The Killer........

.
......and Bluebirds



Damn, he makes it look easy.

Have you ever been Visited........

.
.......by a Spirit being, ghost, angel or heavenly messenger?

I have. Many years ago....only a couple hours after midnight, early on a Thursday morning, I awoke to find myself sitting upright in bed, my wife sound asleep to my right side, looking at a person standing at the foot of my bed.

There was no light on in the room, yet I could see him clearly....at least from about his waist up.

We talked, yet no words were spoken. He gave me a message and some answers to questions I'd been having.

No fear, no astonishment, just a calm feeling as if we were old friends.

And then he was gone, and I sank back into the bed. And as I did, I looked to the clock by the bed to my right. 2:10 AM, four hours till time to get up, and I was once more asleep. Yet woke when the alarm went off with as perfect recall of the event as I have now. It's been over 24 years.

I wondered if there were something he wanted me to do. A little over 10 years later, I related the tale to a new friend and expressed my wondering to him. To my surprise, he turned and looked at me and said, "I know what he wanted".

And he did.

Now I wonder, which was the messenger and which the Angel?

ARE WE ALONE........

.
........in the UNIVERSE.

At least one former astronaut who walked on the moon, says no.

Click HERE, and see what he has to say.

Was I wrong???

The following is a letter I just sent to Barnes & Noble booksellers.

23 July 2008


Leonard Riggio
Founder and Chairman
Barnes & Noble
122 Fifth Avenue, 2nd Floor
New York, NY 10011
e-mail: customerservice@bn.com

Dear Mr. Riggio,

Sir, it is not my custom to complain or get upset with the policies of the establishments with which I do business. But tonight I found an example of poor customer service in one of your stores which will influence me in the choice of book sellers which I frequent for a long time to come.

Briefly, I entered you store in Athens, Georgia this evening with the intention of buying a couple of books for my reading enjoyment. My needs are simple……I either buy novels of mystery or science fiction with a goodly helping of financial and investment advice books. My intention was to buy a couple ;of fiction novels for myself, and the book ‘Richest Man in Babylon’ for my grandson, whose 16th birthday is coming up, and I wanted a primer on wise money management to guide him into his early adulthood.

On one of the racks near the front of the store I came across books with the label

Buy 2
Get one free*
*of equal or lesser value

affixed to the front cover.

Knowing a good deal when I see one, I picked two fiction novels out for myself and proceeded to go and find the book for my grandson.
Two of the books were marked $7.99 and one was marked $6.99.

Feeling that I had satisfied the requirement of the label, there being nothing to indicate otherwise, either on the books themselves, or the stand on which they were displayed, I proceeded to the check out counter where I was informed, first by the clerk, and then by the manager, that my understanding of the English language was faulty and the label, cited above, did not mean I could buy 2 books and get one free, as long as it was of equal or lesser value, but instead that it applied only to books of that one rack. I pointed out that was not what the label said, and if the policy was different it should have been so indicated.

The Manager, Andrea, according to the name tag on her blouse, assumed the Deer-in-the-headlights look, and replied that I was mistaken.

Knowing that argument was futile, as she had no understanding of the concept of customer service, I left the three books on the counter, and exited the store.

Sir, I will gladly admit that it has been a long time since I last formally studied language and English, since I am 58 years old, a high school graduate with several hours of college credits from the University of Georgia, a veteran of war in service to my country in combat, and a self employed businessman for the last 33 years. But I don’t think the rules of language have changed that much.

I probably have been in that particular bookstore at least 3 times a month for the past two years and on average I probably spend $10 to $30 each time, so realize that I am a very miniscule portion of your yearly sales figures.

But, I must tell you sir, that in the future I will not be a customer of Barnes & Noble.
There are other bookstores in the area and I will avail myself of their services from now on.

I send this letter to you personally and to your customer service center. I will also post on my blog http://redhillkudzu.blogspot.com.

Should you wish to respond, I will also post that response to my blog, in fairness to you and your large corporation.

Sincerely,
A dissatisfied customer.


Name and address
withheld to protect the guilty.

I'll let you know if I have any response.

It's 11:08

in the PM of an almost gone Monday, and I wonder why I'm here at the keyboard again.

We carried the Buick to our favorite mechanic this morning to have a window regulator replaced. (Don't you just love modern conveniences? If it just had regular old fashioned roll up windows this trip wouldn't have been necessary). The good thing was that when we went back to pick it up this afternoon, even though the 1 year warranty expired in May, the mechanic got them to honor it anyway and the cost was only $60 instead of $300.

The bad part was the fact the I and the old grump had to go to his rental trailer to try to find out what was suddenly causing both of the toilets to back up. Thank goodness the line to the septic tank was not far underground and didn't require major excavation. The culprit turned out to be some wire which had somehow gotten flushed down one of the toilets and hung in the line. Not too bad a job considering the temperature in the shade was 100 degrees.

We had a little light show a few minutes ago. Much noise about not so much it turned out. Only a few sprinkles to tease the thirsty ground.

If we didn't live in a subdivision with all the security lights and downtown wasn't only 3 miles away and the clouds weren't above us the night sky might look something like this......



Of course I might have to live in Death Valley where this picture was taken. Make with the clicky_clicky to embiggen.

Stars as numerous as the grains of sand on the seashore. And that's just nearby. There are also Galaxies spinning and whirling, mingling and merging, and it goes on farther than the mind can comprehend..........yet.

What wonders will open up to us in another 2000 years? Or even 200? Makes one long to hang around to see it all.

Well except for the having to listen to presidential candidates pontificate every 4 years.

The economy is the pits

That's what the LLM (left leaning media) tells us every day, about 728 times a day.

Go ahead.......turn on your TV. Turn it to any news channel. Listen less than 10 minutes and I'll bet you that message is given no less than twice and probably more.

Why, from listening to them you would think you would see little pot-bellied skinny legged children with flies swarming around their eyes would be on every street corner.

Now I will admit that I tend to only buy nice sirloin steaks when the price is better than is usual. And the last time I went to Red Lobster was sometime in the Pleistocene
era. Lunches at the local elementary school have risen from .25 cents when I was a kid to who-the-hell-knows-now.

But come oooonnnnnnn..........Check out the 2 good ol' gals in the linked
article and tell me if they couldn't benefit by skipping a couple of meals.

Of course it was reported by NPR...........I'll bet they don't even see the irony.

Let's start the new week off right...........

.
...........maybe give you something to think about while you're packing widgets into those very attractive gift baskets.



I have got to expand my blogroll. There is another world out there to explore.

Friday eyesight test

Can you find the moon in the following picture?




Look harder.

I do believe that this guy understands the Situation

.
Enough!!!

When attacked by a wild animal you don't negotiate or ask what rules it wants to use in the fight. You strike it down without mercy and without remorse. If you are attacked by a pack of wild animals you fight savagely and without restraint until all of them are dead or neutralized. To do otherwise doesn't mean facing ignominious defeat. It means you move down the food chain and become an entrée!



You can go HERE for the rest of a really fine, thoughtful essay.

You could easily substitute the words United States where he uses Israel.

Our leaders invoke the more liberal parts of Sun Tzu’s teaching and ignore the hard realities he also spoke.

Like my Dad would have probably said.........."when there is nut cutting to be done, just grab, slice and yank". And if I may add......."keep 'em out of the dirt and there is some fine eating to be had".

I just hate it when people write careful, well thought out essays, and my writing is just free association finger tapping.

The Sun

is down now. But, thirty minutes ago you could see it going down between the short leaf pines and scrub oaks (black jacks, post and pin oaks) to the north west of here.

Shining like the proverbial big red ball, you could see a gray band of clouds striping it, as if a child had swiped it with a huge paint brush.

For some reason it took me back damn near 40 years and placed me atop one of he huge 10 ft high, 3 ft thick metal revetment walls filled with sand, grass and weeds struggling to get a toe hold, (only to be ripped out by rotorwash when they got too big) between which we parked our snakes for the night.

From there you could look west over the airfield, across the landing pad for the 18th Surgical hospital, to the mountains west of Mi Loc just NW of which was the notch in the hills that QL1 ran thru and you'd know that vehicle traffic was stopped and troops were in an RON position, possibly with the Vietnamese whores set up in their cardboard box bedrooms taking on all comers (pun not intended).

The sun would set in that notch, much the same as tonight, its blazing light damped to a reddish glow through the haze, fog, and especially dust, of war.

You'd not be able to see them, but just over the horizon would be the rockpile and the razorback, riddled with so many holes and tunnels, from which the enemy would even now be venturing, beginning their nightly trek toward Vandergrif or possibly up the steep hand cut dirt steps which would lead them to the punchbowl north of the mountains rimming Khe Shan, from there to the Ho Chi Minh trail leading them either north or south depending on whatever their orders were.

Some days it'd be the most beautiful place in the world. You had one less day to go.

Funny how just a moment in time can transport you back 70 pounds lighter and sporting a mustache so if you ever made it back to the world you'd have a chance of not getting thrown out of the bar.

Maybe I'm entering my second childhood.

Imagine..........

.
............if your can, that you, yes you, there on the other side of this screen. You a separate, individual person, complete within your skin. You think.....therefore you are. Given life by your parents (also individuals in their own right) coming together whether by intent or happenchance to create within the womb of the female (odd how that happens)(even odder looking if someone else is watching) a new......soon to be separate individual. Some say we are given life and rights by a creator. I'll leave that up to you to argue for or against.

Just imagine for a moment if you, at the end of the pay period, were allowed to keep all of what you had earned for yourself. You after all exchanged seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks or longer for your pay. Would you be willing to give part of it up?? What if it were taken from you by force? You are given no choice in the matter. Or perhaps you were given a choice and choose to keep it, yet others choosing differently overruled your objections.

Would you be resentful? Upset, perhaps?

It happens every day. Under the pretense of organization, regulation, protection, or encouragement, the law takes property from one person and gives it to another; the law takes the wealth of all and gives it to a few — whether farmers, manufacturers, shipowners, artists, or comedians.

Because Law does it, is it right?

Are their mouths moving???

In a previous post I gently expressed my displeasure with certain elements within the governmental system currently holding themselves up before us as governmental units and individuals with those units.

I took all the prescribed medications over an hour ago and hopefully they will have lowered my blood pressure to within acceptable limits and fed the other demons sufficient to keep them from gnawing their way out tonight.

I've taken a shower in as cool water as was bearable, the bull moose pj bottoms cover my lily white, hairy legs and scrawny ass. My purple mug of ice water is near at hand.
.........I'm good to go. Just not too far.

There was a half hour earlier of consternation when I clicked on my home page on the computer and it said it wasn't going to talk to me. At first I though I'd been sabotaged by one of those online virus' that people talk about and spammers try to get you to buy their product to prevent happening. But, in the end I just shut the 'puter down and waited through a re-run of Burn Notice on TV, came back cranked 'er up and all was restored as at first. Thank goodness too, because I'd hate to have the repair geek come by and charge me $75 for clicking a few keys.

I've a quote by ol' Teddy Roosevelt there on the left below an old, old picture of me and our youngest daughter back in my shit stomping, cow titty squeezing days.

Teddy was a good ol' boy of the finest sort if you happened to hop-nob with the wealthy set back about a hundert years ago. Called himself the Bull Moose and went around shouting BULLY at every body. Not sure whether he was insulting folks or just pointing them out so as people would give them a wide berth. But he didn't know the meaning of the word quit and he liked to walk around in tennis shoes with a big stick and all, so he sounds like a right good feller.......even if he was part politician (spit, spit, wipe my fingers on the pj'z for having to type that word).

Anyway, 'cause of my admiration of certain characteristics of the ol' boy (by no means all, I was interested in noting that John McCain is labeling himself as a conservative in the Teddy Roosevelt style.

One quote from him: to whit........

“I believe less governance is the best governance, and that government should not do what the free enterprise and private enterprise and individual entrepreneurship and the states can do, but I also believe there is a role for government,” Mr. McCain said. He added: “Government should take care of those in America who can not take care of themselves.”

especially caught my eye.

Everything was good until the last sentence.

Government should take care of those in America who can not take care of themselves.

I am all for helping my fellow man.....or woman, little children, the infirm, the mentally incompetent......but, I do not need the government to hold a gun to my head and decide for me whom I should help. I'm just not sure that is a proper function of government. I can be as free with my own money, time and efforts as I please or not. Should the government force me to, if I consider the project unworthy?

I think not.

The government, which takes by force of laws,from all of us tiny and not so tiny slices of our lives (we after all trade hours of our lives in exchange for money, whether it be earned by the sweat of our backs, our brains, or our creative efforts), should treat that portion of our lives with the dignity and respect it deserves. After all we each have only a finite supply of minutes within this mortal coil.

Should they spend it on a drug using young woman who continually gets pregnant because she trades the use of certain orifices of her body for money, which she uses to get high again, causing the "government" to have to step in and support her children because she is either not competent to, or simply shuffles off the responsibility to someone, anyone else.

Should we have to pay for the medical costs into the unforeseeable future for a young man, who in a fit of testosterone hands his beer to a friend and says "Watch this" and proceeds to dive into the shallow end of the pool, breaking his neck and severing his spinal cord at the 5th vertebra?

Do we have a responsibility to keep alive every person regardless of the shallowness of their gene pool?

I could go on and on with examples but, you probably tire of reading my drivel along about this time.

So I think I'll go check the back of my eyelids for signs of light leaking through.

I'd seriously like your ideas, if any on this subject. We may not come up with a better solution...........but then, who knows?

Dipshits

Oh, I'm sure I could think of more accurate and precise terms to apply to the policy wonks in our government and intelligence (a pair of oxymoron's if I ever heard one)
community.

I hold anybody who thinks of themselves as a politician, wants to be a politician, depends on politicians, works for a politician, thinks that when we vote we are voting for politicians to act in our best interests, works for the government (with the exceptions of those soldiers who aren't politicians) and any bureaucratic agency of the government (including 98% of all so called educators in the public school systems), as dipshits or worse if you can think of a better expletive.

Read this and let me know what you think. And I'm serious..........I'd like to know your reaction......even those lurkers who are out there who never comment.

I thought I was wrong once, but was mistaken. Exception for spelling and grammar which SWG corrects from time to time. With my thanks.

New Day

Whatta day.

Soon the medications will kick in and I'll be feeling mellow again.

The day was spent with my Grandson (age 8) and I (he and his older sister spending the night last night), gathering up all the accouterments of a traveling junk buyer, loading them all into the truck and setting out.

First stop Monroe, GA.

Now if any of you have or have had an 8 year old boy along with you for a ride, you'll have likely have noticed 2 things............their mouth is either yapping a mile a minute.....or they're asleep because the whine of the tires on the asphalt is like a sleeping pill on them. You just have to get them to stop talking long enough.

We talked of ships and shoes and sealing wax........and the latest bloody violent X-box game he has played. While we were in the shop in Monroe, he wanted me to buy no less than 6 different games and 4 DVD's that I wouldn't watch. (If it looked like there was war or destruction on the cover, he wanted it.)

Then it was off to Gainesville, GA. There to wait for over an hour while the owner picked out stones that mostly weren't worth much. I waited until he had finished and then told him that next time I'd be glad to separate and return to him within 3 or 4 weeks, the next time I paid him a visit. After weighing it out and paying him, I asked to see a ring he'd shown me on 2 previous visits.

An 18kt antique ring set with an approximately 1 carat Rose Cut diamond. (follow the link and scroll down.

The supposed history of this ring (if true) is quite interesting.

About 20 years ago near Dahlonega, Ga. the current (now former) owner was using a backhoe to dig the trench for a septic tank. Noticing a golden sparkle (Dahlonega was the site of the first major US gold rush back in the early 1800's and for a while the home of the Dahlonega Mint who's coins are today some of the most valuable around) he got off the backhoe to investigate and found a group of old Dahlonega gold coins and this ring. 18 kt gold with the stone of course on top. Still in good shape (perhaps as much as 150 years old, the color of the gold is spectacular. The stone has a slight bluish color and looks very clear but there is some dirt or grease behind the stone and it's hard to tell since the back is enclosed. Was it hidden from the blue bellies during the war between the states or just stored away in case of burglars or muglars and forgotten through misfortune or misadventure? If only it could talk.

Hopefully tomorrow, I'll be able to meet with an expert in antique jewelry and get his opinion of worth. He'll likely own it if he wants it enough. I have another antique platinum ring with old mine cut stones I'm sure he will buy.. If not, well then I've got a couple of conversation pieces that will turn quite a few eyes.

After that little stop we found a McDonalds and partook of some of their chicken nuggets, while we motored on over to Toccoa. A friend there runs a small jewelery store and has an attractive assistant (female for those of you who might question which way I swing). We bought some more scrap metal and picked up a few repairs for a friend of my daughter.

Then back home.......listening to an excited little boy tell me all about war and soldiers all the way.

He's been wide open every since we got back about 4:30. I wish I could bottle some of that energy and put it into pill form so I could take one every day. Might have to cut it with Valium so I wouldn't bounce off the walls too much.

And soon to bed......strapped onto the CPAP machine whose soft whine will gently ease me into the arms of Morpheus.

To sleep..........perchance to dream.......

Recently

The Supreme Court of the land rendered the Correct Decision on whether the 2 Amendment to the Constitution gives individuals the right to keep and bear arms.

But don't start cheering too loudly..............especially in this day of CCTV camera coverage of damn near anywhere you want to go. You never can tell whose data base you are in.

I mean come on.............5 to 4 in favor. Has anybody checked the brain function of the dissenting 4 judges. You can be kept alive almost indefinitely by machines but you need some brain activity to keep them from pulling the plug right after the harvested your sphincter to keep some old guy from shitting on himself. That's the problem with lawyers...........they'll twist even the plainest wording to suit their client or own point of view.

In my opinion there can be no mistaking the intention of the founding fathers if you can read on at least a 5th grade level.

My own feelings are along the lines of Charlton Heston.

"You can have my gun when you pry it from my cold dead hand"

Not that I have any of those evil instruments of destruction and mayhem.

So acting in accordance with 5 of the justices, today I went and looked at a couple of items that may be banned forever by the future court if the dimocrits have their way.

First off a Marling Golden 39A .22 cal lever action described by some as one of the best of it's kind.

Golden 39 A

Next a Chinese SKS in 7.62 X 39 mm

SKS

Originally I'd gone looking at about 8 items but the party wouldn't come off the very high price for mainly pedestrian shotguns and rifles so I countered back by asking what they'd take for these two. They really were the two best items, although clearly the guy didn't know it. So if I had bought them I'd have gotten a deal. But of course I don't own any fire arms. That would be just too politically incorrect, even for me.

Tree rats......... and other type of vermin............look out.

DAMN

.
Just DAMN.

Ya'll say a prayer for his wife and kid and parents. He's finally safe.

Priorities

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Whether misplaced or not can have a huge impact on, not only our lives, but those around us.

Too much emphasis on work, for instance, can lead to the alienation of affections of our spouses and children. It might get us high marks from our employers.........but not so much from a higher judge.

Some say 'judge not, lest you be judged'. And that is the final word. Others interpret the same words as 'judge not unrighteous judgment, lest the same judgment will judge you'. I think most of us want mercy rather than judgment............even if we are not so quick to grant the same to others.

Whence cometh this bout of naval gazing, you might ask? Where indeed? sayest I.

Perhaps from Here.

Leona Helmsley had certainly been judged by others and found wanting. Enough so that she was incarcerated to teach her a lesson. Whether it changed her mind about people I can't say. But, it seemed she at least loved her dog. To my way of thinking that gives her at least a few points on the positive side of the scoreboard.

I have no idea how her family and relatives saw her. Possibly simply as a source of money when she kicked the proverbial bucket...........possibly they truly grieved as children and grandchildren. I'll bet you one thing though...........I'll bet that her favorite dog considered her it's favorite human. And grieved when the realization that she wasn't coming back set in.

My Dalmatian bitch doesn't care that I don't always speak kindly to her when I'm preoccupied with other matters...........she just eats it up when I'll take the time to sit on the steps and stroke her head and ears and speak softly to her. If I forget to take the dog crunchies out to her in the evening, she greets me just as joyfully the next morning. When I'm feeling put upon, she'll always come running up to me with a doggie smile on her face. And will climb up in my lap if I let her, just so I know she likes to be around me.

It seems that Gracie always has her priorities in order.........even when I don't.

And that's all I've got to say about that.

In Spite of all

.
In spite of all the ranting and raving coming out through my fingertips here, one fact remains..........

I love this country and all it stands for. We may have the most venal politicians money can buy and one of the largest populations of goof balls on the planet up there in the Asylum on the Potomac, but...........the country is greater than that.

Despite what the LLM (left leaning media) would have you believe about how decadent and evil we are......................thousands perhaps millions of people risk their health, their fortune, their lives to reach this oasis of freedom in a world increasingly at odds with freedom.

Today was much as any other day, here at the kudzu grotto.

Well, if you discount the fact that I made a pot of my special secret, (have to kill you if I give you the recipe) Chili. It was as wonderful as all the other times I've made it. Had a bowl for lunch. Froze 2 quarts and put another bowl in the fridge for later.

We had a few thundershowers move through this afternoon late.......then slacked off and stopped just in time for me to light up the grill and singe 2 nice sirloin steaks for me and the old grump. (the spousal unit and children down at the SIL's pool. I of course don't go as I am officially on the do not call list around here.

Over a lb. of medium rare cow will go a long way towards satisfying even the appetite of a glutton like myself. With a small baked potato topped with real butter and salted and peppered to taste I am good to go. Feeling all stuffed and willing to wish even the democrits a happy 4th of July. ( they don't like it when you keep referring to anything having to do with Independence).

Enjoy for a few moments one of the classic Independence day musical numbers.



If that doesn't get your heart to thumping, your shoulders thrown back and your feet to tapping (mine want to stomp up and down the hall), there may be no hope for you.

You others..............God Bless America.

Well now, isn't this just............

.
................Special

Some female thinks that if she has her tits cut off and takes hormones so as to have a little beard, she can call herself a man and declare that a 'man' had a baby.

Listen to me twat I've seen real women with more of a beard and they are some of the sexiest women alive. If you think that you are special because you had a baby through your altogether female organs and that doesn't make you a woman, you're living in the dream world that the pussyfied media has cooked up for you.

Why do they put so much importance on this screwed up person. Most of us could care less that you and your other female 'life partner' are going to be given the opportunity to screw up this child's life. And if you don't, by some miricle, the credit will go to the child for being able to see past your bullshit.

I guess you consider this some kind of independence day for you.

How I wish we could declare independence from stupidity.

Independence Day

It's a good thing that I haven't tried too hard to come up with an appropriate post for the morrow.

LL has beaten me to it and done a much better job than I. Go over there and read from a woman who loves this country.

So do I, but sometimes it's hard to look past the media and politicians. Are they lying??? Is their mouth moving??