Eighty-eight and six tenths percent pure

That was the result of the assay on the Alaskan Gold.

About what we were hoping for.....maybe a little less. Still not too bad considering I've seen lower results down in the 70% range.

The young man I got it from (well, young to me, anybody aged 69 who will wrestle a 5 inch dredge in the cold waters of an Alaskan river, wearing a heated wet suit and weighted belt to enable him to suck through 12 feet of over burden to get down to the bedrock, gets to be called young. No fat on he, looked friendly enough but from the looks of his hands and arms not someone I'd be arm wrestling anytime soon) drives up every summer in his Ford 4-door flatbed pulling a camping trailer, accompanied by his girlfriend, to live out in the wilderness, far from tv and cellphones. Now that would have to be an adventure. To come back with any gold would be just icing on the cake in my NSHO.

The older I get the more things I add to the nebulous dreamy sort of wishing things I'd like to try.

Civilization and society......work and all the things necessary to put the necessities on the table for a family can put off any dreams of getting into a hot air balloon and dashing around the world in 80 days.

Still I'm not sure when you reach the point where you start saying it's too late for any of those things you want to do. Depends on what you are willing to do to reach those stars, I guess.

Maybe I'll start looking in my scrap metal pile to see what I have that will work on my personal moon rocket.

What's your dream? Hmmmmmmmm?

Old Time Country Wisdom

Guy over at Charming just Charming sorta squirted oil in amongst the two brain cells in my noggin and got 'em rubbing up against one another and I tried to comment on his post.

Unfortunately for reasons unknown to me, as I'm no computer expert, I was unable to, but he always has something that makes me think in his blog.

He's giving thought to quitting this mental masturbatory mastication, and if he does, while not slowing the turning of the earth around the sun one whit, it will seem to dim the blog-o-sphere for a while to me.

So I'll put my comment here and chew over it for a while.

Ol' Hank spoke truly when he sang, "no matter how we struggle and strive, we never get out of this world alive".

But perhaps the struggle and strive is the purpose of it all. We all get our chance to choose, and those chances and choices determine our paths, for we all walk many paths, not all of which lead to our destination, but perhaps.....preparing us for it.. Or not. Therein lies the mystery. Many there are who claim to know where they are going. I'm just trying to figure out where I'm at.



Do those strivings and struggles determine more than where we are as our finale breath is given back to the universe?

Guess we'll see........each in their own time.

Whatta you think?

UPDATE on the Pooch

We got word from the Vet today that the pooch's knot on the side is benign (as in not malignant).
This is great news as the wife would never let me put him down the old fashioned way and doggie cancer treatment is as expensive as human treatment.
(And NO I have no intention of preforming any such deed on the pooch, although I would if necessary and feel no guilt, only an immense sadness. I have done the deed many times; all necessary and all distasteful, no matter the necessity. Who decides... I do. Didn't you watch Ol' Yeller?)

They say a Dog

.
...will love you even when you kick it.

That may be true, although I haven't kicked one lately, I have been guilty of speaking sternly and even running my dog Gracie off when she wants to be petted and scratched when she becomes annoying or I'm trying to get something else done.

Still when I walk into the back yard she will come flying up to me, bouncing and flouncing, her ears flopping and her bi-colored eyes (one blue, one brown) a-sparkle; to all appearances totally happy to see me and desirous of only being close to me. If I try to shoo her off, she'll wrinkle her nose and pull her lips away from her teeth to show me she's submissive to me, but still wants to be invited closer and petted. Only a deepening of my voice and a stern NO! or Go Away! will convince her to leave off trying to cadge a pet or belly rub.

The wife's dog on the other hand is a little less demonstrative, certainly towards me, as she is the person he's chosen to give his total affection to.

Oh, he'll want me to scratch his back or rub his fat tummy, and if I sit too long here in front of the computer in the evening while he and the wife are watching TV, he'll come in here and give a little growl indicating I'm to follow him, and if I do he'll lead me to the living room and jump up on the couch beside his mistress and watch for me to sit by him.

Not between him and her, by any means. If I do he'll climb over me and get between us. He simply considers me a part of his pack and when it gets along towards bed time he wants everyone together.

For about a week or a little more we have noticed a small knot on one of his left ribs. In the last couple of days it has grown a little larger.

This morning the wife carried him to the Vet. In a couple of days, hopefully, we'll get some word on what might be the problem. I've included him in a couple of heartfelt prayers. Hope someone is listening.



Meanwhile, whenever the wife leaves and he doesn't get to go, he'll sit or stand on the stool by the front window, watching and waiting for her return, whereupon he'll greet her as Gracie greets me.



Some might say they only love us because we feed them.

I'm not convinced

Ah hab a code in my node.

And it's aggra-damn-vating. Starting on the third day of dribblin; and snifflin' my nose is so raw from snortin' and blowin' that I have a blood blister on the end almost. Can't take much more of this.....I needs me some warm weather and a little brown sin-yo-rita with a case of Puff's Plus; somewhere with sunny beaches and lots of diet green tea.

Cold.....well cold for here.....stayed below freezing 'til nearly noon and the wind was snapping flags straight out and giving sharp little pops ever now and then when a particularly strong gust would come by. I was giving serious thought to putting a few cement blocks up on the polyethylene shelter I work under.

Not having a long scarf like my more northern cousins I grabbed an 18 inch long piece of jersey jacket sleeve to put over my nose, holding it in place with the hood of my jacket snugged tightly down and tied below my double chins so I could re-breathe warmer air to avoid the pain from my raw nostrils and sinus cavities.
Woulda been a good day to sleep before a Fisher brand woodstove
I'm just hoping these Tylenol Sinus Congestion and Pain tablets start to work before I turn in.

Gonna meet a lady and her partner from Alaska tomorrow who are bringing down some Alaskan Gold for me to assay. Generally not as pure as what we have here in North GA, but it'll be fun for the exercise. Maybe not as much fun as living in Palin Country during the summer and running a dredge in the creeks and streams, but then I don't have to move south for the winter either.

I've a couple of friends from Central America (one from El Salvador near Metapan and the other from Mexico City but with a farm northeast of Acapulco) who want to make a trip with me to their countries to seek out places to pan or dredge for gold. A little nervous though about getting out in the boonies and maybe tripping over some drug lord's pot field. Picks and shovels are only good for storming Frankenstein Castle and not going up against people with a more valuable commodity to protect.

Still it might be fun to go and see the sights, and if done in the wintertime the warm climes would be nice.

Global Warming Update.

Breaking news......

The local version of Global Warming has dumped a measured 4 1/2 inches of the frozen kind on the ground and decks around the KG (Kudzu Grotto).

All outdoor activities of any kind are forbidden, unless, of course, the pooch needs to go tinkle on a bush, until after I've awakened and had a yard egg or two in the AM tomorrow.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled Friday night activities.

Here comes the Snow

While those of you living farther North or West of here have already said that, whether with joy or disgust, we in the upper Piedmont of East Georgia have only just started getting some of the forecast 3 to 5 inches of the rain of a frozen kind. It started maybe 30 minutes ago and has steadily increased in intensity every since.

It has been cold enough for it to stick to the cars, trees and grass all day and I'm sure as nightly steadily approaches we'll see it sticking to the highways and byways soon. The afternoon and evening newscast will be filled with idiots outside talking about all the snow up over their shoe soles and the finder-benders happening on I-285 around Atlanta.

As for me, the wife and ol' Grump.....we're stocked up on propane, heaters and a new camping grill in case the power goes out as it did last year. Of course then we got an honest 9 inches and were without power for 3 1/2 days..

The only thing I'm really concerned about is the polyethylene covered shelter where I work in the back of the lot. Last year saw many of them collapsed as the thin metal poles holing up the roof gave way to the inexorable weight piled upon them. I intend to keep close vigilance until midnight when this stuff is supposed to quit, and keep the snow brushed off.

One good thing about all the frozen parts of the world these days.......it has quietened considerable the eco-moonbats who have been barking about AGW (global warming) and driven that shithead Al Gore into the deeper recesses of his multi-million $, resource wasting mansion up in Tennessee. If it freezes him in for the rest of my life and I never have to see or hear him again it will be too soon.

Well, I thought I might be able to post something without getting snarky about some politician or other. Guess I was aiming a little too high.

You all keep warm and drink lots of hot chocolate....add a few of those little marshmallows if you got 'em.

Just go Here and read.

H/T to Yabu

Can't

...bring my self to do it.

It's getting along time of the day to avail myself of various medications supplied by all you wonderful taxpayers out there. As a recipient of assorted and sundry services from the VA in return for my not going postal all over the place I can understand the frustrations sometimes (very occasionally, I'm sure) provoked by having to deal with over-paid, and overly anxious not to have to do any kind of actual work for said over-payment, federal, state or local bureaucratic time waster appointed to deal with all us lower class citizens who come hat-in-hand expecting to receive what some other %#@&*! (sorry words fail me here, apply your favorite word for above said bureaucrats) has informed us we are entitled to.

In light of the current political climate and a natural upwelling of reasonable and rational people against it I can understand somewhat the discomfiture of my friend Fred down in what should by now be our 51st state.

Is it any wonder that ammo of most calibers and guages is disappearing from WalMart shelves nearly as fast as they put it up?

You can only push a person so far before they begin to push back.

Can't what? Can't bring myself to type the word for the embassy employee in Guadalajara that sprang unbidden into my mind. But you could change a couple letters in the title above.

What are your Rights?

With all of 7 lookers on a good day it avails me not at all to waste my time trying to explain anything.

But if you want to link over to Left Coast Rebel you can listen to the man on the video for a couple minutes and if you want more follow the link in the post.

If not, it will not affect me in any way; unless you try to stop my exercise of mine.

Inexcusable Omissions

It's said that there are two types of sin.......the acts of commission...and the acts of omission.

Sad to say I have been, and still am, guilty of both.

But there is no excusing the sin of omission I've been committing since the last update of my links in the side bar.

Hopefully with the addition of Paladin of The Reluctant Paladin as well as the beauteous as well as talented Joan of Primordial Slack my cries of mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maximus culpa will be slightly more believable.

Go forth and worship at their alters.

The end of another week

Another week of almost no postings (one on Sunday) and none worthy of comment.

A week of one nice day where the temp was 50's with sunshine and the rest progressively worse until today it's mid-thirties with cold, miserable rain that make the bones ache and runs you back inside pretty quickly.

I've been out twice for a few minutes and Gracie, the dog that loves me, wouldn't even venture out of her pooch mansion on the shop porch, a straw filled barrel with a gunny sack hung over the front for a door except to slip her head out when I stepped up on the porch. I gave her a quick pat and said, "good girl, stay there, you've more sense than I have".

I started the Au precipitating, covered it over and sloshed through the muddy rain soaked yard back to the house. I'd check the news sites on this here interweb but don't want to ruin a perfectly good keyboard by upchucking on another one.

One good bit of international commerce this morning. The Antique Bicycle lamp I had for sale on eBay with 4 people emailing me from Spain, Netherlands, England and Germany was won by a thrifty New Hampshire bidder.

See http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110487272357&ssPageName=STRK:MESOX:IT

The friend I listed it for will be very happy as am I.

Now I have to decide whether to refine the gold head off the walking stick I bought from him yesterday (made in 1900) or try to sell it on eBay.



Don't you think I'd look like Fred Astaire if I had on my Top Hat and Tails? His hair was a little thin on top also if I remember right.

Maybe I'd better cover my hair also:



Just Damn, the life of an itinerant junk buyer.