Tears of the Sun

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Just watched Tears of the Sun on DVD for the umpteenth time. We got a "new to us" JVC 55 inch TV for $150.00 Saturday. Moved the old 36 in. in to the old grumps room. The funny thing is that both of these sets came from the same guy. First he gave up the 36 in. because he was getting the bigger set. Now he's upgraded to a 62 in. plasma flat panel TV. Can hardly wait till he gets a full wall theater sized TV.

Perfect timing for the dish network to give out for a couple of days, hence the DVD.

All ways get a good feeling after watching this movie. It stars Demi Moore's ex husband, Bruce Willis. The funny thing is that I know there are really people like that serving in our armed forces. And that's a good thing and I'm really thankful that they are there.

Pray for their safety and protection. I will.

Bushed!!

No, I haven't been assaulted by the President, or anyone else for that matter.

It's just that in a 14 hour day I drove 400 miles, had 5 business meetings ranging from 10 minutes to just short of an hour.

I think I'm going to have myself a sticky bun, with a glass of milk, lick the sticky off my fingers and go to bed, where I'll put on my breathing mask and have dreams of flying a P-51 over the fatherland on the lookout for Stuka’s's or ME bf 109’s.

Thinks I hate

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Things I hate include, but are not limited to,

1. Bureaucrats who forget that they exist to serve the PEOPLE of this country.
2. Politicians who forget that they are supposed to serve.......(see above)
3. Lawyers who work to get around the guarantees and protections of the Constitution and Bill of Rights of The United States.
4. Bankers who feed us bullshit and keep us in the dark about the fact that our current money (Federal Reserve Notes) is backed by nothing and has no intrinsic value whatsoever.
5. AND ALL OTHER BOTTOM FEEDING SCUM SUCKERS WHO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF ALL THE ABOVE.

Having cleared my spleen of that, I'm of the firm opinion that if we as individuals would help one another like we are supposed to. I mean really care for one another, there would be much less want in this country.

My friend, The Lovely Livey, is in need of some new wheels. Or at least newer than falling apart around her ears old.

I propose a raising Livey a newer vehicle fund. Not many people read me, but if the idea was passed along, who knows what might happen.

Check out her blog, iffen you don't like her you don't ever have to visit again.

It'll be interesting to see where this all leads.

Or am I a Pollyanna in the Kudzu?

Does anybody know...

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.....anything about silver plate flatware?

I picked up a partial set of National Silver Co. AA Plus spoons, forks, knives plus a few other pieces from another maker today?




Have I found anything, or did I waste my money?
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Look into the light.

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That's supposedly what they'll tell you when you're having laser vision correction done.

Went to a short seminar tonight to see what the procedure consists of and how much the cost might be. I'm tired of getting a new eyeglass prescription and 2 months later my eyes have changed so that one eye is fine and the other is starting to blur or feel like it can't keep up with the other.

I can remember when one of my sisters got contact lenses and the doctor couldn't fit them in his office because she became hysterical when anybody got close to her eyes, then she got one in at home and immediately it worked it's way to the top of her eyeball and mama and I had to hold her down to get it out. Sorry Sis. I know how you feel about anybody fooling with your eyes. I'm the same way. When they had to measure the pressure on our eyeballs in the army I wanted them to give me Valium or let me get drunk first. I hated that shit!

Nowadays the ophthalmologist uses machines to map your eyeballs and vision. The results are input to a computer which plots exactly what needs to be done to give you better than perfect vision. All the doctor has to do is keep you calm with drugs and eye numbing drops and talk you through the procedure which expensive machines do in less time than it takes to tell about it.

At $2500.00 per eye, each one of which is completed in less than a minute, they can afford to have a couple of half million dollar machines and a host of cute female assistants hustle you in and out like cars on an assembly line.

All that medical stuff on Star Trek in the 60's is almost here. I'm just looking forward to the day when they can transplant brains like McCoy did to Spock. About the time I'm drooling and trying to remember how to put on my pants they can just scoop mine out and replace it with some jock's that couldn't keep his foot off the accelerator and tried to make it around Dead man's Curve.

We Got Some Rain!!!!!!!

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Hooray, Hooray!!! we got some rain early this morning while I slept. About 3/4's of an inch according to the rain gauge on the oak stump.

Yesterday while we were expecting rain I cut one of the downspouts and routed it into a 350 gallon tank. When I looked out this morning it was nearly full. Over 300 gallons from just one downspout.. Had I had 3 other tanks as I plan to, I would have about 1000 gallons of free water to water the yard, flowers, even put in a small goldfish pond if I were so inclined.

Makes one think of all the abundance that we just ignore at our peril. Cities are feuding over water around here. Seems that if the government wanted to do something constructive they would build more public lakes, even smallish ones, for the times of need.

Didn't some wise ruler once save Egypt by storing up for the lean times?

I'm no greenie, in fact I find most of them sorta foolish whining about why the government doesn't do something, when if they would only do something themselves they would accomplish more good.

We were supposed to get rain

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It would be an answer to lots of prayers here abouts. I went through a couple of years drought back when dairy farming, and it was bad. I didn't think we were going to survive for a while. We had to buy hay from Wisconsin at what we thought were outrageous prices. But we made it.

This drought is much worse. Total outdoor watering bans in most of the surrounding counties.

An eternal optimist, I plowed and seeded my yard last weekend.

It looked like rain this morning. I worried that Home Depot wouldn't be able to bring out my building supplies. All we had was dust.

I started me a small storage and shop building just after lunch.

Before picture:




By supper time:





And the morning and the afternoon were the first day.

It took them long enough.

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To confirm what Carl Sagan told us 20 years ago.

The speed of light is 186,282 miles per second in a vacuum. I've never been in a vacuum, but, I was once in an altitude chamber with the air sucked out to simulate being at over 40,000 ft above sea level. Then we took our oxygen masks off to see if we could tell when we noticed anything like passing out.


I was doing real well up to about the 4 minute mark when they told me to put the mask back on. I heard the words, I knew what they meant, but I was incapable of acting on what I knew and was told. Thankfully the government doesn't like to let all that money they spent on junior birdmen go to waste, and they put my mask on for me..

If aliens ever suck all the oxygen out of our atmosphere, we'll just quietly keel over dead thinking everything is hunky-dory as our lungs keep expanding and contracting until the brain shuts down for good.

But back to this article. Apparently anytime we look up in the sky we are looking at the past. The more distant the object the further in the past we're looking. If we find Proxima Centauri in a telescope we see light beamed earthward over 4 years ago.

Some say that pictures from the Hubble Telescope show galaxies 15 billion light years ago. Are they still there? If we could travel faster than light would we arrive where they are supposed to be, to find only rubble, the results of inter-galactic warfare perhaps?

Einstein's theories supposedly tell us we'll never be able to break the light barrier. I prefer to think that anything the mind of man can conceive, man can achieve someday.

Does this contradict what bible believers think, that the earth is only 6000 years or so old? It always strikes me as a little arrogant for anyone to claim to know the mind and will of God in as much as it relates to his purpose for us. If intelligence is the glory of God, shouldn't we best be trying to obtains as much of intelligence as possible? It strikes me as a little demeaning to think that an intelligent creator would want us to sit around on clouds singing hosannas for eternity, or to never discover how to travel to the farthest reaches of space one day.

Or should I pull the Kudzu up over my head in an effort to hide from his wrath?

Lord........what fools .........

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........we mortals be.

We have enough food to make the majority of us, if not obese, at least with a more than healthy layer of fat stored. We spend energy like it is de-valued instead of costing more every day.. We work overtime to the ruin of our health...... and families. We have at our disposal a wealth of time and effort saving appliances, and want more.

We're like the squirrel running out every limb of the hickory tree in the yard to make sure there isn't another nut that hasn't been checked.

Makes me wish sometimes to be a hawk, floating on the updrafts and currents, dipping and rolling with the pure pleasure of being alive to witness all that can be seen.

What will we see..........when we look back???

Change in the weather

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OK, OK, I know that I complain about every thing, but this mornings cooler weather has me drawing up and thinking about maybe a long sleeved shirt.

As a true blue son of the South, it takes my patrician blood a little longer to adjust to cold snaps than I'd like. A nice 75 degrees year round would be much more to my liking. Where's Noble Peace Prize winner Al Gore's vaunted global warming now?

You just know that the Noble Prize committee lost what very little credibility they had left when they hung that medal around his neck. About as much credibility as Britteny Spears winning Mother of the Year.

Old Alfred Noble's guilt for inventing Dynamite all those years ago has carried down through the years, causing great peals of laughter to ring out from thinking individuals around the world whenever they call someone like Jimmuh Carter, Arafat, or Algore deserving of that award.

Shivering like a dog passing razor blades here in 48 degree weather. Whatta wuss.

Just a little too DAMNED close

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We've been mighty dry in these parts folks. So much so that we're under a stage four or five watering ban. Which means that we're not supposed to wash our trucks or water our lawns at all. Course there may be exceptions if you have the money to have new landscaping put in. (for a 30 day period)

So it was with a grateful heart that I saw the clouds begin to build in the sky on my way home this afternoon. Even went through a couple of showers just north of town. They seemed to be moving closer to home as I arrived. They held off long enough for me to get into the house and settle down a little then started a nice slow sprinkle while I was in the back yard, which caused me to give a little prayer of thanks and welcome.

Just before supper I was sitting here looking out the window and wishing I had had time to unload the back of the truck, when KABLOOOWY right out in the yard a huge bolt of lightning cracked across the window with instantaneous thunder.

Seconds later I saw a cloud of red oak leaves fall to the ground and my tightened throat managed to croak out, "Shit, that hit something". Never let it be said that I am at a loss for words in a crisis situation.

I've never been personally struck by lightning, but, I have seen the destructive force that it possesses, having had cattle killed, equipment ruined and a quarter mile of barbed wire fence vaporized. I know enough to get in out of the rain and especially thunderstorms.

This was a relatively light strike as these things go. But consider that the following pictures are of a tree only 75 feet or so from where I was sitting.





Glad I wasn't out walking the dog. Needless to say he was looking for places to hide in the house and none of them were suiting him, so he was trotting around in circles, panting like a race horse.

Hope the tree doesn't die. Will know by next spring I suppose.

How old

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were you, when you realized you can barely change yourself, much less the world.

Fade to black.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aNuyNk8nro

We think that it cannot happen again.

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WARNING; NSFW OR THE SQUEAMISH


But history has always taught at least one thing.

Those who do not learn from it, make a great mistake that will inexorably lead to it's repeating.

Pamela has posted a Hitchcock Film suppressed for two generations.

Does it apply today?

It does if we allow the enemy to gain the strength and authority that the Nazi's possessed.

Evil triumphs, when good men do nothing to prevent. Thanks God for our GOOD men and women.

WARNING; NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART. DO NOT WATCH IF YOU DON'T WANT TO CONFRONT THE DEMONS THAT LURK WITHIN US ALL.

It's Good to Know.........

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........That there are men and women like this
With all the blather about politics and war, evil doings, foot tapping Senators, kneeling interns, and which celeb is in rehab this week, showing off their shaved pudenda, or putting their big foot in their mouth, it's nice to celebrate determination, commitment and a drive to succeed at a task one sets for themselves.

It's too easy to dwell on the inane and senseless things of the world. Far better to think about the inspiring and noble things.

When all children think about is how their going to be the next NBA, or MLB superstar, or want to emulate the latest Hip-hop rapper or winner of American Idol and obtain wealth and ease with little or no effort to increase their intellect or the size of their dreams, we lose something that might have been.

How much better to seek to enrich and en-noble and leave, for a little while, the base and mundane.

Just my view from the Kudzu.

A train wreck once started

"A train wreck once started goes to completion.

And the policeman cometh. He cannot, I think, be stopped. The abolitions of the Bill of Rights, the ever increasing surveillance, the diminished recourse of citizens against the government—these are not business as usual. They have happened before, in bits and pieces, but now they become respectable. The CIA has always tortured people and the FBI has always engaged in illegal phone-tapping and political persecution. Yet in the past they didn’t want to be caught because consequences might follow. These are now federal policy, openly admitted. The government keeps records of the books you read in the airport. This is something different.

And it can’t be stopped. Actually it is wild and fun when viewed as entertainment. What a show: The United States is close to one-man rule. Congress is complicit, the Supreme Court a nursing home. No serious opposition exists. If Bush leaves office in 2008, the incoming president will continue the trends of today. The effects begin to show. People grow ever more docile, accustomed to intimidation, to searches without cause. Several writers of my acquaintance no longer question federal policy. They are afraid.

And we are going to see this show through to the end. In a dismal way it is funnier than Oprah."


I hope He doesn't go away for good, but if he does I understand. I feel much the same myself. Only I don't have the wherewithal to move to Mexico. Although if I could it would probably be Argentina.

Seems like we already tried this once.

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As a son of the South, and having read somewhat more history than most of the great unwashed out here, I find my sympathies residing with the confederacy in the War between the States. Give the times and circumstances, and the knowledge that this country was a Union of Individual States, it seems reasonable that if compromise could not be reached a separation of that union should have been possible.

Despite that I'm glad that Union was maintained. We are a better country together than we would be as individuals separated.

With the increasing encroachment of government into every part and particle of our lives today I do not agree. We lose much when we try to shoehorn every person into a homogeneous mass all thinking, acting and marching in step with the orders of folk who have forgotten they were once us.

So while I have removed myself from the dictates of government to the limited extent that I am able, I find myself almost hopeful that these groups of dreamers meet with some success. If only to cause some few to rouse themselves from their NFL, WWF, look for the weekend to Parrrr..Tay opiated dreams.

Home from War

SAFE
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Breakfast of Champions

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Damn the cholesterol, bring it on.

Hot biscuits, Country ham, sorghum syrup and apple butter. Not homemade apple butter but good nonetheless.

Oh boy.......or girl

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Watching the granddaughter this week while parents on Pronghorn hunt. Picked her up from day care yesterday.

Crabby doesn't begin to describe it. would not sleep with out someone holding her. Finally put her in bed with me around 1:00 this morning where she slept till 6:00.

Worse today. Found sores on her mouth, which pain her very much. Doctor visit this afternoon if her grandmother and I survive. We will. Right now she is finally eating some cream of mushroom soup. Seems to feel a little better with a little something in her tummy.