wHAT IN THE HELL HAPPENED TO MEY ARCHIVES?
Why am I typing in all caps?
I attempted yesterday to add a link to one of my favorite blogs and now my archives are GONE/
Help from any talented Tech type person.
And I just commented to Jean that I could follow directions. None of them had a very techie bent to them.
Just damn!
Someone probably sent me this in an email a while back, and I present it for your consideration.........
Dog philosophy.
The reason a dog has so many friends is that he
wags his tail instead of his tongue.
-Anonymous
Don't accept your dog's admiration as
conclusive evidence that you are wonderful.
-Ann Landers
If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die
I want to go where they went.
-Will Rogers
There is no psychiatrist in the world like a puppy
licking your face.
Ben Williams
A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you
more than he loves himself.
Josh Billings
The average dog is a nicer person than
the average person.
Andy Rooney
We give dogs time we can spare,
space we can spare
and love we can spare.
And in return, dogs give us their all.
It's the best deal man has ever made.
M. Acklam
Dogs love their friends and bite their enemies,
quite unlike people, who are incapable of
pure love and always have to mix love and hate.
Sigmund Freud
I wonder if other dogs think poodles are members
of a weird religious cult.
-Rita Rudner
A dog teaches a boy fidelity, perseverance,
and to turn around three times before lying down.
Robert Benchley
Anybody who doesn't know what soap tastes
like never washed a dog.
Franklin P. Jones
If I have any beliefs about immortality,
it is that certain dogs I have known
will go to heaven, and very, very few persons.
James Thurber
If your dog is fat, you aren't getting
enough exercise.
Unknown
My dog is worried about the economy
because Alpo is up to $3.00 a can.
That's almost $21.00 in dog money.
Joe Weinstein
Ever consider what our dogs must think of us?
I mean, here we come back from a grocery
store with the most amazing haul -- chicken,
pork, half a cow.
They must think we're the greatest hunters
on earth!
Anne Tyler
Women and cats will do as they please,
and men and dogs should relax and
get used to the idea.
Robert A. Heinlein
If you pick up a starving dog and make him
prosperous, he will not bite you; that is the
principal difference between a dog and
Mark Twain
You can say any foolish thing to a dog,
and the dog will give you a look that says,
'Wow, you're right! I never would've thought
of that!'
Dave Barry
Dogs are not our whole life,
but they make our lives whole.
Roger Caras
If you think dogs can't count, try putting three
biscuits in you pocket and give him only two of them.
-Phil Pastoret
My goal in life is to be as good of
a person my dog already thinks I am.
....A man once told me that if you have 5 true friends in your whole life, that you could consider yourself lucky.
This same man, a man I considered my best friend in the world, today severed that friendship. It seems that lucre is more important.
Pardon me while I pull the kudzu up over my head for a while. My dalmation will dig me out eventually, licking on my chin and whining.
My sister in Maine just sent her second son to Iraq this week.
His older brother has been there for a little while now.
Zack (the older) is a 1st lt. The picture is of him (on the right), his CO and his sargent.
So far no pictures of the 2nd son, a medic.
Please keep These young men in your prayers as well as their parents and youngest brother.
This is a little too much like the kudzu I'm trying to get out of.
I'm very proud of my nephews, although thankfully they are nothing like me.
LL, and some few others ridiculed my version of the reason for my "galloping trots" a week or so ago. Now I'll admit that I may have slightly exaggerated the severity of the malaise, but take a look at this box of chocolate.
I only today tried any more of this tasty treat, and will admit that after eating about 4 ozs just a few moments ago, I have not yet experienced any ill effects.
Perhaps after another small piece I'll call it a day.
Any one who eats that much chocolate with 3/4 of a glass of milk at 11:30 PM should have sweet dreams...
...Or nightmares.
Researchers have determined that chocolate act on the same brain receptors as sex. Perhaps if I had more sex I would have less a craving for chocolate. Or more chocolate, less a craving for sex. With the help of those magic pills from the VA, I hope to put that theory to the test at least one more time before I die. Or if the wife predeceases me, more than once if I'm lucky and should live so long.
Perhaps all those days of wanting and getting it 2 or 4 times a day have caught up with either her or me. Or perhaps after so many years she's tired of my wrinkly ol' ass.
Does anyone else feel out of sync sexually with the one they desire.
Oh well maybe it's just a matter of mind over matter.......if you don't mind it don't matter.
But I never would mind anyone. How did I get here from writing about chocolate
Almost done.
Only one more load to go tomorrow. Get the final payment and then no more 73 acres to ramble on and wish that I had done more with it. Feel a little bit like the unrightous servant who was not a good steward of the one talent he was given so the ruler took it away from him.
I guess I'm just having a bit of the 'coulda', woulda', shoulda's going on in my head.
We were headed home in the truck this afternoon with the next to last load.. Mostly filling the back was this big ol' obsolete big screen projection tv of wifes dad. Needs repair but we moved it like it was of some value.
Wife in the passenger seat with the big dalmation bitch up in ( I mean litterly in her lap) lap. Crazy dog is like the proverable Camel with his nose in the tent. Pet this dog while sitting in a chair and she will climb right up onto your shoulder if you let her.
I got to waxing philosophical, as I do sometimes, and I got to thinking about what of the stuff we moved is really essential to our lives. I mean, the computer for the internet and the fridge for the food, a bed to sleep in, my pills that keep me from trying to use the 10 inch dagger under the console in the truck. Many of the things we have define us instead of we our selves doing the defining. We need the new car, or the bigger tv. But it's somehow a little too hard to live a life that's worthwhile just on it's own.
This led me to try to remember the old Tom T. Hall song. You know the one. Old dogs and children and watermelon wine.
Old Dogs and Children and Watermelon Wine
"How old do you think I am," he said?
I said, well, I didn't know.
He said, "I turned 65 about 11 months ago."
I was sittin' in Miami, pouring blended whiskey down
When this old gray, black gentleman was cleaning up the lounge.
There wasn't anyone around, except this old man and me.
The guy who ran the bar was watching Ironside on TV.
Uninvited, he sat down and opened up his mind
On old dogs and children and watermelon wine.
"Ever had a drink of watermelon wine," he asked.
He told me all about it, though I didn't answer back.
"Ain't but three things in this world that's worth a solitary dime,
But old dogs and children and watermelon wine."
He said, "Women think about themselves, when men-folk ain't around.
And friends are hard to find when they discover that you're down."
He said, "I tried it all when I was young and in my natural prime,
Now it's old dogs and children and watermelon wine."
"Old dogs care about you even when you make mistakes.
God bless little children while they're still to young to hate."
When he moved away I found my pen and copied down that line
About old dogs and children and watermelon wine.
I had to catch a plane up to Atlanta that next day.
As I left for my room I saw him picking up my change.
That night I dreamed in peaceful sleep of shady summertime,
Of old dogs and children and watermelon wine.
Kinda puts things in perspective, doesn't it??
Might go sit in the kudzu and ponder for a while.
Who would have imagined that one family (read mostly yours truly) could have accumulated so much junk and useless stuff in only 16 yrs at one place.
Blogging has had to take a back seat to the neccessity of hauling all that junk off. Either to the dump, to the recycling place (9 loads to the metal yard alone, and to our new residence or to the storage building.
Can anyone give me a good reason to have so much that you don't want to get rid of that you will pay $90.00 a month to store it. And I know that most of it will only sit moldering there until the next move (God forbid).
I have however been able to lurk in the evenings. Hopefully things will get to normal (what is that?) soon.
'dja ever notice how fast grass and Kudzu will grow as fall and winter get closer?
You can call them all heros if you want to. To me some of them were mere victims. Lives snuffed out in and instant when the planes struck the towers.
Some were simply lucky by where they were and able to make their panic stricken way out of the buildings. I was sure as I watched the planes strike the buildlings that the death toll would be much higher. Probably less than a 10th of the possible # that could have been killed if the building had collapsed quicker.
Certainly the firemen and police were heros that fateful day. But, they were simply doing what they had been trained to do. Which makes them heros in my book.
But let's look at just one individual hero on that day 5 years ago.
911 Remembered: Rick Rescorla was a soldier
Greyhawk
Note: This post is originally from September, 2003.
Have you seen the movie We were Soldiers?
A good one, in my opinion. Given just a couple hours to tell a tale I think all in all the folks involved did a commendable job.
Perhaps it's hard to go wrong, given the source material. We Were Soldiers Once, And Young is an account of the battle at Ia Drang Valley, fought in the still early phases of the war in Viet Nam. The book was written by Hal Moore, who was then a Lt Col and commander of the American troops in the valley, and Joe Galloway, a reporter who was at the battle. Their collaboration is a truly human account of men at war- including the enemy viewpoint, as Galloway and Moore's efforts at capturing the battle on paper were thorough enough to include interviews with survivors from the other side.
Take a look at the cover. The prominent figure is Rick Rescorla, described thusly on the LZ Xray web page:
No sleep for 48 hours.
Grimy, unshaven, filthy uniform.
Canteens loose, dogtags hanging out, pocket unbuttoned, helmet strap hanging.
No insignia of rank, sleeves up.
Dirty fingernails.
His bayonet is fixed; trigger finger alert and ready for action.
Lt. Rick Rescorla, Platoon Leader, B Co 2/7 Cav in Bayonet Attack on the morning of 16 Nov 1965(1)
This is not a posed shot; this is a man moving forward into combat. Eyes forward. Ready.
On that day,
The PAVN Commander knows that he had severely weakened and damaged the defenders in the Charlie Co sector the previous morning. What he does not know is that a fresh company - B Co 2nd Bn 7th Cav, had taken over the position after that engagement. That company, unmolested the previous afternoon, had cut fields of fire, dug new foxholes, fired in artillery concentrations, carefully emplaced it's machine guns and piled up ammunition(1).
Rescorla directed his men to dig foxholes and establish a defense perimeter. Exploring the hilly terrain beyond the perimeter, he came under enemy fire. After nightfall, he and his men endured waves of assault. To keep morale up, Rescorla led the men in military cheers and Cornish songs throughout the night(2).
Rescorla knew war. His men did not, yet. To steady them, to break their concentration away from the fear that may grip a man when he realizes there are hundreds of men very close by who want to kill him, Rescorla sang. Mostly he sang dirty songs that would make a sailor blush. Interspersed with the lyrics was the voice of command: ?Fix bayonets?on liiiiine?reaaaa-dy?forward.? It was a voice straight from Waterloo, from the Somme, implacable, impeccable, impossible to disobey. His men forgot their fear, concentrated on his orders and marched forward as he led them straight into the pages of history.(3)
The PAVN assaults four separate times beginning at 4:22 AM. The last is at 6:27 AM. They are stopped cold, losing over 200 dead. B Co has 6 wounded. At 9:55 AM, a sweep outward is made which results in more enemy dead and the position secured(1).
The next morning, Rescorla took a patrol through the battlefield, searching for American dead and wounded. As he looked over a giant anthill, he encountered an enemy machine-gun nest. The startled North Vietnamese fired on him, and Rescorla hurled a grenade into the nest. There were no survivors(2).
Rescorla and Bravo company were evacuated by helicopter. The rest of the battalion marched to a nearby landing zone. On the way, they were ambushed, and Bravo company was again called in for relief. Only two helicopters made it through enemy fire. As the one carrying Rescorla descended, the pilot was wounded, and he started to lift up. Rescorla and his men jumped the remaining ten feet, bullets flying at them, and made it into the beleaguered camp. As Lieutenant Larry Gwin later recalled the scene, "I saw Rick Rescorla come swaggering into our lines with a smile on his face, an M-79 on his shoulder, his M-16 in one hand, saying, 'Good, good, good! I hope they hit us with everything they got tonight?we'll wipe them up.' His spirit was catching. The enemy must have thought an entire battalion was coming to help us, because of all our screaming and yelling."(2)
"My God, it was like Little Big Horn," recalls Pat Payne, a reconnaissance platoon leader. "We were all cowering in the bottom of our foxholes, expecting to get overrun. Rescorla gave us courage to face the coming dawn. He looked me in the eye and said, 'When the sun comes up, we're gonna kick some ass.' "
Sure enough, the battalion fought its way out of Albany. Rescorla left the field
with a morale-boosting souvenir: a battered French Army bugle that the North
Vietnamese had once claimed as a trophy of war. It became a talisman for his
entire division.(4)
Lt Rescorla survived that engagement and many others.
He had grown up in a village on England's southwest coast and left at age sixteen to join the British military. He'd fought against Communists in Cyprus and Rhodesia. He then came to America, he said, so that he could enlist in the Army and go to Vietnam. He welcomed the opportunity to join the American cause in Southeast Asia. He worked his way up through the ranks to Sergeant before being commissioned.
The epitome of the young warrior, he was the sort that England seems to have bred in abundance for centuries: the type of young man who in times past went forth from Britain and created an empire upon which the sun never set. England happened to be fresh out of wars in the 1960s, so Rescorla became an American and fought in ours.(3)
More stories from Viet Nam:
The survivors of the 7th Cavalry still tell awestruck stories about Rescorla. Like the time he stumbled into a hooch full of enemy soldiers on a reconnaissance patrol in Bon Song. "Oh, pardon me," he said, before firing a few rounds and racing away. "Oh, comma, pardon me," repeats Dennis Deal, who followed Rescorla that day in April 1966. "Like he had walked into a ladies' tea party!"
Or the time a deranged private pulled a .45-caliber pistol on an officer while Rescorla was nearby, sharpening his bowie knife. "Rick just walked right between them and said: Put. Down. The. Gun." recalls Bill Lund, who served with Rescorla in Vietnam. "And the guy did. Then Rick went back to his knife. He was flat out the bravest man any of us ever knew."(4)
After fighting in Vietnam, he returned to the United States and used his military benefits to study creative writing at the University of Oklahoma. Literary minded, even before college he had read all fifty-one volumes of the Harvard Classics and could recite Shakespeare and quote Churchill. He had started writing a novel about a mobile-air-cavalry unit, and had several stories published in Western-themed magazines. He eventually earned a bachelor's, a master's in literature, and a law degree.
Rescorla then moved to South Carolina for a brief teaching career. He left for greener pastures; jobs in corporate security eventually led him to Dean Witter in 1985. He moved to New Jersey, commuted to Manhattan, and rose to become vice-president in charge of security at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter.
And, oh by the way, was still in the Army, as a Reservist, having advanced to colonel before retiring in 1990.
Rescorla's office was on the forty-fourth floor of the south tower of the World Trade Center. The firm occupied twenty-two floors in the south tower, and several floors in a building nearby. In 1990 Rescorla and Dan Hill, an old Army friend, evaluated the security, identifying load bearing columns in the parking garage as a weak point. A security official for the Port Authority dismissed their concerns. On February 26, 1993, a truck bomb exploded in the basement.
Rescorla ensured that every one of his firm's employees was safely evacuated, and was the last man out of the building.
Rescorla met his wife while running barefoot. Still determined to be a writer he had been scripting a play set in Rhodesia, based on his experiences there. Few of the native Rhodesians had worn shoes, which was why, he explained to her, he had to feel what it was like to run barefoot.
Some insight into the man's character:
Rescorla may have told Susan that he was running barefoot as research for a play, but he had already been running barefoot in Africa, and then at Fort Dix, toughening his soles to the point where he could extinguish a fire with his bare feet. He told Hill that if he lost his boots in combat it wouldn't matter. This was something he'd absorbed from his years in Africa. "You should be able to strip a man naked and throw him out with nothing on him," he told Hill. By the end of the day, the man should be clothed and fed. By the end of the week, he should own a horse. And by the end of a year he should own a business and have money in the bank.(2)
Small wonder that the final chapter of the story goes like this:
In St. Augustine, Dan Hill was laying tile in his upstairs bathroom when his wife called, "Dan, get down here! An airplane just flew into the World Trade Center. It's a terrible accident." Hill hurried downstairs, and then the phone rang. It was Rescorla, calling from his cell phone.
"Are you watching TV?" he asked. "What do you think?"
"Hard to tell. It could have been an accident, but I can't see a commercial airliner getting that far off."
"I'm evacuating right now," Rescorla said.
Hill could hear Rescorla issuing orders through the bullhorn. He was calm and collected, never raising his voice. Then Hill heard him break into song:
Men of Cornwall stop your dreaming;
Can't you see their spearpoints gleaming?
See their warriors' pennants streaming
To this battlefield.
Men of Cornwall stand ye steady;
It cannot be ever said ye
for the battle were not ready;
Stand and never yield!
Rescorla came back on the phone. "Pack a bag and get up here," he said. "You can be my consultant again." He added that the Port Authority was telling him not to evacuate and to order people to stay at their desks.
"What'd you say?" Hill asked.
"I said, 'Piss off, you son of a bitch,' " Rescorla replied. "Everything above where that plane hit is going to collapse, and it's going to take the whole building with it. I'm getting my people the fuck out of here." Then he said, "I got to go. Get your shit in one basket and get ready to come up."
Hill turned back to the TV and, within minutes, saw the second plane execute a sharp left turn and plunge into the south tower. Susan saw it, too, and frantically phoned her husband's office. No one answered.
About fifteen minutes later, the phone rang. It was Rick. She burst into tears and couldn't talk.
"Stop crying," he told her. "I have to get these people out safely. If something should happen to me, I want you to know I've never been happier. You made my life."
Susan cried even harder, gasping for breath. She felt a stab of fear, because the words sounded like those of someone who wasn't coming back. "No!" she cried, but then he said he had to go. Cell-phone use was being curtailed so as not to interfere with emergency communications.
From the World Trade Center, Rescorla again called Hill. He said he was taking some of his security men and making a final sweep, to make sure no one was left behind, injured, or lost. Then he would evacuate himself. "Call Susan and calm her down," he said. "She's panicking."
Hill reached Susan, who had just got off the phone with Sullivan. "Take it easy," he said, as she continued to sob. "He's been through tight spots before, a million times." Suddenly Susan screamed. Hill turned to look at his own television and saw the south tower collapse. He thought of the words Rescorla had so often used to comfort dying soldiers. "Susan, he'll be O.K.," he said gently. "Take deep breaths. Take it easy. If anyone will survive, Rick will survive."
When Hill hung up, he turned to his wife. Her face was ashen. "Shit," he said. "Rescorla is dead."(2)
The rest of Rick Rescorla's morning is shrouded in some mystery. The tower went dark. Fire raged. Windows shattered. Rescorla headed upstairs before moving down; he helped evacuate several people above the 50th Floor. Stephan Newhouse, chairman of Morgan Stanley International, said at a memorial service in Hayle that Rescorla was spotted as high as the 72nd floor, then worked his way down, clearing floors as he went. He was telling people to stay calm, pace themselves, get off their cell phones, keep moving. At one point, he was so exhausted he had to sit for a few minutes, although he continued barking orders through his bullhorn. Morgan Stanley officials said he called headquarters shortly before the tower collapsed to say he was going back up to search for stragglers.
John Olson, a Morgan Stanley regional director, saw Rescorla reassuring colleagues in the 10th-floor stairwell. "Rick, you've got to get out, too," Olson told him. "As soon as I make sure everyone else is out," Rescorla replied.
Morgan Stanley officials say Rescorla also told employees that "today is a day to be proud to be American" and that "tomorrow, the whole world will be talking about you." They say he also sang "God Bless America" and Cornish folk tunes in the stairwells. Those reports could not be confirmed, although they don't sound out of character. He liked to sing in a crisis. But the documented truth is impressive enough. Morgan Stanley managing director Bob Sloss was the only employee who didn't evacuate the 66th floor after the first plane hit, pausing to call his family and several underlings, even taking a call from a Bloomberg News reporter. Then the second plane hit, and his office walls cracked, and he felt the tower wagging like a dog's tail. He clambered down to the 10th floor, and there was Rescorla, sweating through his suit in the heat, telling people they were almost out, making no move to leave himself.
Rick did not make it out. Neither did two of his security officers who were at
his side. But only three other Morgan Stanley employees died when their building was obliterated. (4)
However, over 2600 employees of Dean Whitter walked out of the south tower and in to the rest of their lives that morning.
Incredibly, you can "meet" Rick Rescorla via video interview made in 1998. He discusses Ia Drang and beyond, with some chilling words for the world today. Remind yourself as you watch and listen that he was speaking in 1998. Must see. Amazing.
Listen to the man and then you can add your signature to an online petition calling on the President to award the Medal of Freedom to Rick Rescorla.
A PETITION TO PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH TO AWARD THE PRESIDENTIAL MEDAL OF FREEDOM TO C.R.?RICK? RESCORLA FOR HEROISM AND GALLANTRY BEYOND THE CALL OF DUTY ON SEPTEMBER 11,2001.
MR. RESCORLA CAME TO THIS COUNTRY AS AN IMMIGRANT TO BECOME AN OFFICER IN THE ARMY. MR RESCORLA SERVED WITH SUCH DISTINCTION AS AN OFFICER IN VIET NAM THAT ALL WHO SERVED WITH HIM CONSIDER HIM THE BRAVEST MAN WE HAVE EVER KNOWN. HE WAS HIGHLY DECORATED FOR HIS BRAVERY AND LEADERSHIP IN COMBAT. HE BECAME A US CITIZEN AND SOUGHT A HIGHER EDUCATION OBTAINING A BACHELOR AND MASTERS DEGREE AT UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA AND FURTHER OBTAINING A LAW DEGREE BEFORE SERVING A AS TEACHER AT USC LAW SCHOOL BEFORE BEING LURED TO THE WORLD OF COMMERCIAL BANKING. MR. RESCORLA?S SPECIALTY WAS SECURITY AND SECURITY LAW. IN 1993 HE WAS THE LAST MAN OUT OF THE TRADE TOWERS AFTER EVACUATING EVERYONE. ON SEPT.11TH IN SPITE OF BEING TOLD HIS BUILDING WAS NOT IN DANGER, HE IMPLEMENTED THE EVACUATION PLAN HE HAD DEVELOPED FOR HIS FIRM, MORGAN STANLEY. AS A DIRECT RESULT OF HIS EFFORTS THAT DAY AND HIS QUICK ACTION, OVER 2600 EMPLOYEES WERE SAVED. MR RESCORLA WAS LAST SEEN GOING UP TO RESCUE PEOPLE WHO WERE UNABLE TO GET DOWN. HIS ACTIONS REFLECT THE VERY BEST ABOUT AMERICA, ITS CITIZENS AND ITS DREAMS.
THE UNDERSIGNED URGE YOU TO RECOGNIZE MR RESCORLA BY BESTOWING THIS HIGHEST HONOR TO THIS MOST DESERVING MAN.
People who knew Rescorla note that all this is exactly what he wouldn't want.
He shunned public praise for his past heroism, kept his war photos and medals in a closet, and told his wife he didn't want to see the Mel Gibson movie based on "We Were Soldiers" when it came out. To the friends he left behind, his death made a kind of cosmic sense on a day when the universe was out of order: The right man in the right place at the right time. He left in a blaze of glory. With no parade. Rescorla was a man who didn't need to be reminded of the high price of freedom.
However we do.(4)
Perhaps a Shakespeare quote then?
"His life was gentle, and the elements
So mix'd in him that Nature might stand up
And say to all the world 'This was a man!'"
The tragedy of 911 was this multiplied by three thousand.
Never forget.
Never, Never, Never, Never, Ever Forget.
I can't. The kudzu runs around my soul and brain as well as my heart. It has become part of me and cannot be removed or I die.
The joys of moving from a home of 16 yrs to a new place are many and varied.
You find things you had forgotten you had. You find thing you wonder why you kept. You find boxes of things you had not unpacked since the last move.
And sometimes you find a treasure. I found my stainless steel helical screw. I found the fart fan for the bathroom which was never installed. I found the automated dialing machine which was to be used in a junk phone call program to sell insurance or something. I found the supposedly wonderful fire detectors and alarms which were way over priced, and were never used.
Boxes of receipts and checkbooks looong ago closed out. Forms out of date and useless when new.
But the best treasure I found was a kodak instamatic picture of me holding our youngest child when about 1 year old or maybe just a little more. ( She just had her 25th birthday) and her own child is 3 months old.
I had forgotten how curley and blonde her hair was.
One thing I had never forgotten was how wonderful it was to hold her as she slept.
There's just something complete about having your child fall asleep in your arms. Almost as if they trust you for some strange reason. Little do they suspect the demons that lurk within. All of which were well caged and restrained.. Only now does she have any clue, a small one. One which she respects and is proud of.
A tendril around my heart and soul which I have no desire of removing.
I'm thinking of making this my profile picture. What do you think?
Oh Man! I have internet service again.
Funny how addictive it gets. I was having serious withdrawal pains from not being able to read my favs.
Moved into the new house in Athens Ga. Smaller which means I don't have room for all my very important and necessary stuff . So I sit here surrounded by boxes and piles of papers and other oddities, everything but money. Funny How much it costs move 50 miles.
But, the wife is happy with the 'real floors'. That counts for a lot.
Toby the yorkie doesn't like it so much since he has to be on a leash outside. He's an inside dog, and shy, so it embarasses him to have to "Go" with someone beside him. Well, it would make me a little hesitant too I guess.
Fighting with the kudzu of too much to do and too little time.
NOW THIS really chaps my ass.
Can you give me one good reason that we have for allowing these bastards to keep their headquarters on American soil?
Soil that our founding fathers fought for. That good men and women worked to turn into productive farm land. That entrepreneurs turned into cities of commerce and industry. Soil that was the scene of bloody struggle for individual rights. Soil that raised sons and daughters who went, and even today go to foreign soil to try to ensure that everyone in the whole world can enjoy the freedoms that we posess. Soil that we today are in danger of losing unless we wake up sufficent people to the dangers from without and within this once great nation.
My roots are deep in the red soil of the foothills of Georgia, and this nation, and like Kudzu will be hard to pull from, but, even Kudzu can be killed if the poison is continuiously applied, or if the goats are allowed to graze all the time.
We inked the option to buy from our purchaser today. Boy did we get hosed. No one to blame but myself.
Fortunately we will have enough to move into an empty house I was trying to sell.
Maybe even enough to start a new little start up company with a friend from the church unit I used to attend. Keeping my fingers crossed on that one.
Talked to another friend and he and his partner just happen to want to do something near where we'll be going. Some possibilities there also.
Lil' Toni! told me that when God closes a door he opens a window. Praying for that, and greatful for blessings already received.
On the upside, the wife is glad we'll be moving into a house with as she says, "Real Floors".
I know kudzu grows there. Some in the back of the lot.
Didja ever notice that some people can never have enough?
Didja ever know a person who always has to have their cake and eat it too?
Didja ever see a person who would dump his mothers body out of the casket if he needs it to stack his money in? Or he thought he might get a refund on it.
Why will some people who claim to be good (_________) (insert what ever religion you wish here) forget all about it when they smell blood in the air.
You can't take it with you.
One old mizer loved his gold so much that he begged and prayed to be allowed to carry his to heaven with him. When he got to the customs table just outside the pearly gates and his suitcase was opened, St. Peter asked, "Why'd you bring asphalt with you?
Do you really believe that the size of your mansion in heaven will correspond to the one you left behind?
Did you ever notice that many of our servants in the legislatures come out much richer than when they went in?
Did you ever wonder, 'why do we keep electing them'?
Blogging may be a little sparse, (so what's new) for a while. Moving in the near future. Maybe if I'm a good boy there'll be DSL or Broadband available.
Try to stay out of the kudzu. Little japanese children will go to bed hungry if you trample all over it.
Wow boy did the blackness ever get to me last night. May have to up the dosage of a few things.
Just a little self pity party people. Nothing to see here. Move along now.
With the Dawn of a new day hope springs eternal in this old breast. They say when one door closes another opens. I'm looking for that next door. Hope it's not the one to the outhouse.
Now that's something I haven't used in years. When I was a kid it wasn't uncommon at all for people to have an out house. Wooden shanty built over a hole in the ground. Boy, oh boy, is that ever a smell that you remember for a long time.
My parents house had indoor plumbing, but my grandparents eventhough they had running water and a bath room complete with the porcilan throne, kept an outhouse outside. Down past the cloths line where granny hung the washing to dry. She always put those leg formers in my grandpas work pants. She had her own steam ironing press in the sewing room where she would press all their clothes. Grandpa could not go out looking sloopy. Even if it was to go to the dairy barn to milk their herd of 100 holstein, guernsey, and jersey cows.
Just down below us lived a family whose water was drawn from a hand dug well with a bucket let down on a windless. Boy was that water good on a hot summer day.
Their outhouse was about 150 ft below the house just above a gulley which ran down thur the pasture and eventually to a creek. I remember Milton and I playing in that gully pretending to be Jessie James and his gang.
One day we saw his older sister go into the outhouse. I might mention that the sided of that particular outhouse were made of tin. Boy,was it ever hot in july on a cloudless day.
Being the bad and bold Jessie James Gang we snuck closer, closer, gathering fist sized rocks and clumps of red Georgia clay in our hands for ammo.
FIRE!!!! BOOM !! BOOM !! Hell and Brimstone rained down on the tin walls of that outhouse. Open flew the door and that old gal ran out of there scattering Sears and Roebuck Catalog pages and scrambling to pull her drawers up, curses raining down on mine and Miltons heads as we scampered off laughing histerically.
Needless to say we had to stay out until after dark, to escape the beating both of us so rightly deserved.
Where do you go when there's no place to go?
Who do you turn to when there's no one there?
What do you anchor to when the water is deeper than your anchor rope is long?
When there is no light at the end of the tunnel not even a train rushing to run you over, and there is no end to the tunnel, do you keep going, turn back, or sit on the tracks?
When it's harder to stay than go, why stay?
When the rock you thought you were standing on turns to quicksand, do your thrash for the edge or simply sink slowly out of sight?
No destinations in sight. Need travel tips.
No more room for kudzu, I'm throughly entwined.
Lil' Toni posted yesterday in honor of all those fools who jump willingly out of perfectly good air-o-planes. As a former fling-wing pilot I look at them with a bit of disdane, but, that maybe because there is no good way to jump out of a helicopter that decides to discontinue beating its way thru the air.
I live only about 3 miles from Currahee mountain. During WW2 it was the training ground for the unit that was imortalized in Band Of Brothers. Now they have an annual celebration complete with the Army parachute team putting on a demonstration. I'd look up the unit identification but it's late and I'm too lazy.
Sorry Guys. No disrespect intended.
I'll bet there is so much ammo fired into that mountain that a metal detector would go crazy.
My friend Garfield was a young lad during that time. He said that every afternoon that they would just open up with the guns . The boys who could get leave or passes would come into town drink and just generally tear thing up until the MPs would arrive.
During my participation in the Southeast Asia War Games at Quang Tri, RSVN, our Avionics officer was a 2nd looey named Reginald. Reggie for short, and because he hated to be called Reginald.
An ROTC graduate with a degree in Electronic Engineering, he wanted nothing more out of life than to be an 'airborne ranger'. He begged the army to assign him to the infantry and send him to ranger school. But, they in their infinate wisdom knew that he would be so much more useful fixing (or more properly, supervising) the radios for our helicopters and command center.
Oh how he pleaded with them to make him a ranger! To no avail.
But not deterred, while attending the armys avionics and electrical school he coaxed, or more likely, bribed someone to cut him orders to allow him to attend ranger school at Ft Benning GA, down at Columbus, where he qualified and made about 6 or 7 static line jumps out of whatever airplanes they used in those days.
He arrived in Quang Tri all spit and polish and proud as a peacock about the airborne wings he wore on his chest and cover. Airborne he would shout as he walked about the camp. He would beg to be allowed to fly out with the infantry squad we carried in the huey that accompanied each hunter killer team.
No was the answer, he was much to important fixing radios. This only made him more determined to prove to himself and the world that he was John Wayne incarnate.
He bunked in the same hootch as I, and our bunks would have been next to each other except he pulled our wall lockers between us an made himself a cave in the corner.
He hung a towel over the opening for privacy. Since he was from up north somewhere, I called him a damn yankee, and he called me a damn rebel, which I took to be an honorable title.
Charlie liked to lob in a few mortor shells each evening between dusk and midnight just to keep us on our toes you know.. After a few times of running to the bunkers and being laughed at as FNGs, we soon learned to judge the closeness of the explosions and just lay in our bunks with a determination to simply roll under it if things got too close.
One evening we had mostly gone to our bunks, writing letters or reading, or simply wishing we were back in the world, when the shelling started up. As charlie started walking the rounds closer and closer I was considering that in a few more rounds it would be time to crawl under the bed.
Apparently Reggie was sleeping and unaware of the noise when one round got a little closer and woke him up. Yelling 'incoming' and trying to claw his way around the lockers and fighting the towel aside, he suddenly stopped and shouted "Don't move".
OOHH shit, what was it? Were the little bastards coming thru the hootch door?
As I stared at him with a modicum of concern and asked in a calm whisper "what is it" ? He replied "I knocked my contact lens out of my eye. Much hilarity ensued. With flashlights the errant lens was found and Reggie, embarrassed, creep meekly back to his bunk.
Reggie later had a chance to redeem his pride. A unit of APCs were just outside the wire and were pinned down by a lone sniper up in a tree. Un-freaking-believable. Armored personal carriers with at least one M-60 per track and possible a .50 cal. and no telling how many troops with M-16s and a lone sniper kept them pinned down for several hours.
Reggie hearing of this over the radio, and sensing his time had at last came, grabbed his rifle and jeep and sailed to the rescue. Arriving at the Tracks, he asked were the sniper was. Receiving the general direction, he using all the skills obtained in AIT sallied forth boldly, shot the sniper from the tree, and then told the APC unit they could proceed in safety.
I wonder where he is today?
For you Reggie. AIRBORNE!!! HOO-RAH!!!
Wow ! Did we ever have a thunderstorm last night. Rain by the bucket fulls and thunder and lightening continiously for an hour and a half.
What made it especially bad was to watch precious pup turn in to terrified pup.
We of course know that he is afraid of loud noises, but, he was inconsolable last night. Around and around the inside of the house he would trot. From one room to the next hiding under the bed the table the computer desk.. Couldn't be held either, he couldn't get away from the noise there.
I walked to the door to look out and he ran up as is he had to go take a leak.
So....against my better judgement I walked him out on the porch and told him to hurry up & do his little thing. Oh No. He's not going to step off the porch without me going with him. So out we both went. Me telling him to hurry up and him trying to find the perfect spot. Finally the deed was done and we ran back inside.
As soon as we're back inside, he wants to go out again because I'm still at the door.
I'm as slow learner but this time I call for the umbrella. Out we go. Over toward the truck this time. Okay, I'll let him water the wheel. No, he wants to get in the truck. I figure he wants to get in to hide so, in we both go. I Crank it up and turn on the A/C which makes its own kind of noise. So he hides under my legs and the drivers seat and lays down. More or less calm. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the worst, he's probably an 8.
We sat that way for about and Hour. You tell me, who's the master here.
I guess he has his on patch of kudzu.
Did the Israelis blink in their latest tete'a tete' with hissbolla (may pig piss be ever upon them)?
Sure looks like it at this time. But, I think that the fact that the US didn't outright come to their aid with material and other support had more to do with it than the fact that we have this UN imposed 'cease fire'.
In effect, I believe, the West backed down from Iran which was overtly shipping missles and supplies and also trained fighters into Lebonon. Had they sat on their hands the Israelis would have had an easier time of it.
What has happened in effect is to hand the Islamo-faciest-terrorist a major victory. Not in armed conflict but in preception in the arab and persian camp.
Until we in the west wake up, grow a set of brass balls, and start doing the hard things we will continue to receive the little supprises that the moo-slimes (may pig piss be ever upon them) have in store for us.
We need to carry the fight to them on their own terms. While it may go against the grain and offical policy of the government, we need to develope and send in covert operators by the thousands and kill the leaders, including heads of governments if necessary, by stealth, quietly, and sometimes by targeting by lasar from miles away.
We have the weaponery, we have some of the operatives. We just need to increase their ranks by many multiples, because many of them will not come back.
Just my view from deep in the kudzu.
Let me just start by saying that our "Group" at the VA this morning was most excellent in all extremes except one. (about which more later)
First off just let me say that I absolutly freaking hate to be in a lot of traffic.
My driving skills are of course above reproach. It's the other million and a half of the crazy commuters who have to make it to work on time or there'll be hell to pay, not to mention the mortgage and the car payments and the braces for the kids and the new boob job to keep the old chain and ball attractive to the pool boy to pay for.
That's why I live out in the country.... so every bug in the known universe can feast on my tender lily white flesh.
So there I am having gotten up before any sane person has a right to, to get on I-85 early enough so as to miss the "rush" hour traffic, even if it does mean that I get there from 1 1/2 to 2 hrs early.
So as to deny myself the joy of mixing it up with some idiot who was up half the night whacking off to internet porn and can barely see his eyes are so red.
When.............to my suprise right about half way between Indian Trail and Beaver Ruin Rd the Cell phone rings. And since I'm completly anal about the extension between my wrist and ear, I answer...hello?
Why's Bobby still in the trailer?
And it goes downhill from there.
So I was in a great mood when I got to the VA. Go into our little oasis away from all the sane and politically correct world for at least an hour.
Man, we were on a roll. We had most of the political and military problems in the known universe solved and were starting on the economic challanges of hard..ie Gold and Silver Money VS Good old greenbacked by nothing Federal Reserve Notes, when in walked Harold, about 5 minutes after we started (we being nothing if not efficient problem solvers, which probably explains why we are there every monday after all).
Now Harold is having lady trouble.........that is he got jelous of some dude who came to his birthday party thrown by his "then" girlfriend without his own dudette, and was whispering to his "then" gf.
Now in Harold's defense I must say that by his own admission about a bottle and a third of Bombay Sapphire had been consumed so things might have been a little hazy. So being all of about 5'6" tall and about 135 lbs he proceeds to clean the clock of said dude. Whereupon looking around and seeing the marveling and admiring gazes.......rather incredulous stares of the other attendees, he says to hell with all of this and leaves. I mean what the hell there is no way in hell he'll ever be able to get that girls skirt up again. But that doesn't keep him from trying lo these past three weeks. Of course we were all encourgaging of his persual of said ex-gf.
And all of our advice was all well intentioned and the best we could offer. You just have to keep in mind that between the twelve of us there have probably been no less than twenty five or thirty wives, so of course we could draw on our eperiences of many years to get him thru this tiny crisis. He should pay us for the help.
Oh, yes the one down part. The young lithsome, blonde intern with the exqusite ankles is leaving for more fertile fields. We wish her luck.
But I'll bet there won't be any kudzu there.
Whoa That didn't take as long as we might have hoped did it?
Yesterdays post was an attempt to wake up just a remnant of common sense people to the threat that the Islamic Jihadist pose to the west in general and possibly to us individually as well.
For instance........Just suppose a small group of terrorists were to cross the mexican border, either legally or illegally. Perhaps they meet as preplanned some people who have been in our country for years. Perhaps even nationalised citizens.
Suppose those citizens had spent a period of time collecting assualt weapons. Easy to do under the radar.
Picking up their weapons, ammo and transportation they disperse into groups of four or five across the country to cities picked not so much from a strategic position, as for the preception that it can't happen here.
Giving them time to all arrive at their destination, suppose that they take an innocent looking trip to the local Mall on a weekend say when the crowds are the biggest. When the food courts are packed or the movie theaters are crowded.
You'd be suppriesed how easy it is to hide weapons and spare ammo about your person, yet keep anyone from suspecting anything is amiss.
Supposed you had decided to take your preteen Children to get school clothes or to see a movie. You stop to get a slice of pizza at the food court, not noticing four individuals (not necessarily all men), who stroll to the center of the food court.
They suddenly stand back to back pulling their automatic weapons from under their coats or out of their shopping bags and start firing straight ahead while slowly circling to spread their fire all around the place or perhaps they have high explosives in those bags which they carry throughout the place before a single signal from a cell phone sends nails, tacks, glass or ball bearings into you and your child or children and dozens or perhaps hundreds of others.
How will you stop them? Can you stop them? Do we as a civilization do the hard thing?
