A Small Inconvience

Arriving at home this afternoon after spending most of the late morning and early afternoon pounding the hi and bi-ways searching for shiny stuff to bring back to the nest, I found one of those pink USPS card announcing a package had been mailed to me and for whatever reason the postal carrier, today, after delivering 2 packages on each of the proceeding days the mail ran, decided to not come to the door and get whoever was here, and there were two people here all day, decided not to attempt delivery and instead leave the aforementioned little pink card announcing the (non)attempted delivery and I could instead just hi myself to the local monument to sloth and inefficiency and request it at the counter.

Which I did, after waiting until the local carrier would have had plenty of time to return to the post office.

After waiting only a short time (thanks to the two men ahead of me who were in the process of trussing up a box with duct tape graciously gesturing for me to proceed them) I presented the aforementioned little pink card to the attendant, which action had, hundreds of times in the past, resulted in them checking in the back and momentarily coming forth with the package and delivering it into my hands. Always to a grateful customer who thanked them politely and wished them a good day.

No more.

I was told in no uncertain terms that the package would not be delivered to the front desk before closing time and I could just take myself back where I came from and come back with hands outstretched on the morrow.

No offer, as in the past, to check in the back, no acknowledgment of my request that they just step back and check.

Oh, Hell no! I could just come back tomorrow at my expense of time and travel, no effort to redeliver on the morrow. Fuck No!

Come back tomorrow.

I ask you gentle people........if you worked for an organization which was going in the hole financially every year to the tune of over a Billion fucking dollars and every day the efforts of companies like UPS and FEDEX along with the rapidity of communicating via the interwebz rendering said organization more and more irrelevant, and your paycheck and pension and health care benefits depended on you remaining employed by said orginization.........wouldn't you think you would try to offer a bit of customer service to possibly ensure that organization would continue to operate into the foreseeable future??

Or I just the only one lost in a time loop of the past where customer service meant you would be assisted instead of just bent over and reamed time and time again?

It's time to call loud and hard for the elimination of the USPS. If not now, when?

Saturday at the Matinee

A Saturday at home in the Kudzu Grotto.

Woke up to Cheerios (well the generic version anyway) and a cup of caffeine. Just enough to get the day started.

The youngest daughter brought her daughter over to spend the day and night. She and SIL were supposed to go deep sea fishing but for some reason that fell through. But we get to keep the princess anyway.

Finding jewels out at the tool shed (the eye of and eagle she has), swinging in the lawn swing telling tales and following her script cause if you depart from it she'll stop you and put you in your place.

Watching The Wizard of Oz on youtube.com twice in a row, with hiding of the head at all the scary parts.

Now to get her to go to bed, all worn out but happy, because after all........

There's No Place Like Home.

Paranoia

I'll bet you thought that the tin foil hat was just for looks didn't you.

Slack Ass

I thought my ass was dragging 'cause I've been putting off emptying the coins from the Maxwell House coffee can and wrapping them for conversion to foldin' money down to the bank.....

......Instead when it started running over I just slide a plastic one gallon pail next to it and started anew.

But this guy in Norfolk has carried being a slacker to new levels...Not showing up for work in the last 12 years and still getting paid. Bet someone besides him is in line to lose their job.......of course he'll only be able to tell because his check doesn't show up.

Wait......now that I think of it there are hundreds of people in The Cesspool on the Potomac who were his American Idols.

Maybe I ought to put some security cameras around the coffee can.......this out of work thing might become an epidemic.

Knife Sharpening

Or in this case trying to hone my mind a little bit.

I did sharpen a pocket knife today, which, while not unheard of around here at the Kudzu Grotto, has become something of an oddity as most of the blades, other than the occasional bayonet designed more for poking and punching, have been worked to a razors fineness and used only rarely.

But a friend sold me this big bladed folding knife, ( for 50 cents, so as to avoid the superstition of never giving a knife away lest it hurt someone) and it needed a little touch up with the crock sticks. I'd mostly gotten away from carrying a pocket knife in favor of a pocket gun, which makes more sense as I'd just as soon never be caught bringing a knife to a gun fight anyway.

Never-the-less I sorta like the feel of this big flat sucker and will have to see if I can't make accommodations since it just makes a mess when you try to carve a stick with a gun.



But, to get back to sharpening the mind bit.....

I have a friend who has been given several mobile homes and a couple houses by his father in order to get them out of his possession since he's in the middle of a messy bankruptcy.

Long story and short attention span. I know.

The upshot of the story is that all the units have tenants in them which haven't been paying rent to the father, some of them for several years.

Mind you these tenants are not family moochers,, just moochers in general.

Question is, aside from the fact that property taxes have to be paid every year (the units are debt free) who is being hurt the most?

The owner who's property is being occupied without compensation, or......

....the tenants, who are being enabled in their slothfulness?

Question of the Day

Is the Economy going to Recover?

YES......


NO..........

Getting whacked

On by professional bloodletters is never any fun, although sometimes at your own request.

About 3 months ago I showed my Primary Care Doctor a mole under my arm pit that had been changing colors and on the day I showed him it was a nice pinkish hue.

With his usual sorry bedside manner he cast a quick glance and said, "I'll schedule you with the dermatologist down at Augusta". This at the VA Medical Center where I have to go for anything other than the common cold.

Pay Attention......this is government health care at it's finest.

Three months to get an appointment. Had this been a real emergency I'd have metastasized and died.

Fortunately the day after seeing him the mole turned a nice normal (?) color and mostly stayed that way.

Thursday last I arrive at the appointed place and time and after waiting for an hour longer finally heard my name called where a decent caring young Dr. looked, poked, consulted with an older Dr who told him to shave it and send it off.

So I stood there with my left arm atop my head while he gave me "a little stick" and proceeded to whack a quarter size chunk of skin and mole off and put it in a jar.

In due time I'm told I'll get the results in the mail, all of which is paid for by you the taxpayers and for which I'm grateful.

Cooler weather

What a difference 10 degrees makes even though the humidity is 100% and rainy every once in a while.

I'll take it.

Today and the weekend just past has been a little rainy with a few nice thunder bumps and one time damn near a tornado. Wind ripped down a few trees onto some electrical wires up the road and made the Georgia Power guys earn their keep.

Made my rounds this morning and back this afternoon just a little too late to help the wife get the groceries out of the car and into the house. I did however arrive in time to put a couple jars of mayo up in the pantry along with some cereal of some kind.

Got my stuff working and waiting on the morrow. I'm chilling out to the point that I ignore the call from Tyrone though I know he's wanting me to come see him. Bugs me to death over mostly junk that he thinks are the British Crown Jewels.

But I've been shooting signs off posts for the last half hour and am in no mood to have my chill harshed by listening to him. Damn I need to get to a range.

Who knew the Brits were such hooligans?

Siagon

Early October, 1970.

On the way to the mess hall of the new in-country orientation center.

"Hey, GI. You take my MPC (Military Payment Chits). Trade them in, bring back, you keep half", said the Vietnamese male waving a huge wad of MPC at me from the other side of the 10 foot high, razor wire topped chain link fence between he and dozens of young Americans.

"What th' hell", I asked the guy next to me.

"Aw, they're changing the Military Money today, so all those Vietnamese who have been paid in old MPC are just fucked unless they can get someone to change whatever they have over a certain small amount to the new stuff".

"How do they know someone will bring it back, not keep it", I asked.

"He don't, but he's gotta take a chance, else he's gonna lose out"

Forty years have gone by and we're having our own sort of an economic crisis here in the 'Good ol' Red white and Blue.

Oh, the money is still there, but no one wants to part with what they have on anything other than the necessities any more, and that assumes that they still have their job and aren't losing their house.

Where the hell did all the money from the stimulus go? Politically correct pet projects and some road paving on a local level.....the rest went to the big money people in banks and insurance companies and Wall St. big shots who were deemed too important to fail.

Let me ask you.....Do you feel better off now than you did 3 years ago? Rhetorical question of course. I know the answer.

What ya gonna do about it.

Vote, you say?

For who........the guys in elected office are not in charge of the show. Their Masters are generally never seen on TV or mentioned in the MSM. They're the one's that keep receiving their checks or payout regardless of who is in so called "Political Power".

Barry Obama doesn't have a fucking clue. Somebody told him he could change the world to suit his and his socialist buddies view of how thing ought to be, but neglected to mention that whatever was suggested that he do, would have to get their approval, and he'd never even feel the shaft as it was gently and lubriciously slid past his sphincter. One day down the road he'll notice the lube sliding slowly down the back of his thigh and wonder, "Where the hell did that come from".

The future is here friends, and no matter who we vote into office this year and two years from now, the same system will still be in place, and if you haven't identified the problem and the particular actions on your part that will place you just a couple steps above the chattering hoards.......why, you'll likely be feeling that same damp sticky spot on the back of your knee.

Thrashing and a clawin'

I come out of sleep, knowin' that th' Chinese food induced terrors will only be beaten back by incandescent lighting and calm reflection on the fact that the people and scenes were not really there, wishing tho' I might, that some of them I could hold on to.

Dad was there, and Grandpa........the cars and trucks were a decade or two too old for some strange reason....... and the houses where we lived were out of a Deliverance movie perhaps, with knotted old stumps that resembled long dead creatures from the Cretaceous period, and I, young and newly delivered from the horrors of a war I didn't feel particularly proud of, was trying all the time to reach something, a young wife......a life I'd left behind....the promised land.....something..

Dry mouthed as though I'd been snoring with my head back on the arm of the couch, tho' I'd been wearing the CPAP mask and sucking in force fed air through my nose.....

Fading already, tho' my Dads contentment and Grandpa's querulousness will remain, my heartbeat reduced to a more normal level, the drug of Morpheus drags at my eyelids and the recliner beckons............................

A word of caution, don't save some of the take out for later and then read of the cause of the problems, not just the ranting about the effects, just before bedtime..

Friday the !3th

I love Friday the 13th. It's always been a lucky day for me.

Today was no different. A very good day, busy as hell, running hither and thither in answer to the call for help in converting unused assets to usable.

I also went over 15000 hits. Thanks to the one out of five hits today that pushed me over that mark. Whoever and Wherever you may be

Not so much when compared to the thousands and millions of hits on some blogs, but to those 5 viewers who have clicked her an average of 3000 times each, (wait, don't I have 5 sisters? Nah, they don't all visit, they get enough of me on the once every year or two we get together).

OK! Thanks for coming by. I appreciate it. I prefer Quality over Quantity anyway. And My viewers and readers are Quality all the way.

Peeper's Creepers

Or.....
........Who Watches the Watchers

More and more people in this nation are finally waking up to the fact that we have some serious problems.......Politically......Economically.....You name it.

But are we waking up to the real Cause of these problems? Not so many.

Of course if your company moved its manufacturing jobs overseas to take advantage of lower costs of labor and no unions......your problem is that what you thought of as your J.O.B. is revealed to actually have belonged to the company and not a lowly worker bee. You were expendable because you didn't work your way up to the drone who flew off and mated with the queen.

Guess what........that job will probably never come back. Do you intend to spend the rest of your life blaming some guy in India for being more productive and cheaper in the process.

Do you not have a home now because you thought the good times would always roll just like everyone promised you and you could always draw money out of your ever more expensive house.
Try telling that story to the 30,000 or so people who showed up in Atlanta to put in applications for the 400 or so section 8 houses possibly available. Would your really want to live among that many moochers anyway?

The world is changing, and you had better change with it. Do you even stop to think about how it's changing and how you will not just survive in the new era, but possibly even thrive there.

If you haven't my friend, may I suggest you stop what you're doing and do so. Because the possibilities are still just as endless as they always were......there is still plenty of wealth to go around, but instead of the old way of doing things, new ways are going to have to be invented and put into play,...then adapted and changed in tune with the changes that are coming.

But if you don't study and learn the lessons that are there, and then put the answers into play, why, you'll remain one of those who is always asking, "what the hell just happened, and why is my ass sore and my butt cheeks greasy?"

What's in a name?

Nearly 6 years ago I started noodling around on this here interwebz thingy. A crazy time in my personal and professional life. (Of course I have no profession other than whatever I'm doing at the time, which has been everything from a dairyman, flyboy, cattle breeder, explosives user, (( I was never an expert)), house builder, pulpwooder, swampwader, insurance sales, sawmill operator to jewelry manufacturer).

I picked the name Red Hill Kudzu because we lived in the Red Hill areas and I'd recently given a talk about the Kudzu that can entangle a persons soul.

Pretty tenacious stuff and there is plenty of it still growing here even though we've lived in Athens 3 years and 11 months.

I joke around about taking my meds and trying to stay a little bit sane in an insane world where, as the poet said, "all around you men are losing theirs (Mind)". In a comical attempt "To be a man, my son".

Sometimes I succeed and sometimes not so much.

But sometimes you have a day that is like Balm_of_Gilead. also, also.

Today was such a day. To celebrate the Birthday of my Grandson Cody, his parents, his girl friend, his grandmother and I, his aunt Kathy and current beau with his son in tow, and two close family friends sat out to go 'tubin' th 'hooch. Not as some of you have done up in Helen, Ga, but lower down that lovely river below the Lake Sydney Lanier Dam unto Suttles Bridge where we disembarked and were bussed back to our cars and trucks.

The River is deeper here, not quite so bustling, but deep in spots and cold enough, about 45 degrees, to make grown men squeal like little girls, and little and big girls alike, have lip lock so tight you never have to worry about floating through a warm yellow patch.

Clear the water was, bottle green, and you could see trout swimming and avoiding the snares of anglers wading along the banks and watch the stumps of old trees as we floated gently and quietly past, standing sentinel along with a Great Blue Heron who flapped majestically off at our approach, squirting out a 5 foot long stream of shit, both to lighten the load and probably to express his displeasure with our intrusion.

The mood was joyous, we giggled and talked as the sun beat down upon us. Thank goodness for SPF-50 else my lily white legs, which have only infrequently seen the light of day for decades now, would have been char-broiled to medium rare perfection in the 3 hours it took us to reach the bridge.

Afterwords back to the daughter's house for grilled hamburgers and hot dogs, with suitable libations for the grown-ups while we children made do with diet pepsi and Mtn. Dew. Of Course the obligatory birth day cake (white with chocolate icing) then some playing with the Wii until time to return back here.

A warm day, a sunny day, a cold river to float lazily upon, good friends who are family (a combination which is a great blessing far beyond any expectation so many years earlier), and a peaceful, prayerful feeling, unlike so many other evenings at this keyboard for so many years.

Amen

It CAN be done

I spend a lot of time ranting about the problems as I perceive them.

Sometimes I try to cobble together solutions, but in a stream of consciousness, head to the keyboard, no proofreading, shoot from the hip kind of way.

Thank goodness there are people who can think, and do, out there like Borepatch.

If you're not reading him, try it. You just might like it.

Wish List

I commented over at Yabu’s about the need for some serious actions that need to be taken.

Since it does little good to complain about the state of things without putting forth a few ideas on what course to take to get back on track, I will throw out a couple ideas that I personally would like to see be done.

We were awakened to the problem by two things, (1) the crash of 2008 and the (2) election of socialist idiots to the higher office's in the land.

1. For starters (and this does not involve the longer term problem of having Central Banks ie, Federal Reserve in charge of the nations money) we need to stop shooting holes in the bottom of the boat. Declare a moratorium on the payments of interest on any national debt, whether to the Federal Reserve or China or investors in Treasury Notes of any kind. This is not to say a Chapter 7 bankruptcy scenario, rather a time to reorganize ala chapter 13. Stop spending more money that is taken in by the treasury. Fuck a budget that depends on borrowing. Live within our means. This will mean that for starters we don't give money to any terrorist organizations such as Hamas. If they can't fight a war against us without our funding, let them starve and their little suicide bombers in kindergarten too. Tough luck, they should have thought of the consequences.
If you are receiving welfare of whatever kind you should have to work for the money. If this means sweeping the streets with a hand broom so be it. A better alternative might be that they are put to work demolishing the gettos and plowing the ground and planting food gardens to feed themselves and those who are physically unable. Give people a purpose and an opportunity to help others and they'll not have time to whine about being dis-advantaged. There is plenty of state and federal land on which to grow these gardens.

2. Quit encouraging business and jobs to relocate to other countries. Pass the Fair Tax. If you are not familiar with it, become so. Get out of your comfort zone and read the two books to gain an understanding. A sales tax to replace the income tax makes great sense and will not impose a greater tax burden, but will spread it out so every one who purchases new products will pay their share. This includes those who currently don't pay taxes because they are teat suckers or might be here illegally. A Fair Tax will bring back old industries and NEW ones as the come to where their efforts will be rewarded and they actually get to keep that reward.

3. Cut the size and scope of the government. We are overloaded with people who's only job is to enlarge and keep their job. This will have to be done in a planned way taking advantage of the new jobs being created as a result of the Fair Tax. Perhaps a goal of 10% a year for 10 years, paying them their same salary for a period of time if they volunteer for the cuts. Come on, you can think of lots of useless governmental agencies that need to be reined in.

4. Congress shall fill their responsibility of denying or authorising military actions on foreign soils. We may be our brother's keepers but if they refuse to play nice we need to shun them and have nothing to do with them or their enablers. The Constitution plainly states that it is the Congress responsibility to wage war, not to delegate it to the President. Our elected officials need to grow some cojones along with a brain. It is OUR responsibility to put in office people with honor, courage, commitment to the concept of the Constitution rather than enrich themselves at the expense of the governed. We better do this before we have to start shooting them to rid ourselves of the parisites. Term limits may be the answer. Accountability to the citizenry, real accountability, not the arrogance we've seen in the past, will have to be enforced by an informed electorate. Total transparency is a must.

5. A willingness to smack down with extreme prejudice those who would harm our nation or our interest. You want to play with the big boys, either play nice and fair or risk having your ball taken away and you crippled past the point of ever trying to get back into the game. Make a list of principals that we will live by and expect other to live by. If they refuse, shun them, totally and completely. If they don't need us, we certainly don't need them.

I could go on, but the grass needs cutting and I'll need to go do some work later today for a couple of hours at least.

I would be glad to hear and discuss your ideas.

Stay cool, it's going to be another hot one.

Something to be Pleased with this Monday Morning

We have done something very special here – something that no other civilization has done in the history of the world. We have freed a country, without asking anything in return except friendship.

Things like this are more a matter of course for our military than they are given credit for by the biased MSM.

So hold your head a little higher today my friend, for you are a part of something great.

Facing up to the darkness

It seems to be a common tactic of most public officials (read teat sucking scum bags) when faced with a budget short fall of some kind to begin to lay off some of the most essential personnel like police, fire fighters, and EMS to reduce the deficit.

It's almost like they are trying to blackmail the public to part with even more of the increasingly small amounts of money they have in order to keep these protectors of the public.

I wonder if the city managers of East St. Louis have reduced their pay and budget, laying off their personal assistants, Office managers, executive assistants, secretaries, and sycophants, street sweepers, grass cutters and possibly others who's services, while admittedly nice to have, might be more economical if supplied by the private sector or in some cases eliminated all together?

It admittedly is more work on the ones remaining, but have you ever wondered how they can have so many people out on coffee break at one time, all the time, and get anything done.

It is a truism that a persons needs and desires increase to the capacity of their finances, but not necessarily true that having increased will decrease when the capacity diminishes in size. For by then the increase becomes thought of as more Needs than desires.

Sunday Road Trip

Spent the day driving around and looking at some of God's finest creation.

Up through Dahalonega GA thence to Ellijay. (Boy howdy the apple trees are loaded this year. In a month or so you'll be able to buy every type of apple that can be imagined up there. But don't go looking for land to buy unless you want to pay an arm and a leg. The roads are too good coming out of hotlanta and the people with disposable income have bid the prices to ridiculous amounts. Thirty years ago was the time to buy up there. Now it's too late. Nobody believes that real estate would ever come down. And the agents there are not about to admit it either.
We traveled further...thru Blue Ridge, up to Mineral Bluff then over to Murphy NC. Same story. Roads out of GA just too good. Beautiful area though. We picked up real estate catalogs in Murphy, Andrews, Brison City, Franklin......then headed back home. Seven or eight hours of driving and may ass is tired.
We did find some reasonable priced land but it's in the hinterland of Kentucky. Beautiful area with big rivers and streams where farmland still goes for 2K or so in 25 to 75 acre tracks. That might just be a bargain if you're looking for someplace away from the zombie hoards acoming. Better get it now.