Been busy the last couple of days. Worked Thursday till late and yesterday - THE SUN CAME OUT!!!!!!
Got some yard work done and then, KidK and I drove South and I bought a small utility trailer that was advertised on craigslist. Nothing fancy, but will really fill a need for hauling shit around here. And it was cheap! No picture yet. I left it parked at KidK's house as it was getting dark and the trailer doesn't have lights.
No title or plates either, so we drove the 60 miles or so home hoping to not end up with Officer Friendly noticing that fact. All good. Hopefully Monday, when I go to pick it up, the river will be back within it's banks and I can take the more direct route home, too. Still a lot of roads flooded here.
Gotta go get myself prepped for work and fighting the Zombie Hordes this weekend. See ya Monday.
Gratuitous Picture for a Saturday Morning- Maybe I should have watched the wedding.
Say a Prayer for People Down in Dixie...............
Over 120 Tornadoes in the last 24 hours. Alabama appears to have gotten the worst of it so far. Reports of 64 fatalities and you know that will be going up.
The youngest son, Dogboy came down yesterday and we spent the day cleaning up and organizing the garage, etc. A masterful bit of work on his part. He, having no emotional attachment to all the useless shit stacked here and there, was able to just toss shit that needed to be tossed. Hell, I can even see the top of the workbench now. We organized all the miscellaneous screws, nuts and bolts, hardware and motorcycle bits into nice manageable bins and containers, too.
Very satisfying to say the least.
This morning, while doing a bit of finish work out there, I got this strange rumble in my belly and then .............. RUN!!!!!! I didn't know a volcano was hiding in my ass. (actual photo of my ass volcano) Don't know what kinda little viral nasty has taken up residence in my GI tract, but oh boy, is it a doozy.
I will be staying as close to the bathroom as possible for the rest of the day. And I will not even THINK about farting. That could be disastrous.
OK, gotta run.
Gratuitous Picture for a Wednesday-
Pic swiped from KnuckleDragger who has been added to the links along with a couple of other new sites. Check em out.
How High's the Water Momma????????? "5 feet high and rising"
I mentioned the other day that there were a lot of roads flooded out and the rain hasn't stopped since then. Things are REALLY gonna get wet around here before long. We had a bad blow come through here the other night and it took down a few garages, barns and a shit load of trees. The utility company and the county guys have been busy as hell and doing a fine job of keeping things up and running so far. It's raining like hell out there now with no end in sight according to the forecast. Looks like there's a hell of a lot of flooding around the Midwest and one can only hope things dry out asap.
One of the things that amazes me is people continue to try to drive their cars through areas of high water. WTF? It floods around here every Spring and there are certain areas that you know are gonna be under water. That's just a fact. There are areas that look like a damn lake, water as far as you can see. But dumbasses try to drive through that shit every year and get stranded or drowned. We haven't had a fatality from, Suicide by Stupid, in a few years but had a close one yesterday.
Some drunk decided he wasn't gonna take the long, dry way home and ventured into some high water area yesterday. He didn't get far.......... till the current got hold of his car and floated him several miles downstream. Lucky for him, he got hung up in some trees so the rescue workers could get him out before he drowned.
The dumbass had electric windows and couldn't roll them down and was to drunk to think about kicking a window out I guess. the water was up to his chin when he was fished out of his car.
Damn. Sometimes I wish Darwin worked a little quicker in cleansing the Gene Pool.
Speaking of gene pools that could use a good cleansing....... It seems that our friends from Westboro Baptist Church we're planning on protesting at the funeral of a fallen Marine in Mississippi last week and.............. Well, things didn't work out quite as planned. "A couple of days before, one of them (Westboro protestors) ran his mouth at a Brandon gas station and got his arse waxed. Police were called and the beaten man could not give much of a description of who beat him. When they canvassed the station and spoke to the large crowd that had gathered around, no one seemed to remember anything about what had happened.
Rankin County handled this thing perfectly. There were many things that were put into place that most will never know about and at great expense to the county.
Most of the morons never made it out of their hotel parking lot. It seems that certain Rankin county pickup trucks were parked directly behind any car that had Kansas plates in the hotel parking lot and the drivers mysteriously disappeared until after the funeral was over. Police were called but their wrecker service was running behind and it was going to be a few hours before they could tow the trucks so the Kansas plated cars could get out.
A few made it to the funeral but were ushered away to be questioned about a crime they might have possibly been involved in. Turns out, after a few hours of questioning, that they were not involved and they were allowed to go on about their business."
Found the missing 3rd hen this morning, but she was all alone. Any chicks that hatched either got lost or eaten by critters. That's the way is goes sometimes.
Another storm outside. Like we need anymore damn rain. The roads all over are flooded out already and more rain is not what we need. I guess that's the way that goes sometimes too.
Nothing to do about it. I've been hanging out in the house today playing guitar some and trying to learn the pickin' parts of this Steve Goodman song -
Lovely song and always a favorite of mine. I'll probably never get those parts down exact, but close enough will be ok.
Damn shame he died of leukemia so young. He was a great songwriter and one hell of a good guitarist. Check out the licks on this song-
As you can see, his sense of humor carried over into his songs, too-
I want all of ya to celebrate appropriately. Seriously, I want you all to do something to show your love for Mother Gaia and Al Gore. Hell, I wish I could replicate last years celebration. Here's a picture- Sweet! Nothing says, love your planet like a big pile of burning tires.
This year things just don't look as promising. Here's all I have to work with tomorrow- If I just had a pile of Korans to go with those old tires.............. One can dream.
Went out to lock up the hen house a while ago and found the nest empty. 2 of the 3 hens that had been sitting on eggs were on the roost with the other chickens and 1 of the broody hens and any chicks that had hatched were gone.
There were quite a few empty eggs out there and a few unbroken ones. Don't know if mom took the chicks off to someplace quieter or what.
Maybe find out tomorrow. Maybe not.
Strange.
Gratuitous Picture for a Thursday Night- Elvgren Pin-up babe.
Cold and Crappy Global Warming Spell.......... Had a hell of a thunderstorm blow through again last night. Cold and wet again for most of the day today. The sun started peeking out around 3 or 4 this afternoon and maybe it'll warm up tomorrow.
This friggin global Warming tears my arthritic ass up. Doesn't do much for getting the garden going or all the other chores that need to be done. It's gonna be a while now before things dry out enough to work the soil. Oh well. Nothing to be done about it.
Ordered some more trees today. Both fruit and nut trees. Here's hoping I have better luck than in than recent years.
Never had problems with tree planting till recently and I really have no idea WTF is going on or why the damn things just fail to get started. I can understand the Deer eating a bunch of nut trees 2 years ago and last years drought (and my dumb ass not keeping them watered well enough) took out some of the fruit trees I planted last Spring. Shit happens and I'm a dumbass. I understand that. But over the last 4-5 years, I've planted a dozen or more Pecan seedlings and have only 1 that made it. Same with the English Walnuts. Damn things just never grew.
Oh BTW, read the return policy before you buy. Some places are better than others when it comes to replacement. Trust me. I know this.
I have a Duck sitting on a clutch of eggs and 3 little hens that went broody right now. The 3 little hens are hilarious. They all 3 are jammed into one little nest and Lord only knows how many eggs are under them. All the ducks are heading North as soon as the babies hatch. One of the Docs I work with wants them and I'm tired of them crapping in my garage. It's a win all around.
I don't need any chicks, but good broody hens are a plus and I'm interested in how well they do with this. I'll end up giving chicks away I imagine. Crappy cell phone picture there, but you can see all 3 of them jammed into that little spot. That kinda stuff makes me laugh.
I'm sure you're familiar with the first stanza of the Concord Hymn "By the rude bridge that arched the flood, Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled, Here once the embattled farmers stood, And fired the shot heard round the world."
I suppose it's a bit of understatement, but this was kind of a big deal.
It's sad how far we've fallen from the framers ideals when Dickheads like this run for office on a platform to destroy the Constitution. I guess it's good that he's right up front about it. Even though I disagree with him, I'll support his right to say stupid shit. I sure as hell wouldn't go out of my way to keep him from getting his ass kicked for saying it though. Which I'm pretty sure Thomas Jefferson would have done if confronted with this guys nonsense. (H/T to- Vanderbough for that article)
One has to wonder what Jefferson would have said about the perpetrators of Another Event - or Two that happened a bit more recently on this day.
Damn complicated world we live in ain't it?
Let's just have a bit of Rory shall we? - Country Mile-
And what better way to burn up a Country Mile than this-
On on a rainy ass Tuesday like today? Makes me think of this. He lets the band stretch here-
My 2 boys came down and helped me put that heavy ass barn door up and in place. With 3 people it was a snap.
20 minutes and it was nailed down and done! It started raining just as I finished securing it and that kept me from putting up the last of the bracing. No big deal. It's plenty secure and ain't going anywhere.
I centered it up so the trapezoid effect of being 3 1/2 inches out of square is not quite as obvious, but it still chaps my ass that I screwed up the layout.
Oh well. Nothing to be done for it now.
I talked to my neighbor about some metal sheeting laying out at his place and he said it's mine for the taking. Only problem is it's laying in about 3 feet of water right now and has been there for 3 years. It's gonna have to dry out and it's still gonna be a job getting it out. It's basically one wall of his pole barn that blew down in the same storm that took the door off my barn. The plan is to use most of the sheeting as roofing for another wood shed right next to this one. I still have a big pile of 4x4 posts and big framing lumber out in the barn so, just like this shed, rafters, bracing and concrete will be all I need to purchase.
Lord knows I have way more wood cut already than will fit in the new shed. Ha, having too much firewood is the kind of problem I like. Did the math and the wood burner saved us approximately $800 bucks this heating season. Obviously, my labor isn't counted against that, but what the hell, the exercise alone counts as a plus too.
I've been dealing with a low level headache for the last few days and it finally blossomed into a full blown migraine this afternoon. Damn I hate that. Had to break down and dig into the leftover pain meds from my foot surgery. I hate those damn things, but sometimes nothing else will work. So if I'm rambling here, blame it on the meds.
Hopefully things in the garden will dry out enough to get going some more there next week. We'll see.
That's enough for now. Staring at this screen is not helping my headache.
Gratuitous Picture for a Friday Evening-
Sing it with me - "These are a few of my favorite things...."
Measure Twice, Dig Once.......... Sort of a twist on Norm's maxim of "Measure twice, cut once". But damn if it doesn't help avoid the same kind of trouble.
Of course I'm telling you this AFTER I didn't follow that advice. I've been building a little shed for wood storage the last couple of days. Real basic and simple and scrounged together with mostly stuff I had on hand here already. I'll have about $30 bucks in it for the rafters and the sackcrete when I'm finished. Got the 4x4 posts at a sale last year for $2 bucks each and the 2x8 stringers, front and rear are from the freebie stuff I scrounged from the motel demo Last Year.
I need to come up with a few more braces yet, but I'm pretty sure I have some more 2x4's around here someplace.
The roof material is an old sliding barn door that blew off 3 years ago and wasn't likely to get hung back up anytime soon. Big problem with that is it's damn heavy and getting it up on top there should be a pretty good chore.
I'm pretty sure the BFI index is fairly low for this job though.
"BFI Index"? That equals- "Brute Force and Ignorance" required and is pretty simple here. Just gotta muscle it up there, square it up and drive a few nails.
Which leads us back to the title of this post - "Measure Twice, Dig Once".
I failed on that one and it's a damn good thing I wasn't building a piano. While setting the last post, I ran into some big honking tree roots just where I was digging the post hole. This required some good old fashioned hand sledge, long handled chisel and serious pounding to get get them cut out of the way.
Of course I smashed the shit out out of my hand with that hammer and that's sort of where things really went off track. Now don't you believe it when someone tells you that old fat white guys can't dance. James Brown would'a been proud of me the way I was dancing around in a circle after I smacked my hand with that hammer. The sound track that went with that dance was not fit for genteel or sensitive ears, but I cussed for a good 3 minutes straight without repeating myself & that should count for something.
Anyway, that's where my train of thought came off the rails.
Damn if I didn't measure wrong right after that. A 4x4 post is actually, 3 1/2" square. And damn if I didn't use the outside to outside measurement as the outside to INSIDE measurement. Ooops! 3 1/2" longer on one side than the other. Of course I didn't measure twice.
And I secured it with concrete.
So what I have is a shed that's 3 1/2 inches out of square. That's a Trapazoid I believe. Oh well. I had to cut all the rafters individually to fit the mistake and that pissed me off a bit, but there's only 8 of them so it wasn't to big a deal. Damned if I was going to dig that post up with the concrete and redo it. Like I said, good thing it wasn't a piano. It'll bother me every time I go our there after it's finished seeing the screw up, too. Serves me right for not double checking. So let that be a lesson for y'all at my expense.
Damn near a week since I posted anything here. Sorry about that. All the regular excuses, blah, blah, blah & Etc.
Bottom line is this. I have a bad case of, "Obama Outrage Overload". Maybe to be fair it would be better called, "Washington DC Bullshit Overload".
The nonstop BS from those bastards in Washington has gotten to the point where I can't fucking stand listening to it. And making note of it here just pisses me the hell off so much I just want to scream.
I gotta wonder how many people are really all that interested in hearing me yack about gardening, Chickens, Motorcycles, ER Zombies and my boring ass life so I just haven't gotten after it here much lately.
I don't know, maybe it's one of those temporary things I go through. Maybe not. Shit. We'll see. I just haven't been in all that great a mood lately, and watching these CheeseDicks in DC arguing about cutting a fucking dime from a Zillion dollar fucking mess makes me sick.
Someone should be playing a God Damn Fiddle as our country burns while these assholes argue the merits of fucking "Cowboy Poetry" and "Suck the fucking brains out of live babies style abortions".
Fuck me running. If these assholes are arguing the merits of using tax money for shit like that, how the hell are they gonna make real cuts and do what the hell really needs to be done?
Ain't gonna happen. Here, Bill Wittle explains what I'm talking about. Watch this video -
See what I mean? 1/2 of them want to keep driving us over a cliff and the other 1/2 don't have the brains or the balls to stop them. There are a few who have the best interests of the country in mind. But it's very damn few and I have no faith in them actually making a difference.
OK. That's enough of that. Pretty sure you get the idea of what's been going on with me lately.
Hico man acquitted in Westboro Baptist spitting trial Alternate headline - "West Virginia Hillbilly launches huge gob of chewing tobacco loogie on Westboro Bitch, Shirley Phelps. Jury says, Who fucking cares? Let's go eat."
I have personally been nose to nose with that bitch and while I really don't like the whole spitting thing..... Fuck her. Justice is served.
Can you believe that shit? I don't know either, but whatever it is, she's doing it right. God love her.
Part of the reason I'm in such a shitty mood today has to do with the fact that my sinuses are all screwed up and I've been sneezing almost nonstop since 2 pm. Seriously frustrating kids. This definitely doesn't help my bad back to sneeze like that either. I know, that sounds odd, but it's true. Sneezing is not good for your sore back.
It's also been raining ALL DAMN DAY! That shits depressing. If it clears up tomorrow I may just go to the range and shoot a couple of rifles. To bad youngest son, Dogboy can't go with me. You can see he enjoys rifle work. The little shit is good too.
"A one-of-five 1965 Ford GT40 Roadster will be auctioned off at the Concorso d'Eleganza Villa d'Este in Cernobbio, Italy on May 21. The car was built in 1965 as a prototype by Ford's Advanced Vehicle Operations center in England, and is one of four surviving examples.
The Linden Green example crossing the block was raced by John Whitmore and Bob Bondurant in the 1965 Targa Florio, running as high as third before it was forced to quit after being damaged. The car, chassis GT/111 was lost after the Targa Florio, waiting to resurface until 2006." The GT40 was one of the most beautiful race cars ever. Lot's of nice pictures at the article. Check it out.
From the, "Holy Shit, That was Close!!" Department comes this extraordinary display of self control-
Somebody is gonna get their ass kicked for that. H/T- Roger
Speaking of Ass Kickings....... Here's a good place to start- The Left Finds a Way to Display Their Hate For Palin & Jesus in One Exhibit You'll just have to go there and see the Artwork to appreciate it. By all means, follow the link to check out the others. Maybe if Christians or just plain old good Americans started killing and beheading people like the Muslim Ragheads do when insulted...... Nah. That's just crazy talk. An asskicking would be sufficient.
Saw this at Ace of Spades last night- Married to the Eiffel Tower
Fascinating crazy & Damn if I didn't watch the whole thing. Generally, I deal with enough crazy shitheads that I avoid this sort of thing. All I can say is, at least none of these crazy bitches have shown up in my ER. PTSD Eleventy!1!1!1!
"As a result of discarded fluorescent lights, including CFLs, U.S. landfills release into the atmosphere and in stormwater runoff upward of 4 tons of mercury annually, according to a study in the Journal of the Air and Waste Management Association." I guess Mercury Poisoning is better than CO2 or some shit. Don't forget, incandescent bulbs will no longer be available after this year thanks to the EnviroNazis.
And some more exciting economic news for ya - March Madness: U.S. Gov't Spent More Than Eight Times Its Monthly Revenue "“I'm really concerned,” Bowles told the committee last month. “I think we face the most predictable economic crisis in history. A lot of us sitting in this room didn't see this last crisis as it came upon us. But this one is really easy to see. The fiscal path we are on today is simply not sustainable." When people like Erskine Bolwes start saying this shit you should REALLY get worried about the Boning coming our way. Plan Accordingly.
Been Busy Lately................... This place has been neglected because of it. That's likely to be an ongoing trend. If you care, sorry. It's that time of year again. I've been getting out and getting Spring things going.
Seems I've spent more time going in circles and not really achieving much, but at least I'm getting outside and moving around. Raining out there this afternoon and I could be out in the garage or barn, but eh, Lost interest. Maybe I'll get back after awhile.
Here's a couple of interesting news items for ya on this gray, wet day-
"Somali pirate chief is willing to release the Danish family of five captured a month ago in the Gulf of Aden, and even forego the $5 million ransom demand, if only he can have the 13-year-old daughter for his wife."
Something to think about here. Consider doing something about it now- Wal-Mart CEO Bill Simon expects inflation "The world's largest retailer is working with suppliers to minimize the effect of cost increases and believes its low-cost business model will position it better than its competitors.
Still, inflation is "going to be serious," Wal-Mart U.S. CEO Bill Simon said during a meeting with USA TODAY's editorial board. "We're seeing cost increases starting to come through at a pretty rapid rate."
Interesting Science idea. What could go wrong? Jurassic Park comes true: How scientists are bringing dinosaurs back to life with the help of the humble chicken "Deep inside the dusty university store room, three scientists struggle to lift a huge fossilised bone. It is from the leg of a dinosaur. For many years, this chunky specimen has languished cryptically on a shelf. Interesting but useless — a forgotten relic of a lost age. Now, with hammer and chisel poised, the academics from Montana State University in America gather round. They are about to shatter this rare vestige of the past....."
I saw that movie already. How much of this do you think is funded with your tax money? Interesting stuff none the less.
Adding to the intrigue, many of the books are sealed, prompting academics to speculate they are actually the lost collection of codices mentioned in the Bible’s Book Of Revelation."
From the, "We don't need no stinking citizenship" department- GOP says 5,000 non-citizens voting in Colorado a 'wake-up call' for states "Rep. Gregg Harper (R-Miss.), the panel’s chairman, called the study “a disturbing wake-up call” that should cause every state to review its safeguards to prevent illegal voting." Wow, how come nobody ever thought of that before?
I'm sure this has nothing to do with the above article- EXCLUSIVE: Federal Agents Told to Reduce Border Arrests, Arizona Sheriff Says "An Arizona sheriff says U.S. Border Patrol officials have repeatedly told him they have been ordered to reduce -- at times even stop -- arrests of illegal immigrants caught trying to cross the U.S. border."
Had an interesting conversation with a fucking moron recently who told me I was a "Hater" for wanting to have secure borders. All I could say to that was, "Hater? I'm OK with that as long as the borders are secure". You can't help some folks and you can't cure stupid so I have stopped trying.
