Sunday, April 29, 2007

Every thing changes........

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.......and sometimes I try to. Doesn't always work, but what the hell. If you're afraid to jump off in the deep end, you'll never enjoy the triumphs Teddy talks about.

I'll be trying to upgrade my blogger site. We'll see how badly I can mess it up.

UPDATE:
If anyone can read this how about commenting to see if it works.

The old grump......

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Likes to turn the tv over to Communist Now or Never (CNN) a lot and it really kind of depresses me to hear their joy and glee over the fact that the dim-o-critics have officially declared the war in Iraq and Afghanistan a loss. Their hatred of anything Bush, or rather their get-elected-at-any-cost-even if it means abandoning in the field the greatest fighting force in the history of the world, comes through loud and clear. It seems that their philosophy is if you're telling a lie, and everyone knows it's a lie, you just keep on saying it louder and with more conviction and 50% of the population, or more, will say to themselves that it must be true or they wouldn't put it out over the public airwaves. And I believe they are right.

There is some truth to the saying "never respond to a lie". People perceive your response as some sort of desperation ploy. But, this is no reason for the President and leaders of the military not to get the truth about the good work and news that is coming out of those two countries out in a strong, convincing and dramatic way. WTH are they waiting on. Hoping the Islam-o-terrorists will launch a bunch more planes at, say, the tallest building in Chicago for example, so they can point to it and scream, "I was right, I meant to tell you, but I thought you could figure it out on your own.

Perhaps it's time for us to listen to some of the people of Iraq and see what they think of the situation. And not the politicians or Imamma-boys.

Perhaps someone like Alaa’s blog would be worthy of a look see now and again.

Just my view from here in the Kudzu.

Saturday, April 28, 2007

A True Gentleman

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The True Gentleman is the man whose conduct proceeds from good will and an acute sense of propriety, and whose self-control is equal to all emergencies; who does not make the poor man conscious of his poverty, the obscure man of his obscurity, or any man of his inferiority or deformity; who is himself humbled if necessity compels him to humble another; who does not flatter wealth, cringe before power, or boast of his own possessions or achievements; who speaks with frankness but always with sincerity and sympathy; whose deed follows his word; who thinks of the rights and feelings of others, rather than his own; and who appears well in any company, a man with whom honor is sacred and virtue safe."

John Walter Wayland (Virginia 1899)


I find paragraphs, or snippets of a longer piece of old, and sometimes new wisdom and save them. From time to time I'll work them into a sermon or just read over them to myself.
I find they're useful as a measuring stick.

I am fortunate to have a family which seemed to have the preceding virtues instinctively ingrained in their personalities. Both the men and the women I must say. Not all the time of coarse. But mostly. Probably most people of a certain age can lay claim to that. And I'm sure many people today learn the same values.

But too often I see younger people who seem to be devolving instead of the other way around. I think I need to adjust my spectacles a bit. I need to consider more on the good in the world, rather than the bad, because it is really amazing all the good that goes about quietly, unnoticed for the most part.

I mean that we can choose what we focus on, the good or the bad. That in large part determines what our own outlook is.

Our lives are totally of our own choosing after we reach the age when we can make choices. We can't help the circumstances of our birth, but we can, if we think at all rationally, try to make the best decisions we can, instead of just taking things as they come and then complaining about them.

You're not the product of a broken home, a devastated economy, a world in the upheaval of war, a minority group, a family of drunkards or a poverty-ridden neighborhood. You are the product of your own thinking processes, and whatever you're thinking about today is the cornerstone of your tomorrow.
Take control of your thoughts and your future. Determine that you will have a better tomorrow.

Then you won't have to live in the kudzu.. ..unless you choose to.

Velvety greenness.

Surrounded us today as we drove northward just to get out of the house for awhile.

It's been a weird spring. Too little rain has caused things to be slow to grow, and on top of that 2 late cold spells with below freezing temperatures proceeded to kill the hell out of the young leaves on many of the trees. Not the pines of course, however, it did stop the flowering and resultant pollen release, but the hardwoods were hit the hardest. The post oaks and pecan trees and elms. Some of them are completely brown as if autumn had fallen.

Whether they will recover, at this time, seems to be in doubt. A few trees show a small amount of green leaves, while others not at all......at all.

I've never seen anything like this in my young life, and growing up on a farm made me look a little closer to things of this sort. Oh, I've seen springs where it stayed cool longer than normal, but this year it warmed up nicely and caused everything to sprout, and then, the cold returned.

I'm sure that it can all be blamed on global warming. Enviro-whackos always have a reason that man is causing all sorts of biblical type plagues to befall us. I'm sure most of them think that the Creator made a huge mistake in ever creating Adam and Eve. Well they have at least a 50% agreement with the femi-nazis who will shout and burn their bras to convince us that men are an unnecessary evil also.

I'm just wandering around inside of my head here, without anywhere really to go. No rants, no raving, just a desire to express some of what's going on. I started a poem , or lines of drivel, but can't seem to hack it up. Kinda like a wormy old cat with a hairball that is stuck somewhere below the tonsils.

Ya'll stay safe this weekend, and especially do not listen to any of the crap coming out of CNN. `One of our former presidents had a traitor shot on the white house lawn. Today the line would be so long that the barrels would melt and they'd run out of ammunition.

The view is dark from here in the kudzu grotto.

Friday, April 27, 2007

If .......................

......by some small chance you would like to hear what one of the troops who has served and is going back to Iraq thinks of their mission and what we as a country need to do you can click on the following link.

Here

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

My tiny hiney.........

........at least compared to my belly, is dragging tonight.

I drove over to close to Columbia, SC today and then back. A person should have a chauffeur driven limousine to make a trip like that. Especially when suffering from a displaced atlas bone which causes stiffness in the neck and all down the left side.

I don't see how over the road truckers can do it day after day. May be why yellow jackets are so popular at interstate truck stops. One day and I'll be dragging for a week. And I'll have to spend most of the day tomorrow watching the granddaughter while the wife visits her mother in the hospital. I'm gonna block the door and make sure she has a lot of toys and her bottle exactly on time. Wish me luck.

What, you may well ask, possessed me to go over that far and back in one day.

Just a little detective work in seeking an answer to whether truths are being spoken in effort to become a SRF like Denny. What one man can do, another man can do. (I've wanted to use that line since I first heard it in the movie The Edge.)
Anthony Hopkins kicks ass.

By the way, if you want to see a pretty place, Lake Murry just NW of Columbia is as pretty a lake as you'll want to see. You just have to ignore all of the development around it. Blue as the sky today even though it was mostly cloudy. Just really nice. Back in the '20's it had the largest earthen dam in the world.

Well, as I was saying, a rough day and tonight will be better thru chemicals. Just waiting for them to kick in.

People go their whole lives sometimes, lamenting about how they would accomplish great things if only their ship would come in. Hell, how can you not see the opportunities all around you. Instead of looking for the one why not open your eyes and see all the ones around you.

Opportunity doesn't come just once regardless of what any poet has to say.

Just my view, here in the kudzu grotto.

Saturday, April 21, 2007

Who needs enemies.......................

.......When we have such good friends as the Russians on our side.

I invite you to scroll thru the following links and tell me if you notice anything that seems just a little off kilter there.

We extend the hand of friendship

And they chew it off at the shoulder.

I know we've probably been a little stretched moneywise trying to keep two wars plus innumerable fire fights going around the world, and aren't able to keep the russians afloat like we did for 80 years until they collapsed from their own incompetence. But you'd think they might have more courtesy that this.

Tell me again why you don't think that there are conspirators we know nothing about running the world.

No.....No. don't worry about a thing. Our benevolent rulers in Disneyland-on-the-Potomac will take care of us. Really.........

Would I try to pull the wool over your eyes? I'm not that smart I'm afraid. Most everyone I read on a daily basis puts me in the shade IQ wise.

I'm probably seeing shadows where there are none. I promise I'll clean my spectacles soon.

How lightly our shackles lie upon us, here in the kudzu.

I'll give a wooden nickel to anyone who can explain all this to me.

Friday, April 20, 2007

Thoughts on Poverty

I've been considering what kind of legacy I want to leave my grandchildren.
(Don't get your hopes up. If I get my druthers I'll see their great grandchildren marry) Course we don't always get our druthers. But we have to have goals don't we?

If you listen to the MSM these days and for quite a few days in the past (nearly 50 years), you'd think that the population of this country is divided between the have's and have not's.

But really if you think about it, the have not's have it pretty well in comparison to the poor of more than 50 years ago.

In 1967 or there abouts President Lyndon Johnson declared war on poverty, saying that if we'd just throw money at the problem we'd eliminate poverty in this country in our life time.

I wonder what the comparison would be if you took the percentage of so called poverty stricken then and compared it to the percentage today. Certainly the income level of poverty measured in $ has risen to what most people in 1967 would consider an upper class income then. Amazing what a little inflation of the fiat money system will do for you. When I got out of the Army in 1975 I looked back at 1974's income of over 12000.00 $ as a pretty good living.

I read an article by Fred Reed several months ago, and just reread it. You might consider it instructive.....or at least a starting point for future posts.

Thoughts On Poverty
by Fred Reed

One reads much about the poor in America, their piteous lives, their blighted hopes, and the unrelieved downtreading of them by various social ogres such as oppressive corporations who sell them greasy hamburgers. (Why does my wretched spell-checker object to “downtreading”? You can’t be downtrodden unless someone downtreads you. How obvious is that?)
This I submit is goober-brained nonsense. America has precious little poverty, if by poverty you mean lack of something to eat, clothing adequate to keep you warm and cover your private parts, and a dry and comfortable place to sleep. In the “inner cities” or, as we used to call them, slums, there is horrendous cultural emptiness, yes, and the products of the suburban high schools are catching up fast. But poverty? The kind you see in the backs streets of Port au Prince? It barely exists in the United States.
The problem is that the poor do not know how to be poor.
As a police reporter for the better part of a decade, I’ve been in a lot of homes in allegedly poor parts of cities. Physically they weren’t terrible. Some (not many, really) were badly kept up, but that isn’t poverty. The residents could have carried the garbage out to the dumpster in the alley. They just couldn’t be bothered.
Ah, but they were indeed morally deprived, culturally and intellectually impoverished, or what we used to call shiftless. I’ve come into an apartment in mid-afternoon and found a half dozen men sitting torpidly in front of the television, into homes where the daughter of thirteen was pregnant and on drugs. The problem wasn’t poverty. The poor can keep their legs crossed as well as anyone else. If the daughter could afford drugs, she could afford food.
Most of these homes would have been regarded as fine by the graduate students of my day. They would have put in board-and-cinderblock bookshelves and a booze cache and been perfectly content.
The reality is that the wherewithal of a cultivated life of leisure, if only in tea shirts and jeans, is within the reach of almost all of the “poor.” If I had to live in really cheap welfarish quarters in Washington, DC, which I know well, on food stamps and a bit of cash welfare, what would I do?
I’d have a hell of a good time.
First, I’d get a library card, which is free, for the public libraries of the District. The downtown library, over on 9th Street, is a huge dark half-empty building in which very few people appear and none of the poor. I’d spend time reading, which I enjoy and the poor don’t. They aren’t interested.
A great many of the poor can’t read, and the rest don’t, but in both cases it is by choice, not because of poverty. The poor can go to the public schools. Their parents can encourage them to study. The schools are terrible, but neither is this because of poverty. The per-student expenditure in Washington is high. The city could afford good teachers and good texts. It isn’t interested.
Music? A hundred-dollar boombox these days provides remarkably good sound, and I’d roll in pirate CDs. The poor listen chiefly to grunting animalic rap, but that is by choice, not by necessity. Washington is neck-deep in free concerts by good groups, as for example the regular ones at KenCen. All of these are advertised in the City Paper, which is free. You never see the poor at these performances, though there is no dress code or discrimination. They aren’t interested.
Washington abounds in good museums and galleries, usually free, none terribly expensive. There is the entire Smithsonian complex, with the National Gallery of Art; there is the Phillips Collection, the…on and on. You never see the poor in them. They aren’t interested.
In parts of Washington near the Hill there are, or were, sometimes thirteen liquor stores encompassed in a four-block circuit (this I think is the number I once counted). You hear of drugs being the curse of the slums, but fortified wine may be as bad. You see old men with paper bags wobbling and bumping into things, a very short way from cirrhosis. Again, a choice: they could spend the money on something else.
All of this much reminds me of homosexuals and AIDS. Like illiteracy, AIDS is voluntary. I don’t dislike homosexuals, certainly wish AIDS on no one – but they know how HIV is transmitted. It they choose to indulge, well, so what? People ride motorcycles without helmets. It’s their decision, but don’t expect me to be particularly stunned if they, or I, croak as a result. Don’t want to study? Your decision. I don’t care. We make our choices.
So it is with poverty.
I now encounter charges that culpability for the usually unimpressive health of the purportedly poor rests with McDonald’s, which sells them foods loaded with fat and salt. Indeed McDonald’s does. But eating Big Macs is a choice, isn’t it? The poor could buy better food at the supermarket. Further, they know they could. They tend to watch a lot of television, with its endless health warnings. They eat fat because they want to eat fat.
Is this, in the tiresome phrase, blaming the victim? Absolutely. When the victim is to blame, blame him. If I get drunk and suffer a hangover, is it your fault? Jim Beam’s fault? Why?
Some will object that the (slight) poverty of the American poor somehow forces them to make bad decisions, which they know to be bad decisions. Well, if the poor have no free will, and haplessly do what their environment ordains, can not the management of McDonald’s plead the same?
If the poor of America were truly penurious, and forcibly kept so, I would see things differently. The sweated children of New York, the slaves of the South, the virtual slaves of the Industrial Revolution in England – these had a cause for complaint. They suffered greatly, and had no way out.
Neither did they have the subsidized housing of today, the welfare, and the leisure consequent to these, nor free medical care, nor public schools which by law they had to attend, nor free libraries, nor the array of special and unearned privilege called “affirmative action.” Today’s poor do have them. They also live in a society that has begged them, prodded them, enticed them to do something with and for themselves. They haven’t. They aren’t interested. And neither, any longer, am I.
May 18, 2005


I don't always agree with Fred, but he makes me think enough that I go back to see what he has on his mind now.

I've no idea if......................

.......This is true or not. Any of you want to check it feel free.

Update: Most of this post has been deleted because it was found not to hold water. Thank you to those who went to the trouble to correct my bad information.

That doesn't in any way reduce my respect for the men and women who are, and have served our country in shooting wars. Whatever their reasons for doing what they do, they deserve our respect and support.

America 's real heroes don't flaunt what they did; they quietly go about their day-to-day lives, doing what they do best. They earned our respect and the freedoms that we all enjoy.

Look around and see if you can find one of those heroes in your midst.

Often, they are the ones you'd least suspect, but would most like to have on your side if anything ever happened.

Take the time to thank anyone that has fought for our freedom.


This country is full of these kinds of men. And we have many of those same kind, both men and women, serving in the armed forces today. If you have a moment you might send a quite prayer to whatever or whomever you send your prayers, that they'll be given the support and respect that they deserve.. Not that they ask for it, but we owe it to them.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

What..............

..........will THIS
do to oil prices I wonder. Should be able to put a whole bunch of Mexicans to work on that project.

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

I'm not through........

................gnawing on this particular bone.

But I just thought a thought. Alright quite in the peanut gallery. And if you get that reference you're older than you admit.

The timing of the shooting in Virginia yesterday. Does it seem strangely coincidental that it was the day before tax deadline day?

I'm just wandering around in my mind here, OK? But didn't Colombine, the Oklahoma City bombing, and the final fiery denouement at the Branch Davidian Compound in Waco, Tx all happen just about this time of the year.

What is the common theme here? Is there one?

They say that the Lone Gunman was upset with a former girlfriend. Not former in his mind apparently. But then why after shooting her and a dorm adviser then go across campus and chain people in a classroom and shoot about 60 of them before killing himself. Fish in a barrel you might say, but, you'd think that is pretty accurate shooting of moving targets, if you allow yourself to. Wonder where he trained?

Where is the rational for that? Obviously he preplanned that also.

Great is the suffering in many homes today of parents, wives, husbands, brother, sisters and those who have a personal interest in the lives lost and scarred.
I could be empatheticly incapacitated if I knew any of those people. I realize that I'm not.

I don't think that makes me an uncaring person. Just that the loss of life here, while tragic, is nothing like the number of people killed and property lost in the tsunami in Indonesia a couple years ago, and I, while amazed, didn't let that interfere with my life either.

I will however be going by the sporting goods store looking for concealed carry holsters today.

Life goes on here at the kudzu ranch.

Monday, April 16, 2007

Well now............

`.................I guess I could post something about the atrocity up in VA.
I'll probably ruminate on that little incident for a while, worrying at it like a Yorkie gnawing an elephant's leg bone.

Instead I think I'll post about my youngest granddaughter. That OK? Well tough titty. It's my blog and I'll post about what I want to.

10 months old now, she is. Quite a handful. Smart as a whip and stubborn as a North Georgia Mule. Kinda like the irresistible force. And for her, there are no immovable objects.

She can crawl like a greased ell, but would rather hold on to your fingers and walk.

She loves her grandmother (nanny) like I love chocolate. Oh she'll tolerate some one else when she's here, but only if she chooses to.

Naps.......ha, those are for lesser mortals than she. So tired she's whining and pulling at her ears........she'll shake her head........no, no, no, no, no. Trying to fight it off as long as possible. That's when I'll pick her up in the crook of my right arm, settle into the rocking easy chair and sing soft into her ear. It also helps if she has her pink bunny with the tail pull activated music box to hold onto..

It only plays e i e i o, and I could sing about dogs barking and pigs oinking, or cows mooing and it was like morphine to a gut shot victim . But no more, today I had to make up a song with her name in it. Hearing her name would cause her to listen, which stops the struggle, and it's all down hill from there.

It's a nice interlude. I get her to sleep and myself all at the same time. Generally good for about an hour, then her internal clock screams "Wake the heck up". It keeps her looking young but doesn't help me in that dept. at all......at all.

Sorry for the lack of posting. I'm contemplating my navel, and the lint.....unlike tea leaves, tell me not a thing.

I suppose I could let you look at her...............




Thursday, April 12, 2007

Water from Heaven

Fell upon us yesterday and last night.

Oh, welcome relief for the parched earth around here. Now I'll have to step carefully in the yard to avoid bringing any mud into the house and onto the ratty and grimy old carpet on the floors. One of the first things on the house fix-up list is to replace all the carpet except for the bedrooms with nice hardwood flooring. Carpet is nice and soft on the feet. But a rug can be just as nice and easily thrown out or cleaned outdoors if needed.

It was nice to ride thru the mist and fog over NE Georgia yesterday. I had my whole trip planned out so as to visit each required stop at the appropriate time and still wind up in Clarksville where the real estate closing was scheduled for 4 pm..
It should come as no surprise to hear that at approx. 3.30 pm a call was received telling me it is postponed until this afternoon.

Thus proving once again the old saying, "Those who have the gold make the rules".

Kudzu putting out and doing just fine.

Monday, April 09, 2007

Here there be monsters

Does anyone remember the old drawing of the world before Columbus showed that the earth was really round and not flat, which showed the extent of the then known world and past that the above inscription.

The internet is sorta like that. All the edges have not been explored or probably even imagined. And the old warning has some validity today.

I posted the Aquamarine and Platinum bracelet I wrote about finding a few weeks ago on Craigslist. Nothing ventured, nothing gained as they say. A couple of days later email received apparently from a very interested buyer. Willing to pay more than I asked for me to take the posting off and deal with him.
I'm always ready to deal, but mama didn't raise me to be quite as dumb as I look. I merely replied that I'd be glad to take his money.
Wonderful was the reply. He was on a trip but his business partner would be sending me a check....send address to which it would be sent. No problem, although I did notice that the language was a little off for a native born american. Back came the reply that his partner owed him $3500 and he would send that to me and would I please send the bracelet as it was to be a wedding present. And if I would be so kind to forward the remaining money to his wife in North Carolina.

Alarms went off like the shuttle from Canaveral.

I replied that if he would be so kind as to send me good funds for the exact amount in either cash, a good check, or Gold rounded off the the nearest 1/10th oz, that I would be glad to send the bracelet as soon as the funds cleared into my account or the gold was assayed for purity.

Needless to say, I didn't hear back from him, but the next day another very similar email came from a different address wanting to do somewhat the same.

My reply was much the same and I haven't heard from him either.

I posted it on ebay and have had a few people look at it and want more information. Should you care to see it, go to here

Be careful out there folks, for "Here there be Monsters".

Okay ! Now all together.......

.....breath a small sigh of relief.

I'm back from the VA and a visit to she who prescribes my drugs, in all their variety, except for the BP and keep me from bloating pills.
Good to go for another 3 months or so. There'll be no ranting, raving, and foaming at the mouth on her watch......she hopes.

Was bemoaning the state of the world with a group of like aged and experienced guys today. Such an easy target (kinda like the 100 meter target that kept popping up on the m-16 qualification course). I won't say it's like shooting fish in a barrel but, If you can't find something to moan about these days, you are likely under the age of 20 or living in your own little bubble.. Just be careful to not moan too much or it'll become a habit (kinda like a nun's where her head is too small and it keeps slipping over her eyes) blocking you from enjoying life at all......at all.

Specifically we were talking about the state of education coming out of our public schools today. Public meaning of course government controlled schools.

I remember when Mrs. Venable, Miss Fisher, and Mrs. Hall were trying to impart the mysteries of Reading, 'Riting, and 'Rithmatic to our group of snot-nosed half tamed yard apes at good ol' Dacula elementary and high school. All one building. Too hot in winter because of the boiler fired steam heat. Too hot in spring and fall because air conditioning was something rich folks had and we'd never heard of. That was taken care of by opening the many windows. Windows under which, outside at recess we boys and some girls played mumble-d-peg with a variety of knives from Case, Old Timer and sometimes an Eyetalian switchblade someone's dad or older brother had brought back from a hitch in the Army overseas.

To my knowledge, no one was ever cut by someone else at school, to include Kenneth Lance who about cut his thumb off trying to impress people with how he could cut a cigarette dropped from his lips, then whipping out his hawkbill to slice it in half before it reached the ground out by the Vo-ag building.

It seemed to come down to a reduced individualism and acceptance of personal responsibility and an increased desire to let someone else take care of it.

When that desire is expressed, there will most always be someone who will out of the goodness of their heart or desire for authority over others, step forward touting the latest flavor of the month in 'don't worry about that, we'll take care of you here in the halls of government'. After all, isn't that what we send them to office to do.

I wonder what would happen today, if a President would have the courage and intelligence to proclaim "Ya'll work it out for your selves. We have a system of courts to dispute differences in, laws to prevent anyone taking anything from you by fraud or force, and a national government to prevent other nations from interfering in your peaceful enjoyment of your homes, your lives, your property. There isn't anyone above or below the other because of color, ethnicity, or gender. We all start out with the same rights, freedoms and every opportunity accorded anyone else, and you have the responsibility to make of it all you can or will."

How long would it be before some crazed, lone, looney tune put 4 bullets in that president's head in less than 6 seconds?

Just my wondering s from inside the kudzu grotto.

Sunday, April 08, 2007

No Ham for us.

No Ham. How in the world did a celebration of the resurrection of a nice Jewish Carpenter come to have ham as a central part of the meal.

Don't get me wrong. I have nothing against ham. Far from it. From pickled pigs feet to ham to tenderloin (especially in a nice warm, buttered buttermilk biscuit)to bacon to shoulder roast I like all things pork. Oh yes, forgot to list BBQ. Not beef like some in the west like, but pig in all its lack of glory. Pigskins, cracklings, lard, liver, even the brains scrambled with eggs and cheese. The only thing that maybe slows me down is souse meat.

But I digress. This is supposed to be about the fact that we didn't eat ham for lunch today.

No! No !

What we had, was Southern Redneck made Mexican food. Taco's, burritos, fajitas, refried beans (oh will the covers shake tonight), red sauce, green sauce, fried chili's, tabasco pickles. More than enough to feed us all twice, though we did our duty and tried.

Everyone seemed to have a great time. The guys all talked about turkey and deer hunting. My oldest grandson has so far downed two Tom Turkeys this year and his dad one. A little good natured ribbing going on there. There was even talk of planning an African lion hunting trip with much description of lion hunts seen on the outdoor channel.

At least we remembered the reason for the day in my Blessing on the food, and attendance at sacrament this morning.

Hope your day went as well.

Saturday, April 07, 2007

Half way thru the weekend

Grump is watching "The Ten Commandments" on TV. Spouse is snuggled in bed for the last hour and a half.

I'm beginning to think about tomorrow. We traditionally go to the Sister-in-laws for easter and won't be breaking that tomorrow. There will be enough time to attend Sacrament meeting first.

A hat tip to This Guy for putting it in all in prospective,

I bet that wood was hard.
I bet the nails hurt.

Thursday, April 05, 2007

Not sure

..........this guy is right, but at least he's putting forth ideas with a little reason behind them.

Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.

I don't remember who said that.........but it sure applies today.

If you're able.........

Go over to livey’s and do a good deed. I guarantee you'll feel good about it. If not blame it on me and do it anyway.

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

She is...........

...............In fact.......

A 1998 Jaguar XJ 8 L .




I really need a good name for her.

Tuesday, April 03, 2007

There is a reason.........

........for my only occasionally ranting about politics.

I believe that the group of politicians on both the right and left side of the congressional isle have, since Regan, and many before him, consciously and deliberately sold this country down the river to the highest bidder.

If you can give me good reasoned argument against that position, I'd be glad to hear it and consider your argument. In civil discourse, as that is the only way worthy of civilized beings. Of course you'd have to remember that I'm only half civilized and only marginally sane.

I read an article about one of my Heroes this afternoon. I'd be gratified if you would go Here and read it also. It's not that long.

Comments welcome. You don't have to of course, but an idea of how many actually go and read it would be nice.

Monday, April 02, 2007

English Mistressess .......

.......I've had two.

Not too bad for an introverted redneck country boy, I'd say.

There's just something about them that draws you in. Kinda like funnel cake at the county fair. Or the barker shouting "Come see the girl born with no body, only a head".

I remember the first, in my youth. As a young Army officer, freshly come from the killing fields, to the airfields of Germany. She drew me in with her beauty. The sleek lines of her body, her clothes.... colors molded almost closer than skin to her. As alluring as a breath of fresh air to a drowning man. And I tried drowning myself within her. With her I lived out my fantasies. I was 007, Errol Flynn, Alexander the Great, conqueror of all I surveyed. With her I could go anywhere, do anything. I was her first. Sadly.... not to be her last, for when I returned to the States she wouldn't come with me. It preys on my mind at times that she didn't come. I see her in my minds eye, as fresh, as alluring, as lithe as in my youth, for in my mind she never grows old.

And now I have another...

...Older, I'm not her first, nor she mine...

She came to me from a failed relationship....bruised, bearing her scars of abuse at the hands of those who did not respect her... her lineage, her heritage, her subtle grace and beauty.

Still, holding her head high, she asks for no quarter from anyone. She pulled me to her, casually, almost off handedly. As if to say.. 'will you be worthy of me'? And I try. I ply her with rich vintages. I buy her salves and unguents for her body and the scars which, while she doesn't try to hide them, she turns so as to mask them from the stares of gawkers and the illiterate who would point and not understand. And she seems grateful that I understand and am patient with her.

Heavier than the first in my youth, she is still graceful. Hiding the strength within her, she moves with that rare combination of agility and speed which surprises those who have not experienced her kind. When I enter her, at my pleasure, she moves to accommodate me, remembering my preferences, my likes, so that each time, while new, the same, for I am older now, and set in my ways. Yet when stroked just so, she growls and moves almost more quickly than I can adjust to... leaping, rushing to the finish. And so we complement each other... each bringing to the relationship seemingly what the other needs at this time in our lives. A little excitement, a little danger...... and a little, much needed, stability.

She is.................