mower.

Spent the better part of the morning yesterday replacing the drive belt on the thing. It ate it but after 3-4 years of hard service I have no complaint.

Had a hell of a time getting the new one on and I still can't figure out why. It had flipped the belt off once in the past and it was really quite easy to get back on. Don't know what I was doing wrong but all of a sudden - Bingo! It went right back on, easy as pie.

Whatever it was it's fixed now and I will likely spend the better part of the day trying to knock down the growth around here.

Hot humid weather makes everything grow well.

I don't mind cutting grass, but I do mind the time and expense it involves.
Much rather have the entire place fenced and cross fenced and have some livestock-critters keeping the growth down for me.

And then I could eat 'em later.
I dream of proper fencing at night.

Gratuitous Picture for a Friday Morning-
SMILE!!!

Did You Hear the One About the Democrat Senator Who Conspired with the Soviets???????????????????

No? Not real surprising I suppose.
Well it's not like I haven't mentioned it before or anything.

Here's a nice little article from the American Spectator about Teddy Kennedy and his collaboration with the God Damned Commie Bastards in Russia.

If that fat Sonofabitch had a last name of Smith or Jones he'd have ended up in Leavenworth. But Hell No, he was a friggin' Kennedy and he rode a long ways on his dead brothers legacies.

I'm not a fan of either Bobby or Jack, but I have to give props to them for their choice in who to be unfaithful to their wives with.
Seriously, if you're gonna screw around on your wife? Go top shelf at least.


Some guys just didn't understand that, "Top Shelf" concept.






Yeah, Marilyn Monroe for JFK............








Bubba? What a letdown.
Still makes me laugh.

We are Fixed and Running Again........

Last weeks lightning strike fried the router, a cable or 2 and the wife's TV.
Not to bad just an inconvenience.

The neighbor got it way worse and almost had her house catch fire. She lost damn near everything that was hooked up or plugged in to a wall socket. AC, Furnace, hot water heater, etc.
Blew out a ceiling fan that started smoking on her, too.
Could have been real bad for her.

Hope she's got good insurance.

The weather continues to be more Tropical in nature than Midwest with temps in the 90's and a shitload of humidity.

Good for the garden. Some of the corn got knocked down by the high winds and hail last week, but seems to be recovering ok.
The weeds are also growing like.......like weeds and I'm gonna have to get after that sometime soon before it becomes a problem.
The heavy mulch I put down has helped a bunch with that, but a couple of areas that are thin or not mulched at all are getting overgrown with Crabgrass or some shit.

We'll get it. It's all good.

More later.
Gratuitous Picture for a Tuesday Morning-
This is how it works. Click to embigginate.

Lightning Strike.......

Took out the internet. See ya when it's fixed.

Midweek and the Rain Continues.......

We've been getting thunderstorms every day now for a week. Sure making things grow. Garden, weeds and the lawn are all growing like crazy.
When it's not raining the temps have continued to be hot, hot, hot.

Still don't think I could make it down in Dixie. Whew!

Got an extra day of work today and a day of classes tomorrow. May as well go make some money 'cause I sure ain't getting much done outside around here.

But it's all good.
I'll see ya in a couple of days.

Gratuitous Picture for a Wednesday Morning-

She's all heart.

Like You and Me. Only Not So Much..........

Except most of us could expect an ass kicking for something like this.
From today's Gun Rights Examiner.

Watch this shit.


This is one of our Congressmen. You know, the group that makes laws, sets budgets and all of that shit......... For the whole friggin' country.

I'm pretty sure I would not have reacted like this Kid did. I'd have punched that old Bastard in the throat as soon as he grabbed a hold of me.
But that Kid did the right thing by not kicking his ass, no matter how much he needed it for behaving like that.

We all know who would have come out on the losing end of that.
"The Honorable Congressman, Bob Etheridge of North Carolina"?
Not likely.
That Kid would be in jail still.

I'd say that the congressman's peers should run his ass out of a job, but that ain't likely either.
Hopefully the Kid will press charges at least.

Just another example of why people have no faith in Washington and the shitheads who work there.

Addendum Here- Maybe the worst thing about this whole video are the comments at YouTube. Sickening.

Gratuitous Picture for a Monday-

Nice Honda RC30 Video...........

Just saw this over at Gymi's place - Derelict Dirtbikes and liked it so much I'm putting it here.



Those were such pretty bikes.
Here's a nice 1987 version-



Just so nice.

There's Dirty and Then There's DIRTY.......

I'm not sure just why this guy ran 15,000 rounds a Wolf ammo through his rifle without cleaning it........... But it makes for some Awsome Photos!

You'll just have to go check it out.
Makes even my craptacular upkeep skills look positively Jedi Master like.

Gratuitous Picture for a Friday Morning-


"Hey. How You Doing?"

Gobar Gas.........

Interesting article from Michael Yon on- Gobar Gas. (link fixed now. Thanks Surly.)
No, I didn't know what the hell Gobar Gas was either till I started reading the article. You may know it by other names as I did from reading, Mother Earth News back before they became a glossy Fop of a magazine. Oh well, that's another topic and I digress.

Yon is an incredible journalist and an amazing guy. I should be linking him here as a reminder to read his dispatches. I have supported him with a bit of cash a time or 2 and ought to do that again also.

Anyway, go read the article and enjoy his fine photography too.

I got to thinking about this simple technology and applications here in the USA. If the Morons in Washington succeed in passing the "Cap and Trade" bill, energy costs are going to go through the roof. I was thinking of all the confinement and feedlot farms around here that would have a ready supply of fuel for a small Biomass unit and could convert all that shit into energy. There's a hell of a lot of things that could be powered by Methane. Vehicles, tractors, generators for making your own electricity..... you get the idea.

None of this is new idea on my part, as I said, I remember reading about this way back when. But if energy costs get to expensive we may see a resurgence in tech talk like this.

I don't see people here in the States adopting the type of units, Yon writes about in his article. At least not yet.

We Americans, for the most part aren't quite ready for the Humanure and Loveable Loo solutions quite yet either.

Joe Jenkins, the Humanure Guru is an interesting guy. Go check out his videos.

Who knows? As things change here in this country, attitudes and customary solutions are probably gonna have to change too.

Be a hell of a wake-up call for most of us.

Gratuitous Picture for a Thursday Morning-

Rainy Morning............

Which is good. Everything outside was in need of a drink.
Can't tell if it's gonna clear up or rain some more. Doesn't really matter to much one way or the other.
I think I'm gonna start cleaning up and organizing the garage, AKA- The Den of Chaos, either way.

I need to get some drywall up in there someday. Drywall is cheap and it would sure help lighten things up.

"Who will help me hang the drywall?" Said the little red hen. That's kind of a problem. Hanging sheets on the ceiling CAN be done by yourself if you make a few cheater tools and everything goes right............. Naw. Ain't happening. I've done it in the past and it's better to just get another set of hands.

I think I'm gonna organize and move things toward one side or the other to open up an area where we could start the sheet rock at.
Maybe I can commandeer one of the kids to lend a hand then.
That seems to be as good a plan as any right now.

Gratuitous Picture for a Wednesday Morning-

Garden is Coming Along.........

Spent the first half of the day putting the last 20 Asparagus roots out and mulching the shit out of the whole Asparagus patch.

The farmer just down the road sells straw and tosses all of the bales that are dirty, damaged or have a broken string on them. I needed some straw for chicken house bedding and bought a couple bales from him and, just like last year he gave me about 10 freebie ones & that's what I mulched in the Asparagus with.
(Click pics to embigginate then.)

Look at that happy little bugger. I've put out about 50 new plants this year and transplanted about 10 old ones into the new area.




That's approximately a 25'x30' area there.

We'll be swimming in the stuff in a few years.

Plan ahead with Asparagus as it takes a few years to get established before you can harvest it.

Here's some of last weeks mulched in stuff.

Peppers and Maters.




For the most part, things are looking pretty good out there at this point.

Oh, almost forgot. This will give you an idea of why I use so much mulch and also what happens when you DON'T keep ahead of the weeds.


That's what the entire Asparagus patch looked like last week and I had to hand weed all of that shit out of there.

There was no way I was gonna spend 2-3 days out there this week doing that again.
I nuked the entire new Strawberry patch with RoundUp earlier today.
Screw that. Ain't happening.
I'll till in the whole mess in a week or 2 and transplant some more in there and mulch the hell out of them like I did the Asparagus.
They'll still have all Summer to set runners and I can just pull the straw away and let them root themselves. It's a little disappointing to have to transplant that area over again, but it's also a hell of a lot less work and frustration, too.

I'm voting for less work and frustration. It's not like I don't have enough of that already.

Raspberries are starting to come on now.

These aren't the most prolific berries but they are just so darn good and they'll continue to bear till September and that makes up for it I guess.

We're gonna be flooded with Blackberries in another 3-4 weeks.



I'm probably gonna have to go back to the Straw Man and scrounge some more of that damaged straw next week. I'll have to have the wife make him a pie or something.

Gratuitous Picture for a Tuesday Evening-

Think they may want to extend that runway a bit, eh?

Well, Blogger is Back in Service Now I See...........

Wasn't able to access it last night or this morning. I'll make this quick anyway just in case it decides to get hinky again.

Good morning here in Southern Indiana. Maybe the nicest morning this year. Clear and cool with a few clouds. That humidity that was kicking my ass for the last few weeks was off somewhere else and I have to say I was quite pleased for the change.

I got a bit a work done this morning and took off on the BigBluePlasticMotorcycle this afternoon for awhile.

Good call. Went and visited a couple of friends, Michael and his lovely wife Patty.

Good folks and they live just far enough away that it makes a splendid motorcycle ride through the hills to get there but not so far that you can't spontaneously just go for it. Perfect.
Always lots of good conversation and I always leave there with a head full of things to think about and a smile.
Can't ask for much more.

The Ride was therapeutic. Southern Indiana is a beautiful place. Fortunately, most of the world doesn't realize that and I probably shouldn't advertise it. It's probably better that it's considered, Flyover Country by so many folks I really don't want as neighbors anyway.

A good day indeed and my mind and body needed the break.

Gratuitous Picture for a Monday Night-


I saw a lot of wildlife today but none of these.

June 6, 1944........

The Invasion of Normandy and the beginning of the Liberation of Europe.

As a kid 45-50 years ago, I knew of a lot of men who had been a part of the Invasion and follow on battles across Europe.

Not to many of them left and getting fewer everyday I suppose.


US Troops heading into the beach.


I think these are New Zealand Troops here.




Lots and lots of young men gave it up on those beaches that morning.

Gotta run. Work day for me.

Friday Night and All is Not Well......

But I ain't gonna bitch about it.

I had a long, whiny ass post going, lamenting all of the shitty, frustrating stuff going on lately but I decided to shitcan the whole thing and start over.

Yes, I have some physical things that are making life harder for me lately.
No, it ain't likely to get any better.

It can always be worse.

You'd think that after being in emergency medicine for as long as I have that I wouldn't have to remind myself of that simple fact.

Sometimes I am, to quote Bugs Bunny, "A Maroon".

I had a meeting at work this afternoon & was smart enough to ride the BigBluePlasticMotorcycle.
Good call. It was hot as hell out but it still took me almost 3 hours to make it home.

That just may be the missing ingredient for fixing my shitty mood.
I probably need to just say, "Screw it. That shit'll get done eventually" and just ride that motorcycle more.

Yep. Now that I think of it, I almost sure it'll help. So that's that.

Thank you for allowing me to share this moment of therapy with you.
I feel better.

Gratuitous Picture for a Friday Night-
This would help, too.

I Find the Darnedest Things in My Garage........

My garage is currently the definition of chaos. Huge mess and really needs to be cleaned and organized.
My wife and I were sitting out there a couple of days ago and she heard this odd noise coming from the general direction of a shelf holding oil, lube and assorted BS.

Look what we found.


I have no idea how this baby Hummer got herself caught down among the cans and bottles of grease and spray lube.
She was pretty stressed so we took here inside to cool off a bit and brought in the Hummingbird feeder too. I gave her a few sips of feed and in a few minutes she perked up.
We took her back outside and off she flew. Saw her hitting the feeder a few minutes later and that was it.
Pretty cool little birds.

Gratuitous Picture for a Thursday Afternoon-
Hauling ass with the artillery.

New Commie Cannon for the Homestead.......

After firing a friends PSL a few weeks back I had to have one. Picked it up earlier today.

That'll keep the Nazi Hordes away from the Rodina.

I'm gonna have to figure out all the ins & outs of cleaning and assembly over the next few days and then try to make sense of the scope.

It would help if I were able to read the Romanian on the dials. Hey, we'll get there.

I'm pretty excited about getting out to the range and dialing this thing in.
One of the nice things is that it uses the same 7.62x54R cartridge as the old Mosin Nagant rifles I already own.

You can only fire light ball ammo in the PSL and the Mosins' will take light or heavy.
I have a shitload of ammo but I'm gonna have to re-inventory everything to see which is which.
Even though the price of ammo has gone up in the last few years, it's still pretty cheap to shoot these things as long as you don't mind cleaning them religiously and promptly after use.

And the cheap factor could change too If The SOB's in Washington Succeed in Passing the UN Small Arms Treaty

American gun owners might not feel besieged, but they should. This week, the Obama administration announced its support for the United Nations Small Arms Treaty. This international agreement poses real risks for freedom both in the United States and around the world by making it more difficult - if not outright illegal - for law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms. (emphasis mine)

This has been an ongoing thing and say what you want about George Bush, he didn't entertain or approve of UN treaties that infringed on American rights. The US vetoed the treaty throughout his presidency.
Ain't gonna be that way anymore.

Gonna have to go on an accelerated stock up and reload components plan for everything I guess.

But hey, Disarmament is no big deal. Right?

Learn from history folks and never say, "It can't happen here".

Gardening Daze..........

Yeah, I worked myself into a daze yesterday. Got a bit too much heat and Sun and darn near made myself sick.
I was probably a bit dry before I started working and just didn't/couldn't keep enough fluids going in.

Felt pretty rough for awhile there. I knocked off about 2pm and spent the rest of the day inside pounding down water and Gator-aid.
Much better this morning.

I got out this morning just as the Sun was coming up and got in an hour or so of weeding work until it started to rain. It's still drizzling a bit but looks like it will stop before much longer. I'll hit it again in a little while.

The new garden area has been over run by weeds. Only took a week, too.
Here's what it looked like about 10 days ago.

Hey, still manageable right?
Wrong answer. All the grass and weeds took off like crazy and were threatening to over take everything.

I've got some old bales of straw I picked up last year and a bunch of leaves saved for mulch that are just the ticket for this sort of thing.
After hoeing all the weeds out I put down the straw in the pathways and leaves in between the rows. Looks a lot better now.

Spending a couple of days on this now will save me a huge amount of work later.
If you let those weeds get the upper hand early, it'll become more of a problem and decrease your yields too.

I've still got to finish the new Asparagus and Strawberry patches yet but should have those knocked out by tomorrow evening.

It's good work and if you don't get stupid and let the heat get to you, it's good for you too.


Beans are coming on strong now. They're gonna get the mulch treatment this week too.
All the beds are for that matter.
It's really hard to have to much mulch.
Smothers out the weeds, keeps the beds moist and rots away to help the soil.
Can't ask for much more than that.


With the shift to warmer weather, the peppers have finally started to take off. Took long enough.

The other day I was out on the backroads and came across a tree that had fallen on the road during a recent storm.

The County had cut it into sections and pushed it off into the ditch.

I stopped and loaded what I could into the little blue truck and brought it home.
Those longer sections are about 4 ft long and about kicked my ass getting them up out of the ditch and into the truck.
Nice freebie firewood.

Lumber jacking continues here as well.

My big saw needed some repair parts and is in the shop for now. I'll get after this project again when it gets back home.

Well, looks like the rain has stopped and since it's only 10am I'm heading out to weed and mulch some more.