Metal chapeau

Taking a lead from the inimitable elisson I have found for myself a new bit of headgear.



Giving new meaning to the term "Metal Head", which term might more aptly apply to GOC on a Sunday I am wearing a platter cover from the early part of the last century which has seen better days.

Found lying in the weeds near an old farm house it has been the object of thrown rocks, whacks from what look to be sling-blades and maybe even a lawnmower or two.

Strange location and treatment for a sterling silver cover from The Gorham Martele Company.

What strange treatment for such an item, and an even stranger resting place tonight.

If I had a brain I might refer to it as my BrainBucket

In the heat of the day

I did get up to cut the Ol' Grumps grass today. It was only 97 degrees by the time I finished.

Finally...after fiddling around most of the morning trying first one thing and then another to get the Murray riding mower to crank.

I finally narrowed the choices down to either just plain cussedness or a bad solenoid. Replaced the solenoid and it still wouldn't crank. But then I asked myself if I'd replaced all the wires in the correct order. Made one change and...it cranked. I had placed one of the small wires on the wrong post on the solenoid. Hurray

The grass at the Ol' Grumps was almost waist high and thick as could be. The Murray was moaning and belts were slipping, smoking and squealing. The blade adjustment was raised as high as I could get it. Next time I'll tell him to hire a bush hog...or maybe buy a couple dozen goats.

Speaking of cutting things.....

Our oldest daughter called the wife while on her way to work this morning. She passed along the news that the oldest grand son had tried to hack his way out of a chance meeting with a spider while helping to get the deer camp ready for the upcoming season yesterday. I guess you could say the spider won since Cody almost whacked off three of his fingers with a machete. Bird finger, pointing finger and little finger of the left hand. Only thirty stitches or so at the Washington, GA emergency room. Fortunately there was no permanent lose of any digit and the damage will heal in time. Hopefully the lesson on not over reacting to things will be imprinted on the appropriate parts of his brain. Next time he might have a chainsaw in his hands. Maybe I'll show him the three scars on my left kneecap where the chainsaw teeth nicked me several years ago just to help re-enforce that particular lesson.

One of my regulars called me as I was bringing the mower home this afternoon. I drove up after supper and picked up a few things.

One was this silver spoon from England. I'll put it next to a couple nuggets I picked up last week.



The other thing I picked up was an almost new 1866 Yellowboy (only fired once) from Cimarron's Repeating Arms. This one has the 24 inch barrel and custom engraving on the receiver. I'm not sure I'll be able to part with this baby. I don't know why as I don't do enough shooting to justify it. But better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it I suppose.

We were hoping to maybe get some rain off the tropical storm down Flordia way, but so far nothing. It's getting along about whirly girl time down that way. Hope any of you down then are battened down and provisioned up.

Ya'll come back. Maybe I'll tell you the story behind the spoon and the nuggets.

The Muse and I

My muse has been a little quiet of late....well, actually that's not exactly true. It's more like I have been ignoring her. For what reason? Damnifiknow. Probably for many of the same reasons I have been a world class procrastinator all my life.

If it's not a crisis....fuggidaboutit.

Not that there is a crisis going on at the moment...I just felt the keyboard had been a little neglected and decided to apply fingertips to remind them of their original purpose....lest they begin to think that dust and cracker crumbs are their only companions.

Well...actually the cracker crumbs have been replaced by bits of cheese, eggs, bacon and mayonnaise for the last two weeks. Mostly that is.

I have embarked on a determined (as opposed to all the other times) quest to shed the outer child of 4 years or so of age (however old they are when they weigh about 40 lbs) that hangs around my mid section.

Older age has it's benefits I'm sure, but a slower metabolism is not one of them. Of course when I was running a portable sawmill as a business and totin' 2 X 10 X 16's around or 4 X 6 X 16's, and rolling 2 foot diameter logs up the skid poles to be sawn it was a different story. The muscle is still there....it's just marbled with plenty of fat these days. I'm afraid if I don't lose a little weight that when the Obama team starts passing out the Soylent Green I'll be classified as USDA Choice #1.

(Pause to go step on the scale, trembling in trepidation and fear.)

Good.....didn't gain any after todays debauchery at the Chinese Buffet in Dahlonega.

Down so far about 14 pounds. Average 1 a day, but in actuality a couple of days didn't show any lose because I fudged a bit. (Come on...a guy need a bit of biscuit and gravy at least once every two weeks).

What you may ask was I doing in Dahlonega, GA today? Well you may ask.

The better half decided that she was not going to hang around here today and announced that she was going to the hills and if I was going to hurry up and get in the drivers seat. I started to tell her to get in, sit down, strap in, hang on and shut up......but reason won out and I kept my lip zipped.

A pleasant trip to be sure. We took US 441 up to Baldwin and then the back roads over to Cleveland and thence on hwy 115 to Dahlonega, home of the afore mentioned Chinese Buffet (where I manfully stuck to the Mongolial Beef with onions and the Shrimp with Vegetables that I made sure contained no vegatables except onions and broccli), North GA College (still a partly military school for those young men who are hardy enough and quite a few ladies who can snap to attention with the best of them) and the Crisson Gold Mine run by the lovely Tammy with an assist from her husband and Miss Jo Jo. Here I go to pick up panning supplies, the latest issue of Gold Prospector magazine and leave a few business cards since they kindly point those who want to sell any gold they find to me.

It's not a lot generally but I certainly pay more than the local pawn shops.

After leaving there we took the road up to Suches, GA a valley that is supposed to be above the clouds but today was right smack dab in the middle of them as they dropped some blessed rain.

It rained off and on after that through Morganton, Blue Ridge, Blairsville, Young Harris, Hiwassee and Helen. It pretty much petered out by the time we got within sight of The Classic City once more though. If we hadn't gotten about a quarter inch of rain last week we'd be as dry as a popcorn fart. Need some more for sure.

We stopped a time or two.....once at the antique mall in Hiwasse where we looked around and pointed out that people who would pay their prices were way too rich and moreover were a bit stupid. A for instance would be the fact that they were asking $16.00 for common date, circulated, not graded Franklin half dollars. That's only about three times the value of the silver content. If I could sell mine at that price I could make a big dent in the mortgage on the Kudzu Hovel (KH).

We got home expecting the Ol' Grump to be waiting on his supper but he has (after four years) decided to drive himself up to his rental trailer and work on it himself instead of spending a little of his sociable security to hire someone (NOT my wife, she says, and means it) to do it. So far he hasn't wrecked the car and even goes to Home Depot, where a fifteen minute in and out to grab some screws or some such, takes two hours.

Oh well, it gets him out of the house which is what we've wanted for five years.

Perhaps tomorrow if I can get the lawnmower to crank, I'll take it up there and cut his grass.

Ya'll come back. Maybe I'll tell you about the couple who passed us going south on 441 in a Ford utility van with ladder racks on the top and just married painted on the windows.

I figured it was out of convenience since if the urge struck he could just pull over to the side, move some tools out of the way on the floor in back and knock off a quickie. The wife allowed as how he'd probably won her over by saying he had a big mobile home, but didn't say it had a Ford emblem on the front.

A Private Companies solution to Health Care

I've always been of the opinion that private individuals have better ideas than Government for the most part.

The Wall Street Journal has printed a plan put forth by the CEO of Whole Foods.

See what you think.

* The Wall Street Journal

* OPINION
* AUGUST 12, 2009

The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare


By JOHN MACKEY

“The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out
of other people’s money.”

—Margaret Thatcher

With a projected $1.8 trillion deficit for 2009, several trillions more in deficits projected over the next decade, and with both Medicare and Social Security entitlement spending about to ratchet up several notches over the next 15 years as Baby Boomers become eligible for both, we are rapidly running out of other people’s money. These deficits are simply not sustainable. They are either going to result in unprecedented new taxes and inflation, or they will bankrupt us.

While we clearly need health-care reform, the last thing our country needs is a massive new health-care entitlement that will create hundreds of billions of dollars of new unfunded deficits and move us much closer to a government takeover of our health-care system. Instead, we should be trying to achieve reforms by moving in the opposite direction—toward less government control and more individual empowerment. Here are eight reforms that would greatly lower the cost of health care for everyone:

• Remove the legal obstacles that slow the creation of high-deductible health insurance plans and health savings accounts (HSAs). The combination of high-deductible health insurance and HSAs is one solution that could solve many of our health-care problems. For example, Whole Foods Market pays 100% of the premiums for all our team members who work 30 hours or more per week (about 89% of all team members) for our high-deductible health-insurance plan. We also provide up to $1,800 per year in additional health-care dollars through deposits into employees’ Personal Wellness Accounts to spend as they choose on their own health and wellness.

Money not spent in one year rolls over to the next and grows over time. Our team members therefore spend their own health-care dollars until the annual deductible is covered (about $2,500) and the insurance plan kicks in. This creates incentives to spend the first $2,500 more carefully. Our plan’s costs are much lower than typical health insurance, while providing a very high degree of worker satisfaction.
(this money should pass to heirs, if any left at death, tax free, in my opinion)

• Equalize the tax laws so that that employer-provided health insurance and individually owned health insurance have the same tax benefits. Now employer health insurance benefits are fully tax deductible, but individual health insurance is not. This is unfair.

• Repeal all state laws which prevent insurance companies from competing across state lines. We should all have the legal right to purchase health insurance from any insurance company in any state and we should be able use that insurance wherever we live. Health insurance should be portable.

• Repeal government mandates regarding what insurance companies must cover. These mandates have increased the cost of health insurance by billions of dollars. What is insured and what is not insured should be determined by individual customer preferences and not through special-interest lobbying.

• Enact tort reform to end the ruinous lawsuits that force doctors to pay insurance costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. These costs are passed back to us through much higher prices for health care.

• Make costs transparent so that consumers understand what health-care treatments cost. How many people know the total cost of their last doctor’s visit and how that total breaks down? What other goods or services do we buy without knowing how much they will cost us?

• Enact Medicare reform. We need to face up to the actuarial fact that Medicare is heading towards bankruptcy and enact reforms that create greater patient empowerment, choice and responsibility.

• Finally, revise tax forms to make it easier for individuals to make a voluntary, tax-deductible donation to help the millions of people who have no insurance and aren’t covered by Medicare, Medicaid or the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.

Many promoters of health-care reform believe that people have an intrinsic ethical right to health care—to equal access to doctors, medicines and hospitals. While all of us empathize with those who are sick, how can we say that all people have more of an intrinsic right to health care than they have to food or shelter?

Health care is a service that we all need, but just like food and shelter it is best provided through voluntary and mutually beneficial market exchanges. A careful reading of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution will not reveal any intrinsic right to health care, food or shelter. That’s because there isn’t any. This “right” has never existed in America

Even in countries like Canada and the U.K., there is no intrinsic right to health care. Rather, citizens in these countries are told by government bureaucrats what health-care treatments they are eligible to receive and when they can receive them. All countries with socialized medicine ration health care by forcing their citizens to wait in lines to receive scarce treatments.

Although Canada has a population smaller than California, 830,000 Canadians are currently waiting to be admitted to a hospital or to get treatment, according to a report last month in Investor’s Business Daily. In England, the waiting list is 1.8 million.

At Whole Foods we allow our team members to vote on what benefits they most want the company to fund. Our Canadian and British employees express their benefit preferences very clearly—they want supplemental health-care dollars that they can control and spend themselves without permission from their governments. Why would they want such additional health-care benefit dollars if they already have an “intrinsic right to health care”? The answer is clear—no such right truly exists in either Canada or the U.K.—or in any other country.

Rather than increase government spending and control, we need to address the root causes of poor health. This begins with the realization that every American adult is responsible for his or her own health.

Unfortunately many of our health-care problems are self-inflicted: two-thirds of Americans are now overweight and one-third are obese. Most of the diseases that kill us and account for about 70% of all health-care spending—heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes and obesity—are mostly preventable through proper diet, exercise, not smoking, minimal alcohol consumption and other healthy lifestyle choices.

Recent scientific and medical evidence shows that a diet consisting of foods that are plant-based, nutrient dense and low-fat will help prevent and often reverse most degenerative diseases that kill us and are expensive to treat. We should be able to live largely disease-free lives until we are well into our 90s and even past 100 years of age.

Health-care reform is very important. Whatever reforms are enacted it is essential that they be financially responsible, and that we have the freedom to choose doctors and the health-care services that best suit our own unique set of lifestyle choices. We are all responsible for our own lives and our own health. We should take that responsibility very seriously and use our freedom to make wise lifestyle choices that will protect our health. Doing so will enrich our lives and will help create a vibrant and sustainable American society.
—Mr. Mackey is co-founder and CEO of Whole Foods Market Inc.Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A15

Copyright 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved


Permission has been given for seven days to pass this around. Lets make sure it gets wide publicity and all our congress people have a copy and know if we think it is better than Obama Care.

I'm giving it to all my liberal democrit friends. I worry that I may have to draw crayon pictures to explain it to them though.

Will you be deemed a USELESS EATER

I guess that depends on who is asked the question.

Take 7 minutes out of your busy day and watch this.

Who do you trust?

.
"The government can't even deliver our mail without losing money, yet
the public looks to it to manage our healthcare? Oy..."

There and Back again..

.. to steal a line from the ol' hairy-footed hill dweller.

Made it back from out little trip on Tuesday afternoon late. Les' see....

Got to the Charleston Marriott on Friday afternoon. High class digs for an ol' red neck from Red Hill. Ate at the infamous Bubba Gumps place down on meeting street. Tourist food. The good sea food would have to wait. Still a small roomful of family and friends made it a night to remember.

The wedding on Saturday in the chapel at the Citadel was beautiful. Photos will follow. Seeing Captain Zack and his brothers in their dress uniforms along with several other heros of the recent unpleasantness in the middle east was a moving sight to these old eyes. Of course the sight of his beautiful bride and her bridesmaids made me wish I was young again.

A short trip on Sunday up to Myrtle Beach, SC (The Redneck Riviera of the East Coast) and we were soon on the beach slathering sunscreen on ourselves and trying to find a little shade. I'd almost forgotten how much fun getting out in the ocean could be.

(a little tip for those of you who like nice fluffy pillows. Don't stay at Lenny's unless you take your own pillow.)

I discovered that you can see more representatives of the more weird side of humanity from a vantage point just above and to one side of the sidewalk there than could have been imagined before this trip.

The good thing about being gone.......for a couple of days I ignored any news broadcast or political pundits what-so-ever.

I've been working on my furnace today and the hour is late. To bed go I. I'll think more on things tomorrow......maybe.

Road Trip

Gonna be gone for 5 days or so.

Will be in Charleston, SC attending the Captain's (my nephew) wedding.

Then up to Myrtle Beach for a couple nights with the oldest daughter and her family who are on their annual vacation up there.

Surely, somewhere along the coast there will be an opportunity to eat fresh seafood.
That's the kind of diet I'm on....I see food and I eat it. (groan)

ya'll play nice.

White Trash

As a kid (a long time ago and 40 miles away) the term 'White Trash' was not an epitaph one wanted to hear affixed to ones name. Way worse than even being called 'a Nigger'.

If you were white trash you were not fit to be associated with. You probably beat your wife, drank up your paycheck, if you even bothered to work, had kids that were neglected at best and at worst were abused mentally and physically. You wouldn't or couldn't provide a decent place to live and were generally considered unfit for decent folk to associate with.

Of course this was somewhat before the era of political correctness that we now live in. The civil rights movement was getting started and the welfare state was only a gleam in the eye of Lyndon Johnson. People worked....had to...wanted to.....and did so with a will for the most part. If you didn't, and were white, you still didn't want to be called 'white trash'. That was a mark you didn't want to slip down to.

Folks...I'm from the south of the mid 1900's. We were not rich, but didn't consider ourselves poor, although we might not have had as much money as some. We had enough to take care of ourselves with maybe a few perks now and again and were farmers from farming stock going back generations. There was segregation in my early years and de-segregation before I finished high school but I can not recall any instance where my parents or grand parents treated blacks with anything but respect, which they gave to anyone who had not first acted in a manner that showed they were not entitled to respect. As children we were taught to respect everyone regardless and to not associate with those who didn't prove worthy of respect.

One of my earliest memories is of a visit I and my next younger sister had with my mothers parents. I don't know how long we stayed with them but it was long enough that we accompanied them to church.....Might have been a revival...I don't remember. What I do remember is that the congregation was black. There might have been a few other whites there, I have no memory of there being any.

Two memories do stick in my mind. They must have had a dozen preachers that day.

To a child who attended a Methodist church where the members were so few and so poor that the preacher had to what we called 'ride a circuit' in order to receive enough pay out of the collection plate to earn a half way decent living, which meant that we had 'preaching' only every second or third Sunday, to hear that many preachers on one day was an awesome sight. I remember that the preachers were so filled with 'the spirit' that they'd exhaust themselves in maybe thirty minutes or so and would sit back down sweating, huffing and wiping their brows with bandannas and then the next one would start up. Each apparently trying to outdo the others.

The second memory of that day is that as my sister, I and our grandparents were walking back up the dirt road to their house I had a strong urge to pee, so grandpa led me out of the road to behind a big ol' oak tree where I did what came natural...I sprayed the bushes as far and as high as I could reach, even shooting a stream across a huge spider web which sent the spider into paroxysms of rage and caused it to jump up and down on the web trying to startle me....which of course just made me more anxious to wash her off. Aahh.....ol' times, they are not forgotten.

So while there was discrimination and bigotry towards blacks....for the most part it didn't really affect us in a direct and personal way. To be sure we saw on the news, seen on the black and white TV at night, scenes of freedom marches and angry reactions to them by whites who wanted the status quo to remain, we in our little world didn't really understand it.

What we did understand, almost instinctively, was that we didn't want to be considered 'white trash'.

These memories returned to me this afternoon when the mother of the white trash that has been renting the Ol' Grumps doublewide up at Carnesville came by to say that her son was in jail (no real reason given) because there had been an altercation between him and his wife and her family (which had apparently been living with them for a month or so, although we were under the impression that they had their own home) and his wife and child would be moving out. (this 5 days after he had made the last bi-monthly rent payment, which was of course late) Oh, and by the way, they may be tearing the trailer up. (her way, probably, of saying that during the fight the walls and doors may have sustained some damage, which of course should not be laid at the feet of her son.....he of course having been unjustly incarcerated)

So....it turns out...'he' and maybe 'them' could be considered 'white trash' and by extension, I guess, 'Trailer Trash'.

Just damn!

The Stupidity of Government Officials

The somewhat early demise of the once black singer Michael Jackson is surely a tragedy for his children and family.

The outpouring of grief by fans of the alleged pedophile and certainly one of the weirdest human beings on the planet (although the spoof of him being an alien in Men in Black may have had more than a little basis in fact) and the intense media coverage of the entire event has to make rational thinkers wonder if indeed a very large part of the population doesn't just need to get a life.

But to have a bankrupt city in a bankrupt state spend way too much money that they don't have, and will have very little hope of ever recouping, to provide security, traffic control and other services without getting a commitment from either the family or the funeral home up front just borders on insanity. One more example of officials who just assume as a matter of course that the public coffers will always be replenished by the money that is taken through taxes from a public which is too cowed to object to their stupidity.

The question to be asked is whether they would have done as much for any of the tens of millions of the normal hard-working, tax paying citizens who live a normal life?

One wonders just what part of the word NO they don't understand.

A new age of slavery?

There will always be those who for whatever reason take their living from whomever they can get it from by whatever means. Seven Hundred years ago it was the lord and nobility of Europe using the existing serfdom of the poor.

Are we headed into or already in a position of serfdom?

Make with the clicky and read the article. I'd much like to hear your opinion.

Something to think about

Banking was conceived in iniquity and born in sin. The Bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create deposits, and with the flick of the pen they will create enough deposits to buy it back again. However, take away that power, and all the great fortunes like mine will disappear — as they ought to in order to make this a happier and better world to live in. But, if you wish to remain the slaves of Bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, then let them continue to create deposits.”
Sir Josiah Stamp (1880-1941), one time governor of the Bank of England, in his Commencement Address at the University of Texas in 1927. Reportedly he was the second wealthiest individual in Britain.

We can argue and fight over which political party or none is the best for our well being in either the short or long run, but perhaps we are blaming the wrong people.

We can elect which ever pawn of the bankers we are fooled into supporting and nothing much will change.

Or am I just mixing my meds up lately?

I need to cut the grass

...but looking at the Gladiolus and the Hibiscus made me want to share these bit of summertime color with you instead. I can live with the grass being a little high if you can.













Like Eric I am glad I live in the South.

Jesus and the Democrat

Thanks go out to my youngest Sister for the following little bit of humor.

A Republican in a wheelchair entered a restaurant one afternoon and asked the waitress for a cup of coffee. The Republican looked across the restaurant and asked, "Is that Jesus sitting over there?"
The waitress nodded yes, so the Republican requested that she give Jesus a cup of coffee, on him.

The next patron to come in was a Libertarian with a hunched back. He shuffled over to a booth, painfully sat down, and asked the waitress for a cup of hot tea. He also glanced across the restaurant and asked, "Is that Jesus over there?" The waitress nodded, so the Libertarian asked her to give Jesus a cup of hot tea, "My treat."

The third patron to come into the restaurant was a Democrat on crutches. He hobbled over to a booth, sat down and hollered, "Hey there, honey! How's about gettin' me a cold glass of Miller Light?" He, too, looked across the restaurant and asked, "Is that God's boy over there?"

The waitress on ce more nodded, so the Democrat directed her to give Jesus a cold glass of beer. "On my bill," he said.

As Jesus got up to leave, he passed by the Republican, touched him and said, "For your kindness, you are healed." The Republican felt the strength come back into his legs, got up, and danced a jig out the door.

Jesus also passed by the Libertarian, touched him and said, "For your kindness, you are healed." The Libertarian felt his back straightening up, and he raised his hands, praised the Lord, and did a series of back flips out the door.

Then, Jesus walked towards the Democrat.

The Democrat jumped up and yelled, "Don't touch me...
I'm collecting disability."


That's unfortunately true of all too many people in this country today.....Democrat, Republican, Those who claim to be Libertarian and a whole bunch in between.
Also Union Members and those who are supposed to work at the Post Office.

Until we as a society realize that 'There ain't no such thing as a FREE lunch' and relearn the lessons that were taught to generations past and ignored as we became too successful for our own good, which led us into arrogance, we'll continue to slid ever farther down the slippery slope towards a failed people.

New item on side bar

Look to the left of this post and see a nice little quote. I'm going to leave it top left for a while, which, since I rarely change anything, might be for a long while.

Although the case is over 100 years old the meaning is clear. Would the current Supreme court put out a similar opinion? Good question. I'd like to think so....but then I like to think most people have a modicum of common sense about them. Of course our current overlords in high places aren't most people, are they?

Whether you think it's because of a vast conspiracy (boy do we have plenty of opinions on that) or simply that too many people have discovered that they can obtain their living by having it taken from someone else by force of law (remember the government is the only entity which can use deadly force against you legally) and given to them for only the cost of a vote or promise of same. This is plunder plain and simple, disguised as caring or charity. A noble sounding objective, charity is, but when forcefully taken from even one, to be given to any other, profanes the name.

The pendulum swings to the extremes on either side. Will the extremes this current government is going to in order to share the wealth lead inevitably to a time when everyone will defend by force of arms what is theirs and the devil take the hindmost?

It will unless some common sense is used. Unfortunately...it seems to be in short supply in some circles.

Made in China

.
Once again we see that the benign, caring, peace-loving religion of Islam-o-fascists are doing their best to get along with their neighbors around the world.

I doubt the Red Chinese will put up with much of this.

Continuing attacks on the rule of law

Honduras is standing firm in the face of almost universal condemnation for their ouster of a wanna be Hugo Chavez.

They blocked the runways to prevent the ousted Manuel Zelaya from returning.

It still seems to me that their elected leaders in the congress, the Supreme Court and the Military acted properly to prevent an attempt to bypass their countries laws by a power hungry president who wanted to subvert their laws to stay in power longer than legally allowed under their laws.

Of course all the tin-pot dictators around the world...including the would-be tin-pot dictator we elected president of this country... along with the worthless UN are protesting this decision.

It's still early in his reign of terror against the rule of law and capitalism in this country but look for Barry to attempt something along those same lines if he perceives that his presidency is in danger of being limited to one or even two terms.

Think that can't happen here? Would you bet your children's future on it?

It seems to me that we've strayed pretty far afield from the vision of freedom and personal liberty that our founders had for us.

A new day......A new week

Well actually the new week started yesterday, but since I'm up early this morning it feels like the start of a new week today.

We all gathered for a memorial to the late BIL yesterday. Cried our tears, laughed our laugh and looked at pictures of a 72 year long life. Then we stuffed ourselves with food provided by the ladies of the church he and the SIL attended.

The stuffing with food is a pretty good way to say........we'll miss you ol' boy.....but life goes on.

Woke up a bit early for me....about 5:30. Normally I'm good till 6:30 or 7:00, but the wife stayed the night with her sister and so it was just the pooch and me in the king sized bed and he doesn't snore enough to keep me lulled I guess. So I'll make and early start...check the local news and set down the cereal for me and the ol' Grump.

I'm working on a homemade refractory furnace out at the shop building. Using an old 30 lb propane tank I've cut the top off and filled the bottom with cement leaving a paint can sized hole in the middle to take the graphite crucible holding the metals to be melted. An eight inch long iron pipe nipple inserted at the bottom will direct the propane flame around the crucible heating it (hopefully, if I've done it anywhere close to right) up to around 2500 to 3000 degrees F. I'll only need it to reach about 2000 degrees or so for my purposes.

I had to order a special concrete and thought that a 55 lb. bag would be plenty. I was really surprised to find that it wasn't enough to insulate the lid as well and I'll have to order another 55 lb. bag just to finish that part of the project. (that being the smallest amount I can order. One thing about it.....it'll be too heavy to move around too much.

I'll try to post pictures so you can see what I'm talking about.

That will start the day and I'm sure I'll find something else to do before lunch.






As promised a couple pictures of the furnace I'm building.
The first picture shows the lid swung open on the pin type hinge.
The second picture shows how much cement I yet have to fill in the lid.

Another one bites the dust

It seems to be one more of those afflictions that come with getting older. My generation, the so called "Baby Boomers", start noticing that funerals and memorial services for people we knew start occurring with greater frequency....followed in due course, I guess, by the decreasing of frequency as every one else has already left you behind.

The early morning or late night calls happen often enough that you begin to respond to the ringing of the phone not with, "I wonder who that is?", but to "who left us this time?".

The afore mentioned BIL was the subject of this mornings early call. No more physical suffering......just memories and aching loneliness for the grieving widow, children, grandchildren and those close to him.

Today the bell tolls for Bobby.

Ah Jeez.....

Now this is some where you would really want to live isn't it.

Dumbass needs a little adjustment I think.