Hello World!

I am in Asheville, NC. Asheville is a lovely mountain city in North Carolina home of the Biltmore Estate, the writer Thomas Wolfe, and the Blue Ridge Parkway. Downtown Asheville is a throwback to the 1960’s with loads sheepish little hippies in torn clothing standing around everywhere. For some reason Asheville attracts a large population of gays downtown as well.

The buildings are unique. There was a huge surge of growth here in the 1920’s and then the Great Depression stifled growth for the next half century. So you’ll find well preserved business districts from the 20’s and buildings with gargoyles on the roof overlooking the city.

I had some clients to visit here and Gigi had expressed and interest in going with me so I book a room at the Renaissance Hotel. Gigi loves to shop at some at the unique business downtown. Well she bagged her end of the deal and I wasn’t about to loose a $150 room since it was too late to cancel. So I checked in after my business and was surprised to find that the whole town has free wireless Internet. Very cool since I am spending a large amount of time rebuilding my new PC.

I bought the mother of all PCs the other day. I am discovering new stuff on the monster every day. There are so many slots and buttons still yet to discover. Here’s what I know. It comes with Intel Dual Core 2 processors with 2 GB of memory and 300 GB hard drive with an HD TV Tuner with HDMI slot, a laser etching thing on the cd burner, bla, bla, bal. Needless to say it slick as slobber and fast as a cheetah.

So now I spend my free time trying to get all the crap off of the new PC like free AOL and other useless software and I am restoring my backups which never actually restore the way you had it so now I’m tweaking everything. None of my old email filters are working so email is dumping in three boxes. I’ll get it figured out eventually.

Gigi just called me and was all mad about the news that says you shouldn’t sit up straight and sitting up straight is actually bad for you. Oh great! All my life adults told me to sit up straight. Now we discover it was contributing to our midlife back pains. The story said sit reclining at 135 degrees is ideal. Now all the kids driving around town are actually correct in their posture. Do other kids around the country drive with their seats reclined.

Well I still have a lot of stuff to buy that was in my PC case. I especially miss the camera. Oh this new PC has a built in web cam….get out of here. See? There is new stuff all the time.

Just Read This

Oh joy.

I played golf this afternoon at a municipal course near the less desirable part of town. I should have known when I pulled in the parking lot that I was in trouble when I read the sign, "Park at Your Own Risk". My club is closed on Monday or I would have played there.

Seeing this sign I kept my handgun in my golf bag just in case I came upon some crime. Plus you never know when you may need to settle a dispute on the green.

So we played 18 with Ty and another person that was paired with us.

As I got into my car I noticed my glove compartment was open and stuff was on the floor. Damn! I had been broken into. I looked around and my .38 handgun was in the middle seat compartment along with my checkbook. Yes call me paranoid, I carry two handguns. One little .22 in my pocket and a .38 in the truck.

My new dozen golf balls were still in the back seat, thank God for that. Other then that it looked okay. I was lucky. So I'm tooling down the highway home and I called Ty. He said, "Dude, did they get your laptop?"

Holy crap! They got my beloved laptop and my digital camera. Plus my leather laptop case and all my plugs and stuff for my phone and blue tooth wireless thingy for my ear.

Thank goodness I back up nightly. But what a pain. Now I have to buy all new stuff less $500 and spend the time to rebuild everything.

Fortunately whoever stole my laptop has about 2 hours of battery life and they are out of business. I have the laptop charger. Plus the PC was pass worded.

I feel so violated.

I'm Grouchy

I am uncharacteristically grouchy today.

I hate it when I get to work and I have to jump right to work. I need time to boot the computer, make coffee, make toast, drink coffee and eat my toast, and only then will I be ready to work. This didn’t happen today but I expected it and it made me grouchy just thinking about it.

I ordered a new 2 GB card for Gigi’s camera back in October from Amazon. I paid for it and it came with free shipping which I assume Amazon paid for since no one works for free.

Now it is late November and the card is not here. It seems it got to Greensboro, NC and was undeliverable and it was shipped back somewhere. Anyhow it is lost and I paid for it.

The US Postal Service said to Call Amazon and Amazon said to call the US Postal service. I guess I’ll call my credit card and fill out a dispute form and take over from there. This really made me grouchy.

It’s 66 degrees here and headed to 70. I am trying to find someone to play some golf. No one will go. This is making me grouchy.

My team lost to Washington yesterday. This is making me grouchy.

Cannon Test

I feel like Kim Jong-il. Today at 2:54 PM I successfully tested a potato cannon capable of delivering a deadly potato of mashed destruction to several of my neighbors.

That thing really gave a loud sound and hurled the potato over the tree line I would guess several hundred yards.

Restaurant Review

Blogdate Friday, November 25, 2006

Gigi gradually got better yesterday and by 6 she was willing to give eating a try. My sister-in-law was dying for some Asian food. She is Pilipino and insists on her daily allotment of rice. I wanted seafood since we were at the coast at a fishing village.

I won and we decide to go to the Cape Fear Restaurant. This restaurant is at the mouth of the Cape Fear River overlooking Bald Head Island. The building has been there for years under the name of Ships Chandler. Ships Chandler always had decent seafood at a decent price. The view was fabulous and the service was fast.

In steps a new owner, a new menu and the restaurant clearly has decided to upscale a bit. Much of the old signage and memorabilia was sill in the lobby. Pictures from fishing trips in the 1950s along side of old hurricane photos are prominent. There is a newly built bar area with plasma TVs and imported draft beer. The room is closed off and smoking is allowed. Otherwise the furnishings and view in the main dining room is the same.

Gigi and I arrived first to be followed by her brother and his wife. I asked the waiter if they could cook some rice for my sister-in-law but the cook declined.

The menu was upscale and yet it held the traditional North Carolina fare of fried seafood. So fancy folks could get broiled grouper and a Riesling and regular folks could eat their fried flounder and sweet iced tea.

I decided to get an appetizer which was scallops on the half shell with shrimp and a crab stuffing. The scallops were overcooked and unseasoned, however the shrimp was good as was the stuffing. I ordered an imported draft beer and it was very cold and very fresh.

After eating the disappointing upscale fare as an appetizer I decide to stick with the tried and true so I ordered the fried oysters and shrimp along with a side salad and fries. The menu said slaw and hush puppies would be included. I was dying for some hushpuppies.

The meal came and I quickly scanned the enormous massive calorie platter for a hushpuppy. None were to be found. Then I examined the oysters and they were small, mealy and overcooked. They looked like fried crumbles. They were of such poor quality that clearly oysters should have been off the menu that night. The shrimp was pretty much frozen processed and breaded I would guess on a Japanese fishing trawler somewhere in Southeast Asia. So much for local seafood. That is a shame since they are still bringing in a good haul of the local brown shrimp.

Oh well, I still had my salad so I gave it a try. The cook did use some creativity in the salad. There were various greens croutons and side crackers. The blue cheese dressing was a gelatinous mess. It had an artificial blue cheese flavor mixed in with some thickening agent.

I turned to the slaw and it was wonderful. Excellent, $25 for some good slaw.

The service was very good. I didn’t complain to the waiter because it was clear that some inexperienced teenager was cooking and he was way over his head. It wasn’t the waiters fault.

So I recommend that you stop by for a drink, order a side of slaw and enjoy the sunset and eat your meal elsewhere unless you are starving and need the caloric intake.

On a scale of 1 to 5, I would rate it a 2.

Southport and Such

Blogdate Friday, November 23, 2006

I shall endeavor to blog even though I no longer have an Internet connection.

I am in deepest darkest North Carolina as you can go in the town of Southport. Southport is famous for two things; one is this is the only place on Earth where Venus Fly Traps grow naturally. Remember those little plants with the hairy open clam leaves? A fly would land in there and “whap” the plant would digest the fly. Venus Fly traps grow in the nearby swamp area. Two, the legendary Black Beard the pirate hung around these waters a lot in his time.

Other than that Southport remains a quaint sleepy village with boardwalks and marinas.

Oh! I remember one other thing Southport is famous for, no two more. Remember the movie Cape Fear? The Cape Fear River dumps out right here on the water front. And remember that show Matlock? It was filmed here and in Willington. We used to see the film crews and studio trailers when we visited before. Oh heck I remember another famous thing about Southport, Weekend at Birney’s was filmed here too. Needless to say the area has a thriving little East Coast film industry. A lot of the “made for TV” movies come out of the area.

So we are at the only RV Park in the area directly across from a Super Wal-Mart. It is a nice little RV park and we know the owners from years of coming down here. Most of the people here live full time in their RV and some work at the nearby Brunswick Nuclear Power Station. Others are retired and find the RV lifestyle comfortable and affordable.

Last night we headed over to the MILs house for Thanksgiving dinner. After about 30 minutes I notice my breathing was getting labored. Oh heck, an asthma attack is rearing its ugly head. So I go to a quiet place to try and head this off. My inhaler is 40 minutes away and every store is closed for the holiday.

I should have known better, she has three cats that live in the house and I get a reaction from short haired cats.

So as the evening pressed on and dinner was delayed hour after hour I sat outside on a porch swing in 45 degree weather and sipped wine and my breathing got much better. Eventually dinner approached and the MIL decided I need a Benadril to help my breathing. I took two and continued on with my turkey, wine and drugs. Foolishly I had set myself up for the perfect storm for sleep. By the time we got home (Gigi drove) it was very late and I was very sleepy. I snoozed in until 9:30 and was very refreshed and had a very clear nose.

Blogdate Friday, November 24, 2006

Today is my anniversary. We’ve been married for 27 years. That is a big deal in today’s world. I am thankful that I had good male role models when I grew up and I am thankful that I learned from them. My father and grandfather were always kind and respectful to their wives and they remained married to the same woman. I try to do the same.

Gigi and Cedie are both sick this morning. Both have been throwing up and look run down. Either Gigi has the dog flu or Cedie has the people flu.

I’m dying to head over to Wal-Mart and pick up a bag of potatoes and some carburetor cleaner for a propellant. I think the gun is about ready to fire.

The Storm is Over

Over the river and through the wood, to grandmother’s house we go…..

Yes, we are finally headed out to the coast this morning after two days of a cold and muscular storm know as a nor’easter. Up the coast you go now. Good luck with my friends in New England today. The Macy’s parade should be interesting with high winds and rain.

So I may be out of site for a few days depending on any Internet connection. I no longer carry a dialup account except when I go to the islands. So I’m hoping to piggyback on someone’s wireless account.

I hope to get potatoes firing and maybe a golf round or two while I’m gone.

Karaoke

I hate it.

Can you Say Nor'Easter?

We decide to wave off our trip tomorrow. The weather is about as bad as it gets as far as travel is concerned. It’s 37 with sleet and buckets of rain and very high winds. Visibility is low. Tomorrows forecast calls for the same.

If it was just Gigi and I in a car I would go, but a 32 foot travel trailer, four dogs and four hours traveling is different. That is too dangerous and too much stress.

So we’ll get up very early Thursday and make the trip.

Have You Seen Any Daylight?

Outdoors is now completely uninhabitable for me. It is cold and windy with a light misting rain. My skin is dry and my lips are chapped.

Yesterday afternoon I had plans to glue together the potato cannon on the deck and then store away a load of horse grain. Somehow in my brain I had programmed the event weather at about 70 degrees.

Reality set in a few minutes after I stated. I could see my white scaly hands reaching for tools under the watchful eyes of my protruding cracked lips. Then the rain started and the wind kicked up. Dang! I have to stop and put up the grain before it gets wet.

I got the cannon all glued up but the purple primer kind of ran down the tubing. Oh no matter, it will work fine.

I go a bit crazy after a long stay indoors. Now all I want to do is sit around in my warm PJs and drink hot tea or red wine. I have a sleeping shirt that I have worn more nights than I want to admit. It is so darn warm and comfortable and I don’t want to give it up for washing for fear that the turnaround would be too long. Oh I love you warm shirt.

Yesterday I left my good laptop mouse at work. It is the one with all the switches and buttons with the special porn button as my friends Don calls it. The porn button will magnify any area that needs further close inspection. So I had to use my emergency backup mouse. It feels so strange but it is better than sliding your finger around on that little 2 inch mouse board.

Yesterday the gym was unusually busy. I’m not sure if more people were bad over the weekend or if folks are trying to ward off any effects of the upcoming Thanksgiving feast on Thursday. Maybe they were trying to offset the winter doldrums.

It’s funny to me how some folks love winter. The lady I bought grain from yesterday was happy as a lark. She loves this weather and finds it cozy and refreshing. We laughed about when I came in sometime in July, encrusted in salt from sweat

after a round of golf in 98 degree weather with a heat index of 105. To each his own.

You Guys

What a wonderful day! My teams won, and my adversarial teams lost in NFL football yesterday. Plus it is a holiday week and I will be hardly working after Tuesday.

We are heading down to the coast of North Carolina to a little town called Southport. It is the only place now in the area where we can take our RV. We plan to have Thursdays Thanksgiving meal at the nearby Island of Oak Island with Gigi’s family.

This will be Duke’s first RV trip. So think of us on Wednesday when I am towing a 32 foot travel trailer with me and two dogs in the front seat and two dogs and Gigi in the back seat and Boscoe the parrot on my headrest driving four hours to the coast. I think we are insane sometimes.

In other news, my potato cannon, err ah food accelerator has been completely assembled and is waiting to be glued together. I hope I can fire a few rounds into the Atlantic Ocean the weekend. Pictures and maybe videos to follow.

What else…….oh, no…I already told you my team won. I guess that is it for now. Stay warm and have a great day.

Oh yeah, I remember. Judy and I enjoyed talk about all you guys on Saturday, Zig, Ali, Teresa, Alyssa, Ali Kat, etc. We sounded like a couple of old hens talking about a soap opera or something.

Football Sunday

The entire North American continent is consumed with football today, the only kind of football where men cover themselves in hard plastic armor and rarely touch an actual ball to their foot.

To the north it is Grey Cup time, may your team win. Here it’s the first Sunday home game where’s is actually a bit chilly. Not cold, but it feels like football weather. By game time the temperature is likely to be 54 with the winds howling out of the northwest at 5 mph. Wind chills could reach 51!!!!

So, have a good day and I will see you on Monday.

Comfort Food

Today I will spend a day with my family and we will eat a Thanksgiving Meal together. This requires that Gigi and I get up early and get on the road by 8:00 AM so we can get to my sister Judy’s house by 11:00 AM.

On the way we’ll stop and grab a country ham biscuit and coffee and talk and laugh the whole way. We take a back road for the entire trip so there is a lot of pretty country side to look at and many unusual small towns to poke fun.

My mother no longer cooks and hosts the family Thanksgiving. Instead we give her a rest for her 65 or 70 years of hard work and all the siblings bring in the family favorites.

As always I was in charge of making the candied yams. It would not be Thanksgiving without them. They have a certain flavor and consistency that says this is my family. No one else’s tastes the same. It is a simple recipe pasted down from at least the 1920’s from my grandmother on my father’s side. I’ll bet it goes back even further because my grandmother had to learn it from somebody.

Simply made, our yams aren’t yams but they start with a large portion of Martindale canned sweet potatoes. Martindale sweet potatoes are grown and canned in North Carolina and they have the same simple label that they had 50 years ago.

Next I cut and layer the potatoes in a flat glass dish. Each layer gets a portion of butter, cinnamon, allspice, and sprinkled with sugar. Keep layering until you have used all the yams. Add a little of the juice from the can and bake at 325 for anywhere from 45 minutes or until you want them. No longer than an hour and a half. (For those in Canada, Bake at like 5 or something, you figure it out)

So I have my yams ready, two bottles of Hunnicutt Red Zinfandel, a couple of goodies for the kids and a bag of spices so Judy can make her spiced rum for Christmas.

In 5 or 6 hours I will be eating familiar family favorites that every family has, but ours will have our family nuances that tell me I am with my people.

Thank you God for Thanksgiving meals.

Crime Scene

I was able to capture this crime scene at the junk yard in Second Life. That is me, Reggie Legend with my back to you. I was sitting on that globe to the right, minding my business. Suddenly I heard shots. This chicken started attacking a woman and you see her morphing into some super human thing engulfing the chicken.

I can’t wait to get back there but I have a real life here.

This afternoon in Second Life I was attacked by two guys in a wheelchair. They fired weapons at
me saying that I was trespassing on their pier.

So I headed to a rather seedy place and asked a guy where a person could get a gun. He gave me two boxes of weapons and a bottle of Vodka. How nice, huh? He asked nothing in return.

So chicken people and bad men in wheelchairs…beware!

See you there Ali Kat.

Put a Fork in Fall

We have had some big time storms here in NC over the last few days. Two inches of rain fell last night with very vivid lightening and thunder. Today the wind howled and every last leaf was torn from the trees.

So now I am truly faced with the reality of winter. Its wet, the trees are naked, and it’s cold and windy.

So I’ll site here in my sweat shirt and pajama bottoms and dream of spring, the Masters, the Kentucky Derby, and Daytona 500. Give me fall, Thanksgiving and Christmas and then put a fork in the rest of winter.

I loathe the thoughts of January and February. Please don’t let it snow!

Second Life

Might I suggest secondlife.com just in case you need another way to waste time? It’s an imaginary virtual world where you can stumble around, fly and meet other people. You get a standard buff body that you can redesign.

So meet Reggie Legend. I have a red tie dye tee shirt on so you’ll recognize me.

Produce Accelerator

This was a throw away day for me. I was tired from the game last night. I could barely get through my workout this afternoon.

I have a new interest in produce acceleration. Ty made a produce accelerator a few weeks ago and demonstrated it for me on Monday in the parking lot of our office. It was quite exciting so I am determined to make my own produce accelerator.

I am done for the day.

Monday Night Football

I snuck home from work early today in preparation for tonight’s game. We are host to Monday Night Football so being a good host I thought it would be wise to prepare in advance for my guests the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

I really hate Monday Night games. Regular season NFL football was meant to be played at 1:00 PM on Sunday afternoon. Starting a game at 8:30 or 9 PM on a school night no less is too darn late. That means I’ll be hollering until after midnight.

Gigi and I will head downtown around 5:30 to set up and then fire up the grill. We’re having brats with all the trimmings and I expect to have a good turnout for dinner.

So anyway, if you watch tonight I’ll be on the upper deck to your left at about the 30 yard line in a black number 17 Carolina Panther jersey.

See you late tomorrow

Manners

There are some things that really irritate me. To the outside observer it may not seem like a big deal.

If I offer someone a portion of something I am about to eat myself, please keep your pained expressions to yourself if you decline my offer. Just say, “No thank you”. You see I plan to eat the same food momentarily and you just painted a nauseous picture in my mind that I would prefer not to have. Have a little courtesy on my upcoming food experience.

This happened last night at supper. Gigi had made a marvelous meal of which chicken breast cooked in mushroom soup was the main entree. I offered my FIL another piece of chicken and he scrunched up his face with a pained expression like I just offered him seconds on dog crap. Gigi didn’t see this but I did. Then he said, “I don’t like dry meat”. Gigi heard this.

So I’m sitting there having suffered both a visual, verbal and tactile attack on my delicious half consumed chicken. I can see Gigi’s mind going, “Dry meat, dry meat? You ingrate. ”

All this came from a man who considers boiled chicken legs to be a delicacy.

So after we consider the source we move on. The interruption was not necessary and could have been avoided if a reserve neuron or two had thought about what was about to be said.

Boxing Tonight

I have always enjoyed boxing. Many people consider boxing to be a cruel sport that prays on the poor and whose sole goal is to give their opponent a concussion.

I think that may be accurate for the majority of entry level boxers.

Tonight however we will witness a PHD fight, and defend his title against a Charlotte banker for the heavyweight championship of the world. Both men are educated and do not need boxing to make it in life.

I am particularly excited because the challenger is from my hometown of Charlotte.

Just a side bar here, this is the first time I have ever called Charlotte my hometown. Until now Durham, NC was my hometown. Durham is where I grew up. But Durham is a distant memory of my youth. Charlotte is where I have lived and worked since 1979. In the south you do not claim a town as your hometown unless you were born there or at least your most distant memories are from there. I’m breaking with southern protocol and claiming from this day forth that Charlotte is my hometown.

15 hours later…….

Whew! That was a side trip wasn’t it? Okay…my guy lost in the 7th round last night and I am sleepy for staying up two nights in a row. Boy I’m a wild thang.

Night Life

Yesterday was so warm here. I got together with some buddies and played the Old Goat Ranch golf course up in Concord, NC, also affectionate known as Snake Haven Golf Club. It’s a raunchy old place but we enjoy cutting up and laughing every year during the Goat Ranch Classic as it has become to be known as. The locker room is a dark dank open place with a very low ceiling and no lighting except for the sunlight coming in the one window. On the wall of this locker room is one very dirty urinal. But enough about these fine facilities, lets talk about the day.

By ten AM we were shucking off the clothes to stay cool and by 11 AM we were complaining about the heat. My partner Don, and I’m not making this up, was busy about 10:30 eating a blueberry pop tart and drinking scotch from a flask. To each his own I guess.

I came home in the afternoon for a 45 minute power nap to get ready for the evening.

We planned to go into the city with another couple that evening for dinner after paying respects to a friend whose mother just died. Nothing like a wake and dinner to get the middle aged heart pumping on Friday night.

So we stopped by the funeral home, gave our condolences and decide where to eat.

Charlotte has become a big city with big night life. All four of us are long term married folks that go to bed early and get up early. A late night for us is to watch the first half of Monday Night Football on TV from bed.

We were determined to have fun but ruled out downtown since there was a Charlotte Bobcat game at home and some big concert going on at Belk Theater. Parking would be a nightmare and the restaurants and taverns would be packed. So we headed to Southpark where my office is. Southpark is a nice large upscale business area with ditto of all the trendy new restaurants that you find downtown. All of the establishments we checked had at least an hour wait time.

I’m getting panicky at this point like a diver running low on air. I know my brain will begin shutting down on me by 10 PM thinking it is time for bed fool and it’s already 8:30 and we are still cruising for a place to eat.

We found a great place on the Southside of the city and enjoyed a wonderful dinner. Now, have you ever seen baboons on TV or at the zoo yawning? All four of us looked like baboons at the zoo yawning as we drove back home at the ungodly hour of 10:30.

Tonight I am supposed to watch a fight on HBO at 10 PM. I guess a long nap is in order.

Sorry Duke

Old Duke is the first male dog I have ever had. He is very hairy on the underside so you would never know what sex he was.

Old Duke is also neutered which I think is responsible for any pet owner. I got to thinking about old Duke and his lack of showyness as far as the testicle thing and started searching for some dog testicle implants. Do you know they actually make fake dog balls?

They are called Neuticles. A a top of the line pair of fake dog testicles would cost $299 plus installation.

Sorry Duke.

Good Sleep

I love to sleep. It makes up a third of my life and I am happy for that. It relaxes me, it refreshes me and it opens up another personality for me to enjoy in dream land. In dream land I fly, take chances, I travel, and generally am a much bolder Reggie. After all I’ll spend 16 hours a day not flying and being more reserve so I might as well enjoy the bolder Reggie.

I have three basic modes of sleep. There is standard off the shelf sleep which makes up about 3/5 of my life. It decent enough and it gets the job done. Then there is bad sleep where I wake up often and early. Usually I get stuck in a week to 10 days of bad sleep and I hate it. Then my friends is the coveted good sleep. I have had five nights in a row of good sleep. I wake up fully refreshed, relaxed and am ready to face the day. Good sleep is what sleep was meant to be.

I am sure that my recent bout of spectacular sleep is due to a new sleeping position I have found. I get stuck in the same old positions, fetal left, fetal right, on the back (then I snore) and that is about it. I have now come up with what I’ll call the Reggie Modified Fetal where I lay on my right side (left works too) and extend my right arm upward and extend my legs straight. This stretches out my whole body (gosh I’m about to fall asleep just writing about it) and it allows me to breath deeply with very little effort. I think over the years my organs had gotten squished up from sleeping in the same position.

Now keep in mind I am 5’ 7” so you big folks may have a problem with all this stretching out.

So sleep fans, give this Reggie Modified Fetal a try tonight and thank me tomorrow.

Christmas Spiced Rum

Okay, I’m going to try something I learned from my friends Michael and Terry who live in rum loving St. Croix. It’s Christmas spiced rum.

Take one bottle of dark Cruzan Rum. Cruzan is made in St Croix. Add one vanilla bean, a clove or two and one cinnamon stick.

Close the top and wait until close to Christmas. Mix with eggnog and enjoy.

So today a client called me and said she had picked up some vanilla beans at a specialty store here in Charlotte. So I ran out and bought two bottles of Cruzan Rum, one for her and one for me. They don’t carry the dark Cruzan here so I had to settle for the 2 year old light rum. I have been assured that the spices will turn the rum very dark anyway.

Enjoy.

What a Difference a Week Makes

Last week I knew Doogie Howser (Neil Patrick Harris) was secure in his manhood. In fact he played the part of a womanizer on his latest show bla, bla, bla whatever. It’s some long title that I can’t remember right now. Then Doodie comes out and says he’s gay. I didn’t need to know that. It ruins in my mind the character of the womanizer. I guess he’s still secure in his manhood, whatever. Good for you Doogie, I guess.

But….I knew Britney Spears was blissfully married to some do-good white rapper happy fellow. Heck they had just had a litter of children. Now she announces she is getting a divorce. What?

And last week the Republicans were blissfully in control of our government with President Bush first, Dick Chaney as backup, and the speaker of the house who is some fat old white guy as his backup. Now the third backup is a skinny little liberal democrat woman from California. Oh dear. That is scary to me. Chaney’s ticker could go at any moment from a shock like having to take office as President if something happened to President Bush, and then we are stuck with a liberal democrat as President.

And further, I only had three border collies last week and now I have 25% more.

I’m going to lie down.

Duke II

We took Duke to the specialty veterinary hospital here in Charlotte this afternoon. As you may recall Duke has a broken leg that is healing in the most awkward way. What we expected to hear was that Duke would be best with an amputation or better yet they could re-break the leg and set it. Either option would be traumatic to Duke and expensive for us.

What we found out is Duke’s leg is healing freakishly but it is healing. His leg will be shorter and it will take two more months of taking it easy to fully heal.

Duke does have a torn ACL so we know he was active. This can be fixed in the spring.

Duke was so grateful that we didn’t take him back to the pound. He was very nervous. His siblings back home were happy to see his return.

Chapter 308 - Election Day

MIDLAND, NC - It’s Election Day in the US. I’ll go vote this morning for the guys who steal the least of my money. When you steal my money under the threat of prison then you are stealing the fruits of my labor. Working for no pay under the threat of prison is slavery.

Now you know how I feel about taxes and the redistribution of wealth. My money is not your money, its not the governments money, and its not a foreign governments money. But I forcefully give my money to the government under the threat of prison. Sounds like the mob doesn’t it? It is like the mob in a way.

You see I don’t hand over my money in an envelope like on the Sopranos; I do once a quarter hand over under the threat of prison a huge sum of money to the state of North Carolina, the federal government, and to the pensioners on social security and Medicare. Guess what? Because I am an employer I get to pay double for me and my employee.

Do I do this out of the goodness of my heart? No. I do not want to go to a federal lock down with Richard Hatch until I get my mind right.

I give money freely to people in need and to the Glory of God. I give money freely to the common defense of my nation. All other money taken is slavery.

So I vote for the guy who promises to steal the least of my money.

Now go vote early and often.

Tea Partay

First, I am not a big fan of You Tube but I saw this video on another blog and it made me laugh. Second, I don’t like recycled stuff, only original content, but here is some funny recycled stuff.

We all need a laugh on Monday.



Sunday Nights

There is a certain feeling that comes over me on Sunday nights. The weekend is spent and the inevitably of Monday is looming. What was the blank canvas of Friday is now finished, like it or not. Now my mood turns a bit more somber as I begin to think about my morning commute and schedule of the week. Meanwhile I’m watching the 4 PM NFL game holding on to what joy is left of the weekend.

Fun Captured in the Lens of a Friend

Here is a moment captured in the reflection of Michael’s lens of me listening to Gigi while I eat lunch by the Caribbean with friends Michael and Terry. This photo was taken in May while we were in St Croix. I just noticed the reflection.

Today

It was a rather desultory Saturday.

What? You don’t know what desultory means? I love to throw out desultory now and then. You can see in a person’s eyes when I use a certain word, that they don’t have a clue to its meaning. They’ll just look straight at you but you can see their mind thinking, “what the hell? Desultory? It sounds like a real word but I haven’t a clue what it means. I’ll just look like I know what it means and hope I’m not quizzed on the meaning. Okay, that word was desultory…. All right I’ll look it up when I get home.”

I first heard the word desultory on HBO boxing. Jim Lampley used it. I know for a fact that no one watching knew what it meant.

When someone uses an unknown word on me I find that I can bluff pretty good. Why do we do this? Why am I embarrassed to ask the meaning of the word that I don’t know?

Here's Duke

Our newest family member Duke was rescued from the pound last week.

Time Wasters

I stopped by the local Hess station on the way home yesterday to fill up the fuel tank. I hate pumping fuel. It’s a colossal mindless waste of time that you will never get back, all the while waiting for a pump to transfer fuel from one tank to anotherto its final destination. Shouldn’t there be a business that would ride around topping off your tank for you? Let them get paid for their time. In turn I work for free for the gas station.

Oh I try to make the best of it. I walk around my truck looking at the tires and such. I clean out and trash accumulated in the cab. I may even wash the windshield. I’ll look at the pump and its still pumping. I have a 36 gallon tank.

It’s kind of like waiting for the computer to boot up. How much time have we all wasted on that? Not enough time do much else but enough time wasted twice a day.

In the morning I start my computer at work and run and make toast with orange marmalade and pour a cup of coffee. Usually the computer is finished by then. I have a lot of programs running in the startup so mine takes a while.

All American Meal

I try to eat a reduced caloric intake in an effort to ward off any further growth of man boobs.

So today at lunchtime when I’m out and about I stopped by McDonalds for the little known All American Meal. Few people know of this. It’s a small regular hamburger and a small fry. Plain old fashioned little paper sack of fries along with a small drink. I have a diet coke. This meal is about 500ish calories and if eaten slowly will give my mind all the rock and roll of a much bigger meal. Lets not take about the grams of fat, okay?

Most of my McDonald colleagues are consuming 1500 to 2000 calories and therefore are dealing with the man boob thing.

Today this woman could not figure out what in the heck I wanted (I was in Rock Hill, SC). So I ended up with a modified Happy Meal complete with a Happy Meal box and a toy. I was upgraded from the shot glass coke to the small adult coke at no cost.

The problem is while I accomplished my objective I left the restaurant in a less than dignified way. I would have preferred to have the white adult bag and sans the box and toy. I now have a cool toy on my front seat of my truck and no one to give it to.

Duke Update

Old Duke, our newest border collie got his physical yesterday.

It appears he is about 7 years old and is a full blooded border collie. All his tests were good and he is so happy. I have never seen a sweeter, better mannered dog in my life, especially since he was just sprung from doggie prison two days ago.

There is a problem though with Duke. His right rear leg is stiff. We had an x-ray done and found that Duke had at sometime suffered a severe broken leg that was never repaired.

So Duke will go to a veterinary specialist here in town for further evaluation.

I think Duke won the doggie lottery.

Yet Another Reason to Drink Red Wine

The dosage is a little high even for me:

An ingredient in red wine extends lifespan and alleviates disease when fed in huge quantities to obese mice, even though the mice remain fat, researchers reported today in the online edition of the journal Nature.

To reach an equivalent dosage, a human would have to drink about 20 bottles of red wine per day.

Clothes

Wouldn’t it be cool if we all had earth uniforms like in the science fiction movies or star trek? In the morning you would simply get up, grab a clean earth uniform and go about your day. No more decisions about what to wear.

Everyone would look the same and the cost of clothing would dramatically fall. Everyone would have shiny silver clothes with boots according to sci-fi movies. I think we could do better. Maybe you could get the top designers to compete every few years for a new look in earth uniforms. Perhaps you would have a male and female uniform.

Just a thought.

Good News (I Guess) and Bad News

The good news is yesterday Gigi rescued a black and white border collie from the pound. He is a polite older fellow that will not walk on linoleum. He had a tag that had the name “Duke” and an out of service phone number.

Gigi picked up Duke, gave him a bath and trimmed his nails. She plans to take Duke to the vet today to have him checked out.

Gigi has assured me that she will find Duke a home, perhaps at her mothers.

Now for the bad news. My childhood border collie dog Dody has held the record since 1962 for most shits in a single night…. 19. My sisters can verify this number. We still laugh about the devastation and cleanup at holiday gatherings.

Since Dody was a puppy each sibling shared in care and cleaning of the new puppy. This was supposed to teach us some life lesson. My older sister Etta woke up early mad as heck and left us a note with the official count of 19 piles. Being the good older sister she took the lions share and went the extra pile and cleaned up 9. Judy and I split the rest at 6 each.

I’m sad to report that Dody’s old record was broken last night by Duke. 44 years she held that record.