Just powered up the skateboard I rented for the drive to Pittsburg. ETA 6 to 7 hours.

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Update – Finally got to the convention center.  6 hours to get to Pittsburg, 2 hours to get downtown, and an hour to park.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go check out what’s going on.

CalvinsMom over at The Transmogrifier Files found a wonderful way to deal with the teenagers who are driving around playing boots-in-the-dryer music:

As they made their second strafing round the block, I ran down to the sidewalk and started gyrating wildly. Ms. Reuben-Jeanne, my neighbor, immediately saw what was up, and did the same on her front walk.

Imagine: two very white, very middle-aged, slightly reubenesque moms shaking their asses, Shakira-style. We enthusiastically worked our mojo.

That mental image really brightened my day, and now you have it too!

Senator Lautenberg of New Jersey is concerned that American citizens who have not been convicted of a crime, avow that they not users of illegal drugs, and have not been judged silly can purchase a firearm at a gun store, even though they are on the government’s terrorist watch list.

In order to get on said list, you must at least do something that might, maybe, kinda sorta could link you to terrorism, but didn’t get you arrested.  The list is created by the Justice Department and approved by the Attorney General.  You can be put on the list, stay on it for a while, and then be taken off without you even knowing.

Senator Lautenberg wants to stop people from being guns because they are on a secret, arbitrarily populated government list.  Not because they’ve actually broken the law and been convicted, but because some government functionary decided you were an icky person.

Folks, I guarantee that I am on at least a few lists:

• I’m a veteran
• I’ve held a security clearance with “Burn Before Reading” caveats scattered across it.
• Incidents I’ve been involved with have been investigated on at least two occasions by the FBI. (I wasn’t the subject of the investigations, but I was advised to bring a lawyer when the nice Special Agent interviewed me)
• I’ve travelled extensively throughout Europe, including the old Warsaw Pact and the Former Soviet Union.
• I’ve maintained addresses and bank accounts in both neutral and semi-hostile countries.
• I’m a gun owner and member of several 2nd Amendment organizations
• Probably a few reasons I can’t think of at the moment

All of these activities probably landed me on some list or another.  Not that I’m important or paranoid enough to believe the government is watching me, but I’m pretty sure an Freedom of Information Act inquiry for all of my federal records would be non-trivial. 

But none of these activities has been used against me to stop me from attending whatever church I happen to stumble into, write to my newspaper, refuse to participate in a criminal investigation, or any of the other rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights.  Why should they stop me or any other U.S. citizen, who can otherwise pass a background check, from exercising our 2nd Amendment rights to keep and bear arms?

Folks, if they can strip one right without giving you your day in court, then they can strip all of your rights by checking a box on a form. 

A Cleveland, Ohio, man has created a portrait of Prince William and his lady love on an EtchASketch:

I’m actually pretty impressed.  Normally, I’m against kitchy creativity in all its forms, but this has just enough geek factor to grab my attention.  I don’t know if it’s art, but I like it. 

In other news, there seems to be a wedding or something going on Friday morning.  I won’t be able to attend or even pay attention because I will be somewhere between Louisville and Pittsburg when it happens.  I’m sure there will be minor blurb about it in the back sections of the newspaper.

I say again:  Count Chocula Down!  Frankenberry enroute with milk!

A truckload of breakfast cereal was dumped on the Ohio Turnpike near Toledo today. Apparently it was enough to close the highway.  If it was Fruit Loops or Fruity Pebbles it must have looked and smelled wonderful.  There’s enough perfume and pigment in a box of that stuff to freshen up a khalif’s harem. If it was bran flakes, and if they were getting any of the rain that the rest of the midwest is getting, it was a real mess.  There’s nothing as viscious, smelly, or drippy as wet bran cereal.  I don’t want to even think about the mess one of those sugary cereals that makes its own chocolate gravy would look like in a rainstorm.

When I was growing up, my mother the ex-hippie fed us on a steady diet of puffed wheat, puffed rice, and whole-grain hot cereal.  Not a lot of flavor there, unless you count the copious amounts of honey or sugar that I’d throw in when she wasn’t looking for that early morning buzz.  When I got out on my own, I went bananas for a while eating Cocoa Pebbles and Chocolate Maltomeal.  Nowadays I’m more likely to have a piece of fruit or a PB&J for breakfast with my morning caffeine supplement, at least on weekdays.  On the weekends, all bets are off.  I’ve grown quite fond of bacon, sausage, eggs, potatoes, biscuits, and grits.  Being married to a southern girl does have its perks.  We’ve sent more than one breakfast guest away wondering how they were going to work off all that cholesterol.

What do you all like for breakfast?

In relation to my rant a while back about the latest attempt to look at the piece of paper that proves that President Obama was born where he said he was, the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has released his complete birth certificate.

Good.

Now, can we start talking about more important things that must be weighing on the President’s mind:

• Devaluation of the U.S. dollar and inflation?
• The sword of Damocles in the form of the Federal deficit?
• The cost of  gas to get to the golf course and airport from the White House?
• Fighting three wars at once and blaming the Bush administration for all of it?
• Y kan’t owr childruns reed?
• Winnie the Pooh, tubbly little cubby or British imperialist bee colony exploiter?
• And for you Obama fans, what is he going to do to improve his putting?

To the people who drove their cars on the same stretch of highway as me this afternoon:

I am sorry if my deathstare, gesticulating, and yelling at the top of my lungs concerned you. I don’t really hope you all die in a horrible farming accident. I’m sure that all of your mothers are wonderful genteel ladies.

Please accept my apology for driving like a maniac. I will endeavor to do better in the future.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Not sure what brought this on, but between two episodes of waking up for a tornado alarm on the radio, I dreamt that I was in a karaoke bar watching Dracula sing Elvis songs.  Only one I can remember is this:

Are you lonesome tonight?
Does your hair look afright?
Do the peasants run screaming from you?

Police in Gary, Indiana, recently found two bodies in a pile of horse manure.  While investigators try to identify the bodies and figure out how they ended up interred in mushroom food, some poor soul is having to sift through the rest of the pile for evidence and more bodies.  I wonder how badly you have to screw up to get that assignment.  Kind of puts the lie to all of those glamorous CSI shows, doesn’t it?

While any honest employment is better than the alternative, there are definitely jobs that rate pretty high on the distaste-o-meter. Heck, Mike Rowe has made his fortune spending a day or two doing jobs that most people wouldn’t even consider doing.

While we’re on the subject, what’s the most distasteful thing you’ve ever had to do while on the job?  For me, it was having to scrub down the pit latrines at one of the ranges we attended during basic training.

I was worried this might happen.  Looks like Knob Creek Gun Range is at least partially submerged in the Great Ohio Valley Deluge of 2011:

The lowest point in that photo is the bridge that you take to cross Knob Creek to get to the parking area and range.  I’m pointing this out because the water is up over the bridge.  H/T to WHAS for the heads up and photo. 

KCR sits about two miles inland from the Ohio, but the creek empties directly into the big river.  When the Ohio backs up, all of its tributaries flood.  This isn’t the first time KCR has had to close due to the creek coming out of its bed, but this is the worst I’ve ever seen.

If this doesn’t clear up by May 7, Derby Day, the first Annual Derby Day Shootenanny may have to be cancelled or postponed.  I’m not hopeful.  The weather critter is predicting another 4 to 6 inches of rain this week, and more next week.