• Girlie Bear proved to have expensive tastes at the NRAAM.
  • Every gun or piece of gear she squee’d over and had to take a look at cost more than my first car.
  • Of course she loves the custom 10/22 from Tactical Solutions.  Who wouldn’t?
• If your car is stalling out on the freeway, but hasn’t died yet, the correct thing to do is to try to use whatever power you have left to get as far off the roadway as you safely can.  The incorrect thing to do is to brake to a halt in a lane of traffic, thereby causing those behind you to have to slam on their brakes.
  • I considered trying to pull out into the other lane of traffic from a complete stop to get around said idjit, but reconsidered when I analyzed the relationship between the rapidity of my truck accelerating from 0 to 65, the distance between the semi’s in the lane next to me, and their speed.
  • Luckily the idjit got his car restarted for long enough to get off the roadway before someone slammed into the line of 25 or so vehicles behind him.
• Of course I picked up the empty press folder from Wolf Performance Arms.  A true blogger enjoys the challenge of stalking the wild marketing manager at a gun company.

• Lego – Danish word for “caltrop”.
• Apparently there’s a new Lego store in town, and that’s where Boo is going to have his birthday party this year.
  • You can hear the excitement in my voice, can’t you?
• Note to self – door knobs are right at forehead height for 5 year old boys who have been cooped up inside all day.
• I had to go downtown on Friday to go to the doctor and renew my concealed carry license.
  • Has it been five years already?
  • My doctor’s office is across the street from the convenience store that was hit with a mob on Saturday.  I didn’t notice any additional security there or more police on the streets.
• Speaking of Saturday, we seem to have gotten through the University of Louisville versus University of Kentucky basketball game last night without any incidents, or at least without any reported incidents.
• The local fish-rag actually did a little reporting, and it appears that the police might be paying attention now.
  • I wonder if the police would just give me a ticket for ‘menacing’ if I were to face off against uniformed police officers and ball my fists up.
  • The map on the first article encompasses a lot more incidents than we knew about earlier in the week and in a much larger area.
• Going to the warehouse store late on a Saturday night went surprisingly smoothly today.
  • The zombies lined up for their free samples didn’t block the aisles too badly, and we seem to have timed it so that we got there right after a large wave of customers had left.
• Irish Woman and I have spent the last day and a half trying to defunk the house.  Between shedding dogs and cats, a long winter burning wood in the fireplace, and schmutz that seems to be continuously tracked in from outside, things were desperately in need of a good vacuuming and dusting.
  • This was done in lieu of garden and yard work.  2 inches of cold rain and wind will tend to dampen your enthusiasm for digging in the dirt and building stuff.
• Irish Woman and I have begun our spring ritual of barking like seals as the pollen, mold, and whatall in the Kentucky atmosphere reasserts is dominance over our immune systems.

Well, some people without brains do an awful lot of talking don’t they?  — The Wizard of Oz

Usually, I fit in this category, and I’m not alone.  I’ve quit watching TV news except for the weather, and even then I’m just there to gather data.  I can’t remember the last time I read the editorial section of a newspaper.  To be honest, I find it painful to listen to just about any political speech, even when they’re given by people with whom I agree.  The world is starting to sound a lot like the monkey house at the zoo, and I’ve gotten to the point that a lot of people are becoming repetitive.

Strangely, though, if someone is honest and says something like “This is my personal opinion…” or “I’m not an expert, but this is how I understand this…”, then I’m more likely to listen to them.  At least they’re being honest about their motivation and level of competence.

Today, President Obama will be presenting the Medal of Honor to 24 men, all but 3 of them posthumously.  A review of military records, mandated by Congress, has found that they were denied this honor due to prejudice.

Here are the names of the honorees:

Specialist Leonard L. Alvarado, Vietnam
Corporal Joe R. Baldonado, Korea
Private Pedro Cano, World War II
Staff Sergeant Felix M. Conde-Falcon, Vietnam
Specialist Ardie R. Copas, Vietnam
Specialist Jesus S. Duran, Vietnam
Specialist Santiago J. Erevia, Vietnam.  Mr. Erevia is one of three awardees who is still alive.
Corporal Victor H. Espinoza, Korea
Private Joe Gandara, World War II
Sergeant Candelario Garcia, Vietnam
Sergeant Eduardo C. Gomez, Korea
Private First Class Leonard M. Kravitz, Korea
Private First Class Salvador J. Lara, World War II
Sergeant William F. Leonard, World War II
Staff Sergeant Manuel V. Mendoza, World War II
Staff Sergeant Melvin Morris, Vietnam.  Mr. Morris is one of the three awardees who is still alive.
Master Sergeant Juan E. Negron, Korea
Sergeant Alfred B. Nietzel, World War II
Master Sergeant Mike C. Pena, Korea
Private Demensio Rivera, Korea
Sergeant 1st Class Jose Rodela, Vietnam.  Mr. Rodela is one of the three awardees who is still alive
First Lieutenant Donald K. Schwab, World War II
Private Miguel A. Vera, Korea
Sergeant Jack Weinstein, Korea

Like Colonel Schwartz said yesterday, where do we find such men?

• Losing power while you’re writing your movie quote and thoughts on the day posts is a big drag.
• If I’m going to be cooped up in the house with the kids, I’m making comfort food.
  • Applesauce spice cake in the morning
  • Tuna-noodle casserole in the afternoon
• Boo’s school got clueful this morning and didn’t make everyone line up for car pool.
  • Rather than have people get stuck because they stopped on the slight incline to get in the driveway, they just took people as they came.
• Note to self – It is difficult to split large pieces of ash and oak into kindling using a hatchet.
  • I don’t want to think about how many dinette sets and baseball bats worth of wood we’ve turned into heat and ash this winter.
• Our neighbor lost a big tree, but otherwise, we seem to be OK with the ice.
  • Can’t say the same for the rest of Louisville.  Something tells me there’s going to be a lot of the “Free Firewood!” ads come spring.
• Tonight, I’m feeling tired and a little achy.  I’m hoping this is something that either clears up by tomorrow morning or something that knocks me on my butt for a week.  It’s those “You’re just sick enough to feel like crud all weekend” illnesses that piss me off.
• Apparently, Moonshine had quite a day.
  • One good thing I can say is that he has a varied diet of cardboard, crayons, and squeaky toys.

Irish Woman, while we are discussing how the CDC considers people who drink regularly a problem, such as men who have four drinks in a sitting: Well, I guess it depends on the size or the drink. If you’re drinking four 32 ounce Big Moose cups of bourbon and coke, then you might have a problem.

After the passing of Newbius, I decided to put up a “Dead Man’s Post” so that if something happened to me, I’d at least have something pop up in y’all’s feeds that let you know what happened and to say goodbye.

Unfortunately, due to stupidity on my part, it’s popped up here twice now, causing my poor phone to smoke as people reacted to it.  So, in an effort to stop the insanity, I’ve deleted it.

Here’s the deal:  I will keep posting here until I lose interest.  If at any time I either want to stop or am told to stop, I will put up one more post to say goodbye and close out the blog.

If I stop posting for some reason and don’t explain it, you can assume that I’m off somewhere attending “in vino, veritas” sessions with Mark Twain, Robert Heinlein, and George S. Patton.  Those of you who know me on FaceBook will find out what happened there, as Irish Woman or someone else will put something up on my wall, and the rest of you can find out from those them.

Until then, I’m sorry my inability to control a simple website has caused such a fuss.  Rest assured, I’m going to keep coming here to vent my spleen, share bad music, and make worse jokes for as long as I can.

• I think Crash wants to be a cowboy when he grows up.  At least, I hope that’s the reason he just rode Moonshine through the living room bareback.
  • Moonie is fine.  His tail was wagging the entire time.
  • If a cat could roll her eyes, Koshka would have done so at that exact moment.
• It’s not often that I use the term “crack house” to describe the work of another human being, but today was one of those occasions.
  • “Crack House” is one notch worse than “Ghetto”, because you can still be somewhat proud of “Ghetto” if that’s the best you can do.  There’s no pride found in “Crack House”.
• Irish Woman and I went to a fund raising breakfast for Boo’s school this morning.  I may be a soft touch, but mothers getting up and crying about how much the school has done for their kids was the perfect thing to get me to take out the checkbook.
  • It doesn’t help that Irish Woman is a sympathetic boo-hooer.
• Asking my Russian waitress for more coffee in Russian this morning turned me into her favorite customer.
  • It’s a good thing the coffee was delicious, because I ended up drinking four cups in an hour.

• Well, the wind blew, and the crap flew, but we’re only here for a day or two.
  • Apparently we need to be on the lookout for old women on bikes and flying monkeys tonight.
  • Surprisingly, we didn’t have any kids come to the door for trick-or-treat.  Of course, they’d have to be absolute barbarian cannibal trick-or-treaters to brave the weather for some fruit bites, but any that made it were promised rewards beyond comprehension if they succeeded.
• Actually getting out of the cubicle and into the computer room was a lot of fun.  I must try to do it more often.
• Having to keep the TV tuned to the local station so we can get weather alerts is quite painful.
  • Seriously, do people actually watch this dreck?
  • After watching the Saturday Night Live Halloween special, I’m pretty sure zombie John Belushi is pissed about the last 25 years or so.
  • I’d tune the radio to a good AM station so that any warnings come through that way, but I don’t want to drift off to sleep listening to people call in about chem trails, black helicopters, and pickle recipes.
• Finished listening to the latest Hardcore History episode.  Dan Carlin never picks small subjects, does he?
  • I’m laying odds that he has to do a mega-episode next July to get the series done before the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I.
• Giving yourself arthritis medicine with an auto-injector isn’t as much fun as it sounds.