Alternate title – In Which I Vent My Spleen For A Few Hundred Words

There are a few things rumbling around in my brainpan, and I need to get them out.  So, here we go….

The situation at the border, mainly the part that has thousands of children walking across the Sonoran desert and worse, sickens me.  Reports of disease, overcrowding, and deplorable conditions are rampant, and something needs to be done.  First, we need to communicate with the governments of Mexico and Central America that they need to, in no uncertain terms, explain to their populace that it is not worth the dangers of crossing the border to get here.  Next, we need to find out which countries these kids came from, as much as possible, and deposit them at the embassies of their home nation.  Let them figure out how to get them home. If they are let go by their ambassadors, or refused at the gates to the embassy, that entire diplomatic mission needs to be declared persona non grata, shown the nearest port of entry, and have their foreign aid and free trade privileges cut off.   Those that can’t be tracked down to a particular country, either because they’re too young to respond or just refuse to, need to be placed in foster care with the families of citizens.  Not a ‘sponsor’ or whatever you call it when one illegal alien guarantees that they’re going to feed, clothe, and shelter one of them, I mean someone who was either born here or has raised their hand and taken the oath of citizenship.  We can decide their ultimate disposition later.

Right now, however, it’s time for all of us to put up or shut up.  If La Rasa, Nancy Pelosi, and Hillary Clinton think those children need to stay, it’s time they chipped in for their care and feeding. The same goes for those who want the border turned into a DMZ and illegal aliens deported with a quickness.  We need to be doing everything we can to make sure that these kids get proper medical care, decent clothing, and a clean, safe place to sleep.  If Michelle Obama is so worried about the food that we give to our kids in school, then she ought to be leaping at the chance to make sure that these foundlings are getting proper nutrition.  I’ll make you all a deal:  The first politician that is discovered quietly working behind the scenes to make this happen or is caught actually working a food line, doing laundry, or pushing a mop gets my vote.  Photo-ops don’t count.  I want to see some callouses, dishpan hands, and tired expressions.

Some call this President Obama’s Hurricane Katrina moment.  I disagree.  President Bush didn’t invite Hurricane Katrina to hit the Gulf Coast.  He didn’t actively discourage CBS news from choppering film crews into New Orleans, and he certainly didn’t try to keep members of Congress from touring the flooded parishes.

Next, we have the Supreme Court decision in the Hobby Lobby Obamacare case.  Basically, five justices decided that if a company, which is owned by a very small number of people, has a moral quandary against providing insurance for a subset of birth-control methods, then they don’t have to do so.  The justices left open a way for the government to provide that insurance through some mechanism, and of course, if you want it and it’s legal, you’re still quite free to go pay for it out of pocket.  Within minutes of the decision, I was being told how this will let employers dictate what a woman can do with her own body, and we will see whackjobs telling their employees they can’t have abortions, get in-vitro fertilization, have their kids vaccinated, or eat diets with pork in them (Yes, I heard each and every one of those, either in person, on the radio, or via the Internet.)

Of course, the law of unintended consequences still reigns, so I expect this to be used and abused just like every other law, regulation, and Supreme Court decision.  I fully expect years, if not decades, of litigation where people try to stretch the definition of “closely held” and “moral and religious objection”.  I completely understand the slippery slope argument here, but you know what?  If your employer starts throwing stupid crap like this at you, you are all free to find a different employer.  The real way to get rid of this kind of thing is to amend or get rid of Obamacare.  Bad laws lead to bad regulations, which in turn lead to bad Supreme Court decisions.

Of course, I must ask what the employees of companies like Hobby Lobby think of this.  Nobody seems to be interviewing them, and they are the ones that are most impacted.

For those who have taken to the airwaves and such to decry this attack on women, I say put up or shut up.  I’m sure that Planned Parenthood would be more than happy to establish a fund to provide these services to anyone impacted by the decision, and your donations can fill it to the very brim with money.

And now, to sports.  The Washington Redskins are back in the news, and it’s not for how horribly they’re coached.  It seems that the name of the team is offensive to Native Americans.  Well, pat me dry and call me “Dusty”, the name “Redskins” is offensive!  Who knew?  Here’s the deal, though, folks:  The owner of the Redskins is enough of a son-of-a-bitch to tell the rest of us to piss up a rope so long as people are willing to buy the merchandise, the tickets, and the rights to broadcast the games.  Having the government take away the trademark, which will be tied up in court for years, is the wrong way to go.  The Redskins have lawyers stacked up like cord wood, and they’ve got all the time in the world to fight that.  If you want to get the name of the team changed, you have to cut away the customer base.  I suggest taking a page from the anti-fur crowd from the 1980’s and 1990’s.  Shame those who wear Redskins gear.  Refuse to go to football parties if their games are being played.  Let advertisers and the NFL know that you won’t be watching their commercials if the Redskins are playing.  When the money dries up, minds will be changed.

But, truth be told, I don’t care.  I just want someone to define just how far we’re going to go down the “I’m offended” trail when it comes to sports teams.  Should my drops of Irish blood be boiling over Notre Dame?   The University of North Dakota gave up the “Fighting Sioux” because apparently there are two groups of Lakota in the area, and only one of them admitted it’s not a big deal. Should the fans of the Seminoles, Illini, and Indians all be buying tee shirts and ball caps while they can?

If you’re wondering what Vietnam looked like in 1975, I’m guessing all you have to do is turn on al Jazeera and watch for about 20 minutes.  If you’re wondering what Afghanistan will look like in two years, I suggest you do the same.  I only have a few things to say here.   First, Iraq is not our fight.  The only sort-of allies we have in the region are Israel and the Kurds.  Everyone else has been making the stupid American pay for everything and do the bleeding for the better part of a decade.  Screw ’em.

We need to give up on the unified Iraq strategy, tell Turkey to go pound sand, and recognize Kurdistan as a separate country if they so desire.  If we have to have troops in the region, base them out of the Kurdish area, where at least we don’t have to worry that every third guy on the street is looking to get his jihad on.  Tell the Iranians and Saudis that we give less than a shit about the rest of the country, and let them fight it out.

That being said, if the President sends a few hundred ground combatants to secure the embassy and such, we need to make note of it and leave it alone.  We can’t roast him over a slow fire over the Benghazi attack and then attack him for securing the Green Zone.

Speaking of Israel, it appears that the bleeding pustule that is the Gaza Strip has ruptured again.  Hamas is shooting at Israeli civilians, Israel is shooting at Hamas civilians, and both sides are playing an international game of “He started it!”.  Both sides need to knock it the hell off.  I’ve come to like the two state solution, in which those who call themselves “Palestinians” declare a state, and get with that all of the responsibilities of being their own country.  Then, when some jackass decides to make it rain steel in Beersheba, Israel will be fully justified in stomping a mudhole in their ass.  Better yet, we will get to watch Fatah and Hamas play king of the mountain, which will make for the best thing on TV since the Thrilla in Manila.

Anyway, thanks for putting up with my rant.  I needed to get those things out of my noggin so that I can concentrate on something else that needs my attention.  Feel free to tell me how I’m wrong in comments.

I realized this morning how different from my father I am.

You see, my father was more of a houseguest than family.  Take Sunday mornings, for example.  He would sleep until the smell of breakfast woke him, then stumble to the kitchen table.  A hot cup of Folger’s would magically appear in front of him, as well as the paper and an ashtray.  After drinking his first pot of coffee, smoking a few cigarettes, and reading the paper in complete silence, he would move to the living room, where he would manage to find a sports program on one of the three channels we had at the time.  The rest of Sunday would be spent watching football, baseball, basketball, hockey, bowling, skiing, steeplechase, spitting for distance, arm wrestling, or whatever else Howard Cosell had to show him.  Copious amounts of coffee would be consumed, as well as his lunch and dinner.  The only interaction we seemed to have was when we were told to change the channel, get him more coffee, or empty the ashtray.  If it was winter, he would spend the day in his thermal underwear.  If it was summer, it was tighty whities and tee shirts.

Let’s contrast this with my morning so far.  Moonshine woke me up at about 7.  He was hungry and desperately needed to visit the long grass at the back of the dog yard.  After taking him and Bluegrass out and feeding and watering all of the critters, I came in and made breakfast.  Girlie Bear is at a sleepover, so she gets doughnuts or whatever it is teenage girls eat when a gang of them first wake up.  By the way, hot dog buns make great french toast sticks.  While engaged in cooking, I put on a pot of coffee.

Boo got up, was served his breakfast of french toast sticks, applesauce, and milk, and proceeded to turn his nose up at it.  Apparently I don’t make it like mama does or something.  I made my own breakfast, fed Irish Woman, and tried to settle in with my cup of coffee to read the digital newspaper.  First distraction was getting up to find the headset that Boo wears when he’s doing his morning therapy exercises.  Once that was found, I returned to my sort-of hot cup of coffee.  Next, I was asked to get up and try to find the bag of plastic baseballs Irish Woman bought for Boo to play with.  After searching the house, I found them in the trunk of her car.

I now sit in my living room, trying to finish a luke-warm cup of coffee and get my head together for what I have to do today.  If I’m luck, I’ll get a second cup of coffee that’s not in a to-go cup before I have to start driving around Louisville on various errands.

By now, given the same circumstances, my father would have thrown a temper tantrum and burned the house to the ground.   I think I prefer my life to his.

• If you’re putting a Desert Eagle in the hands of a brand new shooter, you’re doing it wrong.
  • What is it about a Deagle that makes people forget range etiquette and the Four Rules?  I swear, every time I go to the range and someone has one of them, I get muzzled along with everyone else on the firing line.
• Being the first shooter on a stage where the no-shoots are mostly behind the targets you’re supposed to shoot means you’re going to take a penalty.
• While driving to Knob Creek this afternoon, Girlie Bear asked why there were so many strip clubs on Dixie Highway.  I had no good answer to that.
• If you’re looking for a great hamburger in a neat little cafe, Christie’s is a hidden treasure.
• Watching an older gentlemen clear out the X ring of a target 150 yards away with a 10/22 reminds me that I need to get to the range more often.
• At a birthday party today, Boo made 20 consecutive trips up and down a two-story, inflatable water slide.  Needless to say, he wasn’t very animated for the rest of the evening.
• Irish Woman is making a new jam that seems to consist mostly of fresh pineapple, coconut rum, and lime juice.
• Speaking of which, I can’t wait to see the coupons we get from the grocery store after their computer systems analyze a trip that consisted of a fifth of coconut rum, a can of cream of coconut, shaved coconut, six pineapples, ten pounds of bananas, two loaves of bread, and two pounds of butter.

• Fireworks are now legal to purchase in Kentucky.  The fireworks you can purchase in Kentucky are weak and expensive.  If they wanted us to buy our fireworks in Indiana, they should have just said so.
• The city fathers of Louisville cancelled Independence Day fireworks at the big park downtown this year due to a lack of funding.
  • Of course, they had plenty of money to fund Thunder Over Louisville, which is the kickoff for the Kentucky Derby festival.
  • Let’s see, spend money to celebrate our countries freedom and independence, or spend money to rev up support for a horse race put on by a profitable public corporation.
  • I guess you just have to have your priorities.
• The Vietnam Helicopter Pilots Association had their reunion in Louisville this week.  Never met a nicer group of people.
• Part of their reunion was a traveling Vietnam Wall.  I got the opportunity to help take the Wall down this morning.
  • About a dozen other people, mostly veterans from the VHPA reunion, also helped take it down and pack it back into its trailer.
  • I’m not saying anything about the people of Louisville, but about the same number of people who worked to safely disassemble and pack the Wall also stood on the street and in their apartment windows and watched us work.
  • After the Wall was packed away, we did a police call.
    • The older veterans were tickled to do it.
    • I now remember why I dislike most smokers.  Most of the trash I picked up was old butts.
  • You forget how tired you are when the guys you’re working with start talking about the best approaches to Khe Sanh to avoid getting shot at and start comparing names of people they knew who died in combat to figure out where they know each other from.
• One of the subdivisions near us put on a fireworks show on Saturday night, and we took Boo and one of his friends to see it.
  • I’m proud to say that the boys seemed to have more fun chasing lightning bugs before the show than they did watching things blow up in the sky.
• Note to parents and grandparents – giving sparklers to young children wearing flip-flops or no shoes at all is a bad idea.

Today is the 238th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.  It is the day we remember the reasons our country was founded and what it means to be American.  I recently listened to the Revolutions podcast, in which Mike Duncan discussed the history of the American revolution.  In one episode, he reads out the Declaration.  It’s stirring to hear those words spoken aloud, and I suggest you read along while you listen.

Our revolution is still ongoing.  We are free only so long as we are willing to stand up and take that freedom.  Today is a good day to read our founding documents and remind ourselves of that.

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:

Column 1
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton

Column 2
North Carolina:
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton

Column 3
Massachusetts:
John Hancock
Maryland:
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton

Column 4
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean

Column 5
New York:
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark

Column 6
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Massachusetts:
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
New Hampshire:
Matthew Thornton

• My day started off with a discussion of tax policy with a 16 year old girl.  I think the best thing I said was “Don’t take my word for it.”
• The correct answer when someone asks “Why should I care about this?” is “You know, it might better if you didn’t even think about it.”
• Thought for the day – “Not my circus, not my monkeys”.
• Two fully grown adult men in my cube farm were singing songs from children’s movies today.  One was singing “Let it Go” and the other was singing that #!#$!@ “Awesome” song from the Lego movie.  I just sat there considering career options that included no co-workers.
• Someday I will not learn to tempt the weather gods by planning on doing something outside after work.  Today was not that day.
• There appears to be a tropical storm working its way up the East Coast.  While I hope everyone comes through it all right, I’m not looking forward to the news stories about how global warming ruined NYC’s Independence Day.
• I tried something called a “Mayan Mocha” recently.  It sounded good at first, since I like spicy chocolate, but the addition of cayenne pepper from a tin can to a mocha just wasn’t very good.  I’ll have to try making one at home with fresh chili puree once the peppers come in.
• No matter how much you polish a turd, it’s still a turd.  It amazes me how few people learn that as their life goes on.

• I swear, someday I will sleep in past 6:30.  I mean it.
• I really didn’t want to go to the water park today, but seeing Irish Woman come out of one of the loop-the-loop water pipe slides was worth it.
  • I’ve never seen anyone try to do the splits as part of their dismount before.  It was amazing.
• Apparently I’m building a play house for Boo this week.  For those counting at home, I have made my first of many trips to the hardware store / lumber yard for this project.  My best estimate will be 5 total trips.
  • Requirements seem to be that it be elevated, attached to the maple tree in some way, and that it be large enough that Boo and Moonshine can sleep in it at night.
• Gave blood, bathed the cats.

• If you give me a procedure to do something, please be kind enough to include examples of what could go wrong and the proper way to deal with it.
  • If I call you with a problem with your procedure, please do not seem confused as to what we are talking about.
• Irish Woman’s “summon rain” spell worked wonderfully this afternoon.
  • Half an hour after she turned on the sprinkler to water the fruit trees, it started raining.
• I know it’s best to be fast and accurate, but I will always argue that it is better to be slow and accurate than to be fast and miss.
• This afternoon, I went from zero to dickhead in 3.6 seconds, a new record.

• I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again:  We take more stuff with us for family campouts than a squad of soldiers will take for an 18 month deployment.
• Giving the dogs a bath in the bed of my truck created a clean spot, which required me to wash the rest of the truck.
  • Of course it rained all weekend, why do you ask?
• A lot of people are saying that the Obama presidency is sliding fast toward irrelevancy.  I think we need to strengthen our flanks and double the guard.  A rat is most dangerous when it’s trapped and losing.
• I tried an experiment of freezing water bottles and putting them in the cooler to see if they took longer than ice cubes to melt.  I was also trying to not have waterlogged food after a couple of days.
  • They worked OK for about a day, then we had to go back to ice cubes.
• Non-DEET, natural insect repellant isn’t worth the trouble.
  • Not effective against mosquitoes, gnats, or chiggers.  No ticks, though.  Unless you count the one that I developed after two days of Boo singing his own interpretation of Disney anthems.
• On Thursday night, I worked hard to make sure that there was appropriate, nutritious, and tasty food for everyone.  By Sunday morning, I was letting Boo snack on yellow Skittles while I got a breakfast of MegaMart banana muffins and juice boxes together.
• When it’s too hot and muggy to drink beer, it’s time to envy those who own an air-conditioned camper.
• Life sure has gotten easier since I figured out that I have two teenagers who want to learn how to do stuff.
• For the family pot luck dinner, a real man would have made something roasted on a spit over a slow fire or made using natural wood coals in a cast iron dutch oven.  I, not being a real man, threw a ham into a crock pot and called it good.

• It is amazing how much fun a small boy can have with a garden hose and an adjustable nozzle.
• 12 to 15 100+ pound trunk sections of a maple tree, lifted up on to the bed of the truck, then lifted again to stack in the truck, then lifted again to stack at Little Bear and Girlie Bear’s grandmother’s house, makes for a pretty significant drain on my “you aren’t as young as you think you are” reserves.
  • Quote of the day – “Are you really strong or just incredibly stubborn?”
• Boo got a nature lesson today when he got to observe a colony of large, black ants move all of the eggs in their nest after I uncovered it by moving the piece of wood on top of it.
  • He kept looking for the queen, or as he put it “The big fat one that lays the eggs”
• We put together our camping menu for this weekend.
  • I hope the kids like peanut butter and jelly, because that will be at least one meal a day.
  • If I were a real man, I’d be cooking a pork shoulder for barbecue either over the fire or in a dutch oven. Since I’m not, we’ll be taking along a crockpot.
  • I know, “camping”.  Actually, this is more “refugee camping”.  Think “Claude W. Griswold” rather than “Daniel Boone”.
  • BTW, I’m proud to say that a lot of the menu planning revolved around what we needed to rotate out of the pantry.  For instance, my children are going to be introduced to SPAM and eggs this weekend.
• Apparently, spray-in bed liners for pickups are made only with the finest Swiss polymers and are applied by nubile young women who have been trained by Shaolin monks in the gentle, but violent, art of spraying rubber onto a truck bed.
  • $550?  Are you bloody kidding me?