Summer rerun

The shoes hurt my feet. I was a bit aggravated. I had to tell one of my buddies he should not be drinking beer in church. He did not see the problem. I told him the Catholics may not mind, but the Methodists had issues with alcohol in the church. I was half irritated because I wanted one of those beers myself.

I had been in an argument with some other people who wanted to mess with my car. Permanent marker does not come off of windows.

The whole thing was becoming a real pain. I cut myself shaving. The photographer annoyed the shit out of me with the stupid poses. Everyone wanted to talk to me tell me this or that, tell me a story or anecdote from their own experience.

I was pissed because I was standing there waiting. I have little patience now. I had less then. Otter was there. So were some other buddies. Finally the ladies came through the doors, things were finally moving.

I could not help smiling when she came through the door at last. She was beautiful: freckles and all. Her hair, her dress, all looked great. My irritation vanished as the organ switched tunes and the audience stood. Even though this all happened twenty-three years ago*, I remember many of the details. The minister seemed to drone about the Galatians or some such. We dated six years before we got married, I guess I do have patience when it comes to certain details. At last the deed was done. We were off to the reception and then the best part -- the honeymoon!

Here I sit, twenty-three years later and I remain married. I am short tempered, I find myself incredibly amusing. My hair is graying and maybe even thinning a bit on top, but I really do not care to investigate. Bifocals are on my nose, my gut has grown. I fart a lot. She sports some gray when she does not keep her hair dyed. Her vision is getting bad too. She cannot decide if she needs longer or shorter arms to read a menu. She thinks she is fat. She complains about getting old. I still think she is beautiful and sexy. Some days I look at her and I am filled with desire. I thank God for her every day -- even those when she pisses me off. I suspect I anger her far more than she does me.

I wanted to post a picture from that day, but my scanner is again on the fritz. Trust me, she was the most beautiful woman in the world standing there in the Methodist Church -- June 30, 1984. I am a lucky man.

* I first posted this back in 2007. Today makes 31 years.

Dear Mr President

So, if you had your way companies would be forced to pay overtime to salaried workers making $50K or less. I will cover this again; businesses do not exist to provide jobs. They exist to make money and would do away with all employees if possible. Would I like to be paid for every hour I worked? Sure. What will happen is that starting salaries will drop, or fewer employees will be hired.

Your onerous healthcare system and the hundreds of regulations, and increases in energy costs due to EPA mandates have added to the cost of business, stagnating wages. If you had ever run a business larger than a lemonade stand you would understand that.

Do not kayak in flood waters you idiots

We find ourselves at the start of yet another work week. I'm breathing and that is a good thing. The rain finally stopped Saturday afternoon and the yard was mostly dry enough to mow on Sunday. I cut the lawn while the wife pulled weeds from the flower beds. We then spent a few hours cutting up branches from the tree we cut down a few weeks ago. By evening I was pooped.

There is a chipmunk scurrying around in the driveway and front yard. It rained over night and looks like it will resume at any time. The wife discovered the rabbits have been chewing her flowers. She was pissed. They ate one big purple one in front. No,I don't know, it had purple flowers. We got stuff that will supposedly smells like dirty diapers, beer farts, and rotten eggs to a bunny and will discourage him from wanting to eat.  We shall see.

Chris Squire, co-founder and bassist from my favorite band Yes died Saturday evening. I am bummed. That dude could make his yellow Rickenbacker sing.

RIP Mr. Squire

Pop Quiz

Since we are revising history on a daily basis, here is a simple quiz to see what you know about American history. Don't worry, it is one simple question.  The answer is below the fold.

What was the singular event that caused South Carolina and subsequently the rest of the Confederate States to secede from the Union?

Here's Another One From '72

I don't think Bob has been featured on these pages previously. Now that is no longer true.

OMG

Apple has banned Civil War games because (ack!) the Confederates soldiers have a Confederate Battle Flag! Imagine that. They also have gray uniforms. So did the Nazis ergo...I guess we will never see a movie about the Civil War again.

Fucking idiots.  Political Correctness is the new McCarthyism, only on steroids. And stupidity. Lots of stupidity.

Not that we need one

If you are looking for yet another reason to vote against another Bush in the White House, consider the last one gave us John Roberts, who apparently cannot read simple English, but can read the minds of Democrat Senators and Congressmen.

Edit: Roberts says.“In every case we must respect the role of the Legislature, and take care not to undo what it has done, I guess that this court would not have overturned Brown vs. the Board of Education.

More edit. Or DOMA....Never mind I guess they are consistently inconsistent 

Seriously?

A NY Post film  critic is calling for an end to showings of Gone With the Wind. CNN wants to tear down the Jefferson memorial? I'm pretty sure the kooks will once again be calling for a ban on Tom and Huck. Jacobin Fever is spreading. Next we will be denouncing our neighbors. Left wing philosophy feeds on the blood of freedom. Hyperbole? See revolutionary France, the USSR, Mao's China, Pol Pot's killing fields, Cuba, El Salvador, North Korea, etcetera., etcetera, etcetera.

Progressives are looking to purge society of all they judge to be offensive. Sounds a lot like the Taliban and ISIS doesn't it?

Midweek Music

Traffic -- always good for a listen.

I said listen.

This song is a reworking of an English folk ballad and comes from the 1970 album of the same name.

This is the second version of Traffic, reformed by Steve Windwood after the demise of the short-lived Blind Faith.

That don't mean what you think it means

Keep the Confederate flag, dump it, I don't care. Those who live in the various states that fly the Bonny blue flag can make that decision. We should recognize that the flag was hoisted in many cases as a response to the Civil Rights Movement by Democrat Governors and Democrat legislatures.  Of course the flag represents slavery. It represents the efforts of those who tried to tear the country apart. I confess, I have pissed on the Jefferson Davis memorial. It was a juvenile act, but fitting for a man responsible for more than a half a million American deaths. I would, given the chance, do it again. Yes, Robert E. Lee was a traitorous bastard too.

Of course the Stars and Bars is offensive to blacks. But if you want them stuck on your bumper it tells the rest of us a great deal about you, just like an Obama bumper sticker or one of those stupid "tolerance" stickers made of religious symbols. It tells us you are naive and probably ignorant to boot. But there should be no PC knee-jerk actions here. Despite the current concern over "micro aggressions" there does not exist in America the right to never be offended.

think it through

The Pope is all into the "we are all gonna die 'cause Globull Warming" these days. Strangely, he blames air conditioning. But if Earth is going to get all hot as the surface of Mercury in the next 10, 20,50,100 years, won't air conditioning be a good thing?

A very short tale in which the hero laughs to himself but felt bad nonetheless

I was sitting at a stop light somewhere on the northeast side of Kansas City, MO last week. A car in the lane to my right rolled down his window and waved frantically. I rolled down my passenger window. "Hey Man", he says, " How do I get to Overland Park, Kansas?".

"Dude, I'm from Indiana. I have no clue".

"Fuck" the very tone of that expletive said he was having a bad day indeed. I really had no idea beyond a vague knowledge that Overland Park was south and west, which I doubt would have been too helpful.

Rumor Has It

I read that they are going to make a live action Jonny Quest movie. I am simultaneously jazzed and horrified at that notion.

Can it be true? I read it on the Internet, so it must be.

Happy Day

Happy Father's Day to all you dads out there

Morning musings

It is a wonderful Saturday. I'm not sure what the boss has planned, but I am sure something is on the schedule. I pulled out the laptop to blog today

I went to the doctor yesterday. The old meds are not working, or give me massive diarrhea. I suspect you do not want details. The end result is I am now shooting up insulin once a day. Hooray for me. Maybe I can find a way to cash in by selling my used needles to junkies?  That is a joke, don't get all worked up NSA overlords.  I repeat that is joke.

There should be a law

There are laws against murder. There are hate crime laws. By law, churches in South Carolina are gun-free zones. So what new law, regulation, or edict would have stopped a crazed hate-filled murderer from shooting up a church in Charleston?

When the President calls for even more gun laws citing this stuff does not happen elsewhere, he must be golfing instead of watching the news.  Looks like plenty of folks are being killed in Africa and the Mideast. Didn't a bunch of people at a magazine get shot to death in France? Didn't some guy shoot 19 people in Norway? A bunch of school kids were slaughtered in Chechnya.

Gun free zones are target rich environments.

Dig it

For my man, Hey Teacher
Groovy.

Man I love polka dots

Dear Pope johnPaulPious XXI whatever

If you are so worried about the "haves" not giving enough, why don't you empty out those Vatican treasury vaults, sell off some of the jewels, sculptures, paintings, relics, gold and silver altars, and church land and give it to the poor? Oh, never mind, you are just another liberal asshat willing to spend everyone else's money.

Oh, and maybe you can explain why we have had no global warming for 17 years and counting and why the U.S. Is cooling, you rat bastard commie. Otherwise,  eat me.

"Tax the rich, feed the poor 'til they ain't rich no more". Doesn't that just mean everyone is poor?  That is the problem with progressives; they don't think things through.

I confess

I don't feel guilty for being white. To the best of my knowledge I have not knowingly discriminated against anyone based on their skin color.  I do not think my whole race needs to amend for events that happened long before I was born. In fact, none of my family owned slaves. At least two ancestors fought to end slavery. But if they did own slaves, so what? In America we are not who our parents or grandparents were. We all have an equal opportunity to succeed. Is it hard? Yes. Is it guaranteed? No.

Look, I do not feel guilty for my blue eyes, my brown hair, my dimpled cheeks, or my lack of height. Nor do I feel guilty for lack of pigmentation in my skin. It is genetics. I don't have any special privilege based on my skin. What little success I have is through hard work, education, and a desire to succeed. Period.

Just Suppose

i identify as the Supreme Leader and Emperor Omnipotent, King of the Americas, Lord of Hoosierdom and Prince of the 57 States.  Bow before me thegns and serfs.

Do you indulge my crazy fantasies and henceforth refer to me as "Your Majesty", or  do we stop this insanity?

There was intermitant rain

As a nice change of pace, my trip to the frontier was largely absent of idiot drivers.

Run, Bunny, Run

I was out watering the flowers yesterday evening and in the process I flushed a baby bunny. This little guy was about the size of a chipmunk and could have fit in your palm. He scampered across the mulch to hide behind a day lilly. Then he broke cover to head out the wide-open gate. He tripped as he tried to jump the hose and fell on his side. It was cute and funny. But that hose was half his shoulder height. I would fall trying to jump a waist high barrier too.

We watched his frantic escape along the neighbor's fence. He hid behind a tuft of grass near the foundation of their house, resting and catching his little bunny breath. He then scurried through a gap near the fence post into their back yard.  Lucky for him that constant-barking dog no longer lives there.

The baby bunny provided about two minutes of entertainment for a couple of old farts on a Sunday evening. In a few weeks, when the little bunny grows up and starts eating my flowers I won't find him so cute.

on the spot

The coffee is hot
My head is full of snot
It could be raining
But it is not
I went to WalMart
No one fought
You came looking for content
Sorry, this is all I've got

Political Correctness is the New McCarthyism

I did not coin that phrase. That fact makes it no less true.

Come on baby let me know

You bitched last week. Try this 70's hit on for size. Pop with a disco flair. No wonder so many people were stoned most of the decade.

Your Government in action

I made a mistake when I completed the oldest boy's tax form to the state. Unfortunately, now he owes money. Mea Culpa.  Anyway we got a letter detailing the error. The letter states we have 20 DAYS to respond if we disagree.  The letter claims we should then allow an addition 8 to 12 WEEKS for them to consider our appeal. We get 20 days they get 84. Of course interest and penalties continue to accrue while their team of accountants investigates his  I1040 E for 12 weeks. The eleven weeks it took the IRS to find the original mistake in calculation already cost him more than $34 in penalties and interest. The check is on its way. It will probably take the Post Office a fortnight to move it 30 miles.

Mundane Musings

We are more than a decade into this excercise. My soporific prose has failed to woo the admiration of cool kids. I'm OK with that, I was only cool in my own mind back when I cared about such things. Back in school I got along fine with the jocks, the rich kids, and the hoodlums, but was not part of any of those cliques. They did not invite me to their parties, so I had my own. I am sure I had more fun, plus I always chose the music.

A is often the case, I have digressed from the point of this post. What was the point anyway? Oh yeah, here we are a decade into this and I'm still not sure what this blog is supposed to be when it grows up.  It is only the fluff of my personal life. You don't stop by to see the accident on I-20 like we all rubber-necked at the Acidman's blog. My life is the epitome of mundane. I work. I worry about paying bills. I get along great with my wife, my kids seem well adjusted despite my parenting. I'm an average Joe indeed.

I am firmly planted on the right side of the political spectrum. At 53 I don't suppose my politics are going to change. You either agree with my position or you are wrong. It is really pretty simple. While I still have the impulse, age has mellowed my desire to prove I'm right all of the time.

I like humor. I find a significant amount of stuff in life funny. A lot of my posts are written with my tongue planted firmly in my left cheek. Sarcasm remains my best ally in an argument.

So here is another post. It is not one of my best efforts. It is certainly not one of my worst. I am big enough in my mind to admit that most of my work here is out of habit these days, rarely are posts created from inspiration, or a need to communicate. You and I and the blog have become comfortable neighbors chatting over the mailbox, wondering if Bruce will ever do something about that yard. It is boring, it is meaningless, it passes five minutes of the day. I can live with that.

i wonder...

There was a large drug bust on Indy's south side today. DEA and local cops raided a large warehouse marijuana growing facility.

Since such large-scale operations are operating in plain view in Colorado, how can the Feds prosecute the Indy guys without getting into ugly Fourteenth Amendment issues?

I don't care, I'm no fan of grass, and I think they both should be in jail, but the law is the law. Shouldn't it be enforced equally?

Maybe some smart lawyer-type can set me straight.

Chipmunk stew

The wife celebrated her XX birthday on Monday. We double celebrated with a dinner last evening. All three of the kids plus husbands, girlfriends, and grandkid all showed up. There were smiles all around, no bickering. Everyone came back to the house for some cake after dinner.

On the other hand,today marks my Daughter's last day of school. While she is undoubtably excited to be home -- teachers look forward to the end of the school year as much as students -- that means it is the last day of babysitting full time for a while. That makes us sad.

I'm feeling a little better. The drainage has moved to my chest, so I have a headache, dripping nose and cough. I think I'm over the hump. I will likely survive. I can't tell you how much all of your flowers, balloons and cards have meant on my tough road to recovery.

Carry on

Storms rolled through last night. I was partially drugged so I barely noticed. I slept most of the night in the recliner, elevating my head seemed to help.

I feel a little better, but my head is still chocked full of snot.

Other than those unappealing details I have nothing of interest to report.

Worst cold ever

I'm sick. Summer cold. Ordinary humans would probably be in the hospital.

Compare and contrast

Today is the anniversary of the D-Day invasions. If you do not know what happened on those French beaches in 1944 take an hour and do some research. Then come back here and tell me that Bruce Jenner is courageous.

Write to me and escape

Take a dose of that stuck in your head for ten hours.

Unlike this schmuck, I know my wife likes piña colodas.

Confession, I kinda dig this tune.

A Road Life

That Guy was out on the interstate today. You know who he is. He thinks he is a great driver, but he is not. He does not use his cruise control, yet cannot hold speed for more than 30 seconds at a stretch. He gets in the left lane and will not move right for any reason. You try to go around, but he speeds up. A mile or two later you get by because he is fiddling with the radio or reading a text. Then like a bat out of Hell he blows by you at twenty over the posted limit. Ten minutes later you glide past him again. Rinse and repeat until he mercifully gets off at exit 147, cutting off a semi tractor in the process.

Today he was driving a brown F250. Appropriately, he had a pair of rubber testicles hanging from his trailer hitch. I knew by the way he drove that he was a Dick. The balls just added proof.

Almost celebrity encounters

There was a dude at the table next to me at breakfast this morning who sounded exactly like the actor Vince Vaughn. He had the same timbre, same inflections, same cadence. He did not look like him though.  Besides, I am pretty sure Vince Vaughn is not staying at a Hilton Garden Inn in the Minneapolis suburbs.

Liar in Chief

as Gomer used to say, "Surprise, surprise, surprise". Health insurers are seeking another double-digit increase in premiums for those covered under the ObamaCare exchanges.

President Obama promised my premiums would decrease by $2,500. Instead my coverage costs more. I used to have a policy that covered nearly everything with a small co-pay. Now I have a $4,000 deductible. I pay more for significantly less. Obama lied, my checking account died.

At least Sandra Fluck can get laid all she wants and never have to pay for her birth control. There is that.

Yep

What the heck, Mr. Weather man? Here we are in June and it is forty-something this morning. Still, the sky is blue and the flowers are in bloom and I find myself upright and breathing so it is a good day.

The Dems are all aflutter because a Republican male had the temerity to introduce legislation that would make birth control an over the counter med. Their argument, other than a Republican supports the measure, is that women would have to pay for the birth control twice - once when she buys it at the local CVS and again when she pays for it in her monthly ObamaCare-mandated insurance coverage. Seriously, that is their objection. How about the roughly 50% of the population that is not female who is forced to carry coverage for birth control and pregnacy? Is there no concern they are paying for something they cannot use? Or is there any consideration for the sizeable population beyond the child-bearing age is paying for birth control in their premiums?  Repeal ObamaCare and presto, no more problem. Tada. I'm a genius.

I suspect the real issue is that if they can't pass out contraception Planned Parenthood won't get as much funding which they use to subsidize their eugenics abortion business.

Funeral for a Fiend

The Patriot Act died last night and I cannot say I am terribly saddened. I know we live in dangerous times, but that is the price of freedom. Some provisions can be reborn if really needed. As far as collecting phone records, we are told the metadata contains no personal information. One pundit claimed the No Such Agency could not even identify the owner of the phone number. Then what is the point of collecting the data? There are courts that will allow collection in specific cases, we don't all need Big Brother listening in or watching our phone bill. Any overseas call? Have at it. I am all for xenophobia.

That said, Rand Paul is dangerous.